Commons Sitting of 23 April 1917

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Private Bills [Lords] (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with), —Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:
Aluminium Corporation Bill [Lords.]
Mansfield Railway Bill [Lords.]
South Staffordshire Mond Gas (Power and Heating) Bill [Lords.]
Yorkshire Registries (North Riding) Bill [Lords.]
West Kent Electric Power Bill [Lords.]
Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill,
Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered Tomorrow.
Marriages Provisional Order Bill, Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time Tomorrow.
Cheshire Lines Committee Bill, Cork Improvement Bill, Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be. printed.

INTOXICATING LIQUORS (PROHIBITION OF MANUFACTURE).
Mr. DUNCAN MILLARpresented Petitions from churches and public bodies in Scotland urging the immediate passage of a
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measure of prohibition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicants during the continuance of the War and the period of demobilisation.

OHAND, NIHAL.
Petition of Nihal Chand, for redress of grievances; to lie upon the Table.
NATIONAL INSURANCE ACTS, 1911–1913.
Copies presented, of Reports of Inquiries and Appeals under the National Health Insurance (Medical Benefit) Regulations (England), 1913. Vol. I. [by Command to lie upon the Table.
MINISTRY OF FOOD.
Copies presented, of Wheat, Barley, and Oats (Prices) Order, 1917, Barley (Requisition) Order, 1917, and Malt (Restriction), No. 2, Order, 1917, made by the Food Controller Regulation 2 (i) of the Defence of the Realm Regulations [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD.(SCOTLAND).
Copy presented, of Twenty-second Annual Report of the Local Government Board for Scotland, 1916 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
NEW WRIT.
For the County of Middlesex (Ealing Division), in the room of Herbert Nield, Esquire, K.C., Recorder of the City of York.—[Lord Edmund Talbot.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    PETROL SUPPLY.
    Mr. FFRENCHasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that Mr. Peter Whelan, Bridgetown,

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    South Wexford, is the owner of a motor car which he runs for hire, and that he is allowed only 18 gallons of petrol a month, whilst he requires about 54 gallons a month; is he aware that Bridgetown has its railway station and is the centre of a large and populous district; that Mr. Whelan's car is frequently required by cattle dealers and horse dealers (sometimes buying for the Army), by the police from the various police barracks around, the coroner, and many others; and, seeing that it frequently happens that the car cannot go out for want of petrol, will he see that Mr. Whelan is supplied with the quantity he requires?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. G. Roberts): The allotment of petrol in the case referred to by the hon. Gentleman appears to have been made on the same basis as in other similar cases, and, in view of the present necessity for further reduction in consumption, I fear it will not be possible for the Petrol Control Committee to increase the allotment as suggested.

    ELECTRIC POWER COMMITTEE.
    Mr. HAZLETONasked the President of the Board of Trade whether it is his tive on the Electric Power Committee; and, if so, can he give the name of the person it is intended to appoint?
    Mr. ROBERTS: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. I understand that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade is in communication with the hon. Gentleman with regard to the second part.

  MILITARY SERVICE.

    CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the Secretary to the Board of Trade whether he will give the House the opportunity of acquainting themselves with the Regulations governing the employment of so-called conscientious objectors, and of expressing their approval or non-approval of the same?
    Mr. BUTCHERasked the Home Secretary whether he will lay upon the
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    Table a copy of the Regulations by which the pay, food, allowances, and leave of conscientious objectors are regulated?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Brace): My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer these questions. I will answer at the same time question No. 44, standing in the name of the hon. and learned Member for York. I shall be glad to lay upon the Table a copy of the Regulations made by the Committee on Employment of Conscientious Objectors for the men employed at their work centres and camps. The Regulations do not deal with food, but instructions were issued in March that the rations suggested by the Food Controller for the civilian population were not to be exceeded.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Will the hon. Gentleman say whether those Rules and Regulations permit of the commandeering of football fields for these conscientious objectors?
    Mr. BRACE: They do not, Sir.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Owing to the limited reply given by the hon. Gentleman, I propose to call attention to this matter on the Motion for the Adjournment to-night.
    Mr. BUTCHERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether complaints have reached him as to the want of discipline shown by conscientious objectors employed at Dartmoor and elsewhere; whether difficulties have been experienced in enforcing discipline; and whether adequate means exist of insisting that these men who refuse to serve their country shall engage in work of national importance and submit to proper discipline?
    Mr. BRACE: Difficulties have occurred and some complaints have been received. As regards Princetown, this may not be very surprising when a new institution employing more than 800 men was being opened. Discipline is improving, and I hope all difficulties will shortly be overcome. The men employed by the Committee have been conditionally released from imprisonment, and the enforcement of discipline depends, in the last resort, on the power to recall to prison or to the Army those who disregard the Regulations.
    Mr. SHIRLEY BENN: May I ask the hon. Gentlemen if the men referred to in this question and referred to by the Home Secretary as conscientious objectors are not the men who went before their own local tribunals claiming to be conscientious objectors and were found by those tribunals to be only fake conscientious objectors and were not exempted from military service?
    Mr. BRACE: I think the facts are as stated by my hon. Friend, but the men were held by a later tribunal to be conscientious objectors; hence they come under the Home Office.
    Mr. BUTCHER: Will there be a chance of these shirkers being brought into the Service?
    Mr. BRACE: That is a matter of policy for the Government and not one for question and answer by me.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Does the hon. Member accept the description of these men as shirkers?
    Mr. BRACE: I think it is quite true as regards some of them.
    Mr. BUTCHERasked the Home Secretary whether, until recently, conscientious objectors employed at Dartmoor and elsewhere were receiving substantially the same rations as soldiers employed on active service at the front; whether he will state the date on which these rations were reduced; and whether any complaints have reached him as to the amount of supplies, in addition to their rations, which are bought by conscientious objectors at Princetown to the detriment of the local residents?
    Mr. BRACE: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. The rations of conscientious objectors are not laid down by Regulation in all cases, but vary according to the locality and the nature of the work to be done. The cost has always been strictly limited and I do not think that in any instance the amounts can have been equal to those given to soldiers on active service: and on the 20th March instructions were given that the rations suggested by the Food Controller for civilians were not to be exceeded. Complaints of the kind referred to in the last part of the question have been received. The Committee on the Employment of Conscientious Objectors are in consultation with the Food Controller on this matter.
    Mr. BUTCHER: Will the Committee consider this: that if these men are allowed to buy an unlimited amount of food it is no use rationing them?
    Mr. BRACE: I take quite the same view as my hon. and learned Friend on that point, and I have already called the attention of the Food Controller to the fact that the Home Office consider they have only power to deal by regulation with the amount of food given. As to whether conscientious objectors should be at liberty to buy from the local shopkeepers that is a matter for the Food Controller.

    SCHOOL TEACHERS (AUCHINLECK, SCOTLAND).
    Sir HENRY CRAIKasked the Secretary for Scotland whether the Scottish Education Department has yet received information in regard to the arrangements made by the School Board of Auchinleck with regard to the payment of the teachers under the board who are now on active service?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Munro): Following upon my hon Friend's previous question on this subject, correspondence has taken place between the Scottish Education Department and the School Board of Auchinleck. The Department expressed their regret that this board, contrary to the practice of the overwhelming majority of school managers throughout the country, declined to make any allowance to teachers who were patriotically performing military service. The school board, however, have confirmed their previous decision not to remunerate these teachers. I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of the Department's last letter to the school board.
    Sir H. CRAIK: Can any pressure by the Department be brought to bear upon a school board which is so misinterpreting what I am certain is the view of its own constituents.
    Mr. MUNRO: The views of the Department, as my hon. Friend will see from the letter, have been expressed with great clearness and force, but the school board in this matter must judge for itself.

    EXEMPTION CERTIFICATES.
    Mr. EDMUND HARVEYasked the Secretary to the Local Government Board

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    whether his attention has been directed to cases in which a local tribunal has reviewed and varied a certificate of exemption granted by another local tribunal whose holder was fulfilling the conditions imposed by the original tribunal, out of whose area he had moved; and whether any remedy exists to deal with the situation?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): An application for the withdrawal or variation of a certificate granted on personal grounds has ordinarily to be made to the tribunal for the area in which the man at the time resides. Under the Regulations made on the 23rd February last, if the certificate has been granted on conscientious grounds, any such application has ordinarily to be made to the tribunal by whom it was granted. I see no reason for any alteration in these provisions.

    MEDICAL MEN.
    Mr. BROUGHTON(by Private Notice) asked whether, in order to prevent great difficulties arising by reason of the withdrawal of medical services in any area, insurance committees or other authorities responsible for the public health, will be allowed a right of appeal against the recent Order calling up medical men, similar to that accorded to individuals?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson): Each individual affected by the Military Service Acts has got his right of appeal, and a doctor can appeal to a tribunal, who would refer his case to the Central Medical War Committee. The procedure as to the action, if any, which an insurance committee or other authority may take is now being discussed by the Departments concerned.

    COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE (REPORT).
    Mr. GEORGE TERRELLasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Committee on Commercial Intelligence has yet reported; and whether the Report will be published?
    The MINISTER of BLOCKADE (Lord Robert Cecil): The answer to the first part of this question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part I am not yet in a position to make any statement.
    Mr. TERRELL: When does the right hon. Gentleman expect to publish this most important Report; is it not a fact that there is a Majority and a Minority Report; and does he not think that both of them should be published?
    Lord R. CECIL: I can assure my hon. Friend that I will bear very carefully in mind what he has suggested, but the matter does not rest entirely in my hands.

    RUSSIAN PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.
    Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that a communication from the Petrograd correspondent of the "Times," which appeared on the 11th April, has provoked resentment in Russia as having declared that the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates desires to upset the Provisional Government and to bring about the defeat of the Russian Armies and a dishonourable peace; can he say whether an official statement on the subject has been telegraphed from Petrograd; and, if so, will be give its purport?
    Lord R. CECIL: The answer to all three parts of the question is in the negative.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Are not statements such as those which are quoted in this question calculated to prejudice relations between this country and the Russian Provisional Government?
    Mr. SPEAKER: We can all form our own opinion on that point.
    Mr. TREVELYANasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the manifesto of Friday, 16th March, announcing the policy of the new Provisional Government of Russia, which contains the declaration of an immediate general amnesty for all political and religious offences, of freedom of speech, of the Press, and of association and labour organisation; and whether he will take steps to restore to Great Britain these same liberties, which the two Republics of Russia and the United States, our Allies, do not regard as incompatible with a condition of war?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affir-

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    mative. As regards the second part, it is not considered that the liberties of this country are, or ever have been, in any danger.

    GREECE.
    The following question appeared on the Paper in the name of Mr. RONALD McNEILL:
    10. To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received information to the effect that the French military authorities at Salonika are in possession of proofs that bands of irregulars and comitadjis guilty of depredations on the Venizelists in Greece have been armed and organised from Athens; whether the assistant commissioner of police at Kipourgo was recently arrested by the French for communicating false statements concerning the French Army to the Athenian Press and was found in possession of written orders from the King's officials to the chiefs of irregular bands committing depredations in Thessaly, as well as of rifles and ammunition of the Greek army pattern; and whether the Powers who guaranteed constitutional government in Greece have taken or will take any steps to prevent the possibility of such occurrences in the future?
    Mr. McNEILL: Before this question is answered, Mr. Speaker, may I approach you on a matter of Order? This question appears in a very different form from that in which I gave notice of it, and I want to ask whether the rule which prohibits expressions reflecting on friendly Sovereigns can be held to apply to the King of Greece, having regard to the fact that he is notoriously unfriendly?
    Mr. SPEAKER: Technically, he is a friendly Sovereign.
    Mr. McNEILL: Are we to be bound by that technicality in face of the notorious facts?
    Mr. SPEAKER: There is no use in insulting neutral Sovereigns.
    Mr. McNEILL: Then I will ask my question in its new form.
    Lord R. CECIL: The answer to the first two parts of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the last part the French General Commanding-in-Chief the Allied Forces in Macedonia is taking all necessary steps to deal with the situation.

  FOOD SUPPLIES.

    IRISH LIVE STOCK (DETENTION).
    Mr. FIELDasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he is aware that deputations from the Irish Cattle Traders and Stock Owners' Association and the South of Ireland Cattle Trade Association interviewed the Chief Secretary respecting the undue detention for ten hours of live stock in Great Britain after arrival, also regarding the absence of electric light in the inspection lairs; and whether any improvement may be expected?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Richard Winfrey): The Department have not so far received any communication from the Chief Secretary on this subject. Should they do so, the matter will be carefully considered with a view to taking any necessary action.

    TUBERCULSED ANIMALS.
    Mr. FIELDasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he has considered the waste of meat in this scarce time caused by the destruction of partially tuberculised animals; whether he is aware that it has yet to be proved that bovine tuberculosis is communicable to man; whether he is aware that all over Europe such meat is sterilised and fold at a cheaper rate, and that recently this procedure has been adopted in Dundee; and whether he will make inquiries and stop the destruction of such meat?
    Mr. HAYES FISHER: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. Though I am not prepared to accept the suggestion in the second part of the hon. Member's question I may say that the whole subject to which he refers is engaging the close attention of the Local Government Board and the Ministry of Food.
    Mr. FIELD: Will the right hon. Gentleman let those who are interested in this matter know what is the nature of the report and what inquiries have been made, as thousands of tons of this meat are annually destroyed which might be devoted to human consumption?
    Mr. HAYES FISHER: I shall be quite prepared to meet the hon. Member if he desires to see me on the subject.

    SEED POTATOES.
    Mr. CHANCELLORasked the President of the Board of Agriculture if he is aware that seed potatoes ordered for small holders and allotment holders through county councils by borough and urban district councils have not yet been received by the latter; and, seeing that further delay will make them too late, will he state what steps he proposes to take to expedite the supply and at what date he anticipates obtaining delivery?
    Sir R. WINFREY: A very large proportion, not less than nine-elevenths of the orders placed by public authorities for seed potatoes up to the 15th February, the advertised last day of application to the Board, have already been executed. The remaining orders are being executed as rapidly as possible, and there is no reason to anticipate that the. supplies will not be received in time for planting.
    Mr. FLAVIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are a large number of small plot holders in the City of London who have paid for these seed potatoes and have not yet received them?
    Sir R. WINFREY: We are getting Irish seed over on purpose for them.

    ARTIFICIAL MANURE.
    Sir T. ESMONDEasked if steps have been taken to supply the Gorey Workhouse with the supply of artificial manure required for potato sowing?
    The CHIEFSECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Duke): The Department of Agriculture inform me that they are unable to intervene in this matter. Merchants will not supply the rural district council fertiliser to any authorities but the councils, and the Department have therefore suggested to the guardians of Gorey Union that they should use a mixture of four parts of superphosphate and one part of sulphate of ammonia.

    SPIRITS (MANUFACTURING INGREDIENTS).
    Mr. A. WILLIAMSasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food Control whether any licences are now being granted, or have recently been granted, for malting grain; and, if so, for what reasons and to what extent?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD CONTROL (Captain Bathurst): Licences are still being granted to make coloured malt for
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    stout and Mack beers up to the extent permitted under the Order restricting the output of beer. Coloured malt has to be freshly made, so that no stocks can be accumulated. Licences are also being granted for the purpose of distilling for munitions, for the manufacture of bread, yeast, vinegar, non-alcoholic beer, biscuits, medicines and chemical foods, and for certain processes in the making of aeroplanes.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Is the grain so being used surplus which is not necessary for food?
    Captain BATHURST: No, Sir; I do not think that it can be so properly described.
    Mr. WILLIAMSasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food Control whether 9,600 quarters of grain are still being consumed monthly in producing potable spirit by patent-still distilleries; whether this spirit is still being used for the export trade in gin; and whether the grain so used is surplus grain not needed for the food of our people?
    Captain BATHURST: Owing to the increasing requirements of spirit for the manufacture of explosives for war purposes and the essential industrial trades, the use of spirit for the export trade in gin has been very considerably reduced. Actually only about 1,000 quarters, representing 24,000 gallons, have been issued for this purpose during the last three weeks. I propose to confer with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Munitions, with a view to stopping this issue altogether.
    Mr. WILLIAMSasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food Control whether the pot-still distilleries are still working out licences given for the present season, amounting to 8,500,000 proof gallons; how many weeks of the present season remain, and how many gallons of the above 8,500,000 remain to be produced; how many quarters of grain are consumed to produce each 100 gallons; and whether the grain so consumed is surplus grain not needed for the food of the people?
    Captain BATHURST: The answer to the first portion of the question is in the affirmative. No general statement can be given as to how many weeks of the present season remain, as the periods vary in the case of each individual distillery. It is not possible to state how many gallons

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    remain to be produced, but, speaking generally, the number is small. At least two-thirds of the pot-still distilleries have completed their whole licensed output for the season. Approximately four quarters of grain is used to produce 100 proof gallons of spirit. The grain required for the manufacture has all been malted, and its diversion, even if practicable, could not affect an appreciable saving.
    Mr. COOTEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if it is possible to convert the barley already malted into some form of animal or human food in order to preserve as much as possible our diminishing supply of cereals? Captain BATHURST: As I informed the hon. Member for North-West Durham last Tuesday, malted barley is capable of being used for human food. In point of fact a considerable amount of it is utilised for malt extracts and for infant and invalid foods. The suggestion made would involve putting an end to the production of beer altogether. The Government have not yet come to the conclusion that such a step is necessary or practicable.
    Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: May I ask whether the Food Controller did not state in the country in January that it was a question now of bread or beer, and whether it is not desirable that the whole of this malt should be saved for the production of bread?
    Captain BATHURST: No doubt that is desirable, but, as I pointed out in reply to a question last week, if brewers' malt were used for bread making the bread so produced would cost at least three times as much as the ordinary loaf.
    Mr. A. WILLIAMS: Is it not cheaper than starving?
    Captain BATHURST: I do not think the hon. Gentleman need fear that eventuality at the present time.
    Mr. WING: Is it really a fact that the amount of barley now preserved represents the present bread rations for over 7,000,000 people for over thirteen weeks?
    Captain BATHURST: I cannot answer that without due consideration. I am not a hasty arithmetician.
    Mr. COOTEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food the quantity of grain now being used monthly in the manufacture of
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    alcohol for munition and other industrial purposes; and if, instead, he will utilise, as has been done in France, stocks of bonded whisky at present in the country for this purpose, which can be made adaptable by redistilling or otherwise without having recourse to the destruction of the necessary food of the people?
    Mr. MILLARasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food Control whether his attention has been directed to the quantity of cereals and other food materials which are being used at present for the manufacture of alcohol for munition purposes; and whether, in view of the opinions of expert chemists that a large quantity of the accumulated stocks of bonded spirits could be employed for that purpose, he will take steps to prevent the further use of food materials for the manufacture of alcohol until the bonded spirits, so far as suitable for the purpose, are exhausted?
    Captain BATHURST: The quantity of grain now being used monthly in the manufacture of alcohol for munitions and other industrial purposes is estimated at 120,000 quarters. The suggestion made by the hon. Member has received careful attention. I may, however, point out that the manufacture of alcohol is coincident with the production of yeast required for bread making, and unless the necessary yeast can be provided by other methods it will be difficult to reduce the present limited manufacture of alcohol. Yeast is already scarce for bread making. I am conferring with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Munitions on this subject.
    Mr. MILLAR: May I ask whether, in the opinion of the experts consulted by his Department, it is not quite possible to manufacture alcohol for munition purposes out of bonded spirits, and whether it would not be possible to make an immediate start with an experiment in the matter?
    Captain BATHURST: That is one of the questions which is being discussed this afternoon between the two Departments concerned.
    Mr. MILLAR: Has not this question now been under consideration for several months, and, having regard to the great shortage of food, is it not desirable to come to a decision at once?
    Captain BATHURST: This particular question has not been under discussion for a long time.

    ALLOTMENT-HOLDINGS (LAMBOURNE).
    Colonel LOCKWOODasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food Control whether, in view of the shortness of food, he will take steps to secure that the Lambourne allotment holdings (which are surrounded by Hainault Forest) shall be protected by wire netting from the ravages of hares and rabbits coming out of the forest?
    Sir R. WINFREY: The Board's' information in this matter shows that these allotments suffer more from the ravages of pigeons than from those of hares and rabbits. A large number of rabbits have been killed in the forest during the past winter, and there are now very few to be found in the vicinity of the allotments, and practically no hares at all. If the information which my hon. and gallant Friend has differs from this I shall be glad to know of it, and to have further inquiry made. In any case, the fencing of so large an area would be needlessly costly, considering the scarcity of wire netting.
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the area is not a very big one, but up to now the London County Council have blankly refused to help in the protection of the allotment holders?
    Sir R. WINFREY: If the hon. Gentleman will give me further information, I will make inquiry.
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: I shall be happy to do so.

    ENNISCORTHY UNION.
    Sir THOMAS ESMONDEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (1) if the Enniscorthy Union has been without sugar for some time and that the sickpatients there average 120; seeing that the board of guardians have been in communication with the Sugar Commission for months on the subject, steps will be taken to adjust the matter without further delay; (2) if the committee of the Enniscorthy Asylum have been officially advised that their sugar allowance is fixed at a half-pound per head weekly for their patients and employés; and, if not, will he have the information conveyed to them without delay?
    Captain BATHURST: I am informed that the Royal Commission on the Sugar Supply, who have been in communication
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    with the contractors to the Enniscorthy Asylum, have now arranged for an emergency supply to the institution pending the settlement of certain unexpected difficulties. As regards the amount of sugar to be supplied, the Royal Commission, as I have stated in reply to a previous question, have already informed the Medical Superintendent that sufficient supplies will be allotted to them to allow ½ lb. a head to the number of patients and employés usually resident in the asylum.
    Mr. DEVLIN: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the Food Controller has now considered the suggestion made by the Irish party-that there ought to be a representative on the Sugar Commission in Ireland?
    Captain BATHURST: Yes, Sir; that has been under the consideration of the Food Controller, and he has been unable, so far, to come to a definite decision on the matter, but he is consulting the Chief Secretary about it.
    Mr. DEVLIN: Will the Food Controller have an early decision arrived at and not wait until all sugar is exhausted before appointing an Irish representative?
    Sir T. ESMONDE: Will the hon. Gentleman see that there is no avoidable delay in connection with the supply of sugar to the Enniscorthy Infirmary, and will he say who is responsible for the delay in informing the Enniscorthy Asylum of the decision of the Sugar Commission in relation to the matter?
    Captain BATHURST: If the hon. Member will read my answer I think he will find that an emergency supply has already been sent to the asylum. As regards the second part of his supplementary question, the real difficulty in this case is that the contractor to the asylum has quite recently told the Sugar Commission that he is unable to supply this institution with sugar. Of that fact they were not previously aware.
    Sir T. ESMONDE: Will the Sugar Commission see that this asylum gets its allowance because it is a matter of extreme urgency?
    Captain BATHURST: I am afraid the hon. Member did not note the purport of my answer. The Sugar Commission is anxious and ready to see that the asylum gets its proper supply, and is now taking the necessary steps, which it could not take before owing to local difficulties.

    WHITSUNTIDE SCHOOL TREATS.
    Mr. JOWETTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if he is aware of the extent to which scholars of Sunday schools in the North of England are deprived of an innocent and long-looked-for pleasure by his decision that Whitsuntide school treats should not be given this year; that there is no reason whatever for the belief on which his decision has apparently been founded, namely, that food will be saved by the prohibition of Whitsuntide Sunday school treats, seeing that all the children who would have been present at the treats in question will have their evening meal on the Whitsuntide treat day at their separate homes, where the total consumption of food in their many thousands of separate homes will not be less, but, on the other hand, will probably be greater, than if all the children of each school had their simple meal, consisting of a bun and tea only; together; and if he will reconsider his decision on this matter?
    Captain BATHURST: I am aware that disappointment will be caused by the decision advising the discontinuance of school treats at Whitsuntide, and I should be glad if some form of entertainment could be devised which did not involve the consumption of an unusual quantity of food. The suggestion of the hon. Member that school treats mean merely a simple meal consisting of a bun and tea only is at variance with the evidence before the Department. The Food Controller is not prepared to reconsider his decision in this matter.

    SUBSTITUTED FOODSTUFFS (MAXIMUM RETAIL PRICES).
    Mr. BOWERMANasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he has received representations from the Deptford Borough Council urging that maximum retail prices should be fixed for all substituted foodstuffs, particularly rice, which are produced within the British Empire; if so, whether consideration has been given to such representations; and with what result?
    Captain BATHURST: The representations referred to have been received, and are being carefully considered. There are, however, obvious dangers in a wide extension of the policy of fixing maximum prices.

    INDIAN MEAL.
    Mr. LUNDONasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if he will cause inquiries to be made into the action of the big Irish millers who-have refused to supply any Indian meal to their customers during the past ten days, lest they may be holding up supplies until prices would go up?
    Captain BATHURST: As I informed the hon. Member on Thursday, I cannot answer his question satisfactorily unless more particulars are furnished. If he will give me the names of the millers to whom he refers, I will cause inquiries to be made.

    MEATLESS DAYS (ROMAN CATHOLICS).
    Mr. LUNDONasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if he is aware that Roman Catholics in Great Britain and Ireland have now two meatless days in the week as against one for any other community; whether representations were made to the Food Controller by many Members of the House of Commons as well as by outside authorities protesting against this discrimination against Catholics; and, until such time as two meatless days are fixed for other communities who can better afford to have additional luxuries, will the Order making Wednesday a meatless day in Ireland be cancelled?
    Captain BATHURST: I am aware that Roman Catholics in Great Britain and Ireland, who habitually take their meals in the more expensive public eating places, have now two meatless days; but such persons constitute, I imagine, a comparatively small part of the Roman Catholic population. The representations made to the Food Controller on this point were of a divergent character. The intention in fixing a day other than Friday was that all sections of the community should be asked to make a similar sacrifice.

    IRISH BUTTER AND BACON.
    Mr. LUNDONasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (1) if any Irish representatives were consulted when the prices for butter were fixed last week; if so, who they were; (2) if any Irish bacon curers were consulted when the prices for bacon came up for revision last week; and, if so, who they were?
    Captain BATHURST: The answer to these questions is in the affirmative. I am sending the hon. Member the names of the Irish representatives present.

    SUGAR.
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether his attention has been called to the case of schools at which numbers of children are resident, where it has been found impossible to obtain from local shops the regulation supply of sugar; and whether, in view of the fact that a certain amount of sugar is a necessary element in the diet of children, he can undertake that in such cases which are brought to his notice arrangements will be made to secure the ration of sugar to which the children are entitled under the regulations?
    Captain BATHURST: The Royal Commission on the Sugar Supply are prepared to consider cases of hardship of this kind, and have already taken action in regard to several schools.
    Mr. SCOTT: Has not the hon. Gentleman received a letter which I sent him several days ago, upon which this question is based, indicating the case of a particular school, and asking that attention should be given to it?
    Captain BATHURST: That is so. I had hoped that long before this the school in question would have received the supply. I will investigate the matter.

    MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT (BREAD ALLOWANCE).
    Mr. LUNDONasked the right hon. Member for West Essex, as representing the Kitchen Committee, if he will consent to an additional allowance of bread being given to Members of this House who take tea, bread, and butter for lunch instead of a meat lunch?
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: I regret that I am unable to comply with the wishes of the hon. Member.
    Mr. LUNDON: Does the hon. Member consider it fair that he and other members of the Kitchen Committee, as well as the great body of Members of the House, should visit the luncheon room and have meat, vegetables, soup, and the same amount of bread as a person who only has a cup of tea with his lunch?
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: I have only to say that the moment I allow a sort of fancy franchise in connection with the question of bread, it will upset the whole rationing order.
    Mr. LUNDON: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of asking some caterer in the City to come in and give us enough to eat, at least on fair terms with the people who have £5,000 or £6,000 a year, and do away with the Kitchen Committee?
    Colonel LOCKWOOD: I am trying to comply, as I am sure the House is, with the wishes of the Food Controller.

    TILLAGE (IRELAND).
    Mr. SHEEHYasked why none of the lands of the Heffernan estate, Ratheernie, Athboy, and the lands of Adanstown, Athboy, both in Meath, have not been tilled?
    Mr. DUKE: If the hon. Member will supply the Department of Agriculture with particulars as to the lands referred to inquiry will be made.
    Mr. SHEEHYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he is aware that a landowner named W. B. Parr holds 2,000 acres near Athboy, county Meath, and has only tilled 15 acres himself, 35 acres more of the land being tilled by a sawmill owner; has Parr been excused from tilling 5 per cent. of his land for each of five brood mares; and what penalty, if any, is to be inflicted on him for not fully complying with the tillage regulations?
    Mr. DUKE: I am informed that Mr. Parr holds much less than 2,000 acres, and that he has tilled more than the area stated; also that his thoroughbred stock is much more numerous than stated. He has not been treated exceptionally as regards exemption of portion of his land for stud farm purposes.
    Mr. SHEEHY: How many horses has he been exempted for?
    Mr. DUKE: I dare say that the hon. Member knows that better than I do.
    Mr. SHEEHY: Did the inspector who visited this man's estate count the number of mares?
    Mr. SHEEHYasked whether all the tenants on Sir John Dillon's Cardistown estate, county Meath, have got their vesting orders; whether a man named Becket

    2027
    who got a farm on the property has had the farm vested in him; if so, whether he has let the farm for eleven months; whether he has done any tillage on the farm; and, if not, why not?
    Mr. DUKE: The reply to the first part of the question is in the negative. The tenanted portion of the estate is the subject of proceedings for direct sale by the owner to the tenants, and Purchase Agreements have been lodged, and will be dealt with in their order of priority. The owner also sold some untenanted land to the Estates Commissioners, and the allottees have signed Purchase Agreements for allotments which will be vested in them in due course. Mr. Becket was allotted portion of the untenanted land in consideration of surrendering lands held by him in Connaught to the Congested Districts Board for the relief of congestion. I have no information as to the other matters referred to in the question, except that Mr. Becket is arranging to carry out his proportion of extra tillage on lands which he occupies in county Mayo.
    Mr. SHEEHY: Is the arrangement to carry out the rules 011 this farm in Meath?
    Mr. DUKE: No; but on other lands which he occupies.

    BRITISH CEREALS (MAXIMUM PRICKS).
    Mr. DUNDAS WHITE(by Private Notice) asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether the action of the Food Controller in fixing certain maximum prices for British wheat, barley, and oats has been followed in a number of places by a refusal of the farmers and dealers to sell the grain at these prices; and, if so, what steps he proposes to take in view of the urgency of the situation?
    Captain BATHURST: I am informed that a few farmers and dealers have refused for the time being to sell their grain at the prices fixed by the recent Order, but it is not anticipated that this will continue. If it does the Food Controller will not hesitate to commandeer the stocks so withheld from public use.
    Mr. ANDERSON: Will the hon. Member publish a list of the names of persons who refuse to sell under these conditions?
    Captain BATHURST: I doubt whether such a list would be obtainable, and, if it were, I doubt whether good would result.

  MUNITIONS.

    DISUTSED STORES AND FACTORIES.
    Mr. FITZPATRICKasked the Minister of Munitions if he has made inquiries with reference to the possibility of utilising some of the disused stores and factories at Mountmellick, Queen's County, for the purpose of establishing a munitions factory; and, seeing that this town is within fifty miles of Dublin, with which it is connected by both rail and canal, he will give the project his careful consideration?
    The MINISTER of MUNITIONS (Dr. Addison): This matter has received further careful consideration, and I regret that it has been found impracticable to utilise these buildings in the mariner suggested.

    CENTRAL CONTROL BOARD (LIQUOR TRAFFIC).
    Mr. MILLARasked the Minister of Munitions the number of applications for renewal of licences at the recent Licensing Courts in Scotland in which it appeared that the applicant had been in breach of the regulations issued by he Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic), and the number of licences refused in con sequence of breach of the regulations?
    Mr. MUNRO: My right hon. Friend has requested me to reply to this question. I regret that I am not in a position to give the information desired by my hon. and learned Friend; and I doubt whether it would be possible to obtain it, as breach of a regulation may not be the sole reason for refusing a licence.
    Mr. MILLAR: May I ask whether the Liquor Board of Control have not got a note of all these cases. and whether it would not be possible to obtain the information from them?
    Mr. MUNRO: I will inquire.

  NATIONAL SERVICE.

    COAL MINERS.
    Mr. MILLARasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Service whether, having regard to the modifications recently outlined in the scheme of National Service, it is now intended that all miners at present engaged in the production of coal should enrol as volunteers under the scheme, or whether an appeal will be made to miners

    2029
    to volunteer for specific work in connection with which their services can be at once utilised?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of NATIONAL SERVICE (Mr. Stephen Walsh): Miners have been invited to enrol as National Service Volunteers, to be available for transfer, in emergency, to other districts, but at their own occupation. If it is thought desirable later to supplement the general appeal, specific appeals will be made.

    REGISTRATION AT BOURNEMOUTH.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Service whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that a man who registered at Bournemouth as a national volunteer, and was interviewed by the official at the local Employment Exchange on the 22nd February, has not been placed in work; will he explain the cause of the delay; and whether six weeks may be taken as the average period taken to place a man in work after enrolment?
    Mr. WALSH: Will the hon. Gentleman please repeat the question to-morrow?
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I have already repeated it?
    Mr. WALSH: Will the hon. Gentleman repeat it to-morrow?

    STAFF AND OFFICES.
    Mr. GILBERTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Service the number of paid and unpaid staff employed at St. Ermin's on the Ministry of National Service; and the estimated yearly cost of the paid staff?
    Mr. WALSH: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the hon. Member for Cavan West on the 19th instant.
    Mr. GILBERTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of National Service whether the Department has other offices in London besides St. Ermin's; if so, how many and where they are situated; and the number of paid and unpaid staff employed in them and the estimated yearly cost of the paid staff?
    Mr. WALSH: The National Service Department has no other offices in London besides St. Ermin's. If my hon.
    2030
    Friend desires it, I will send him a list of the offices outside St. Ermin's occupied by London Sub-Commissioners, but I may say that where these have found it necessary to take office accommodation and engage staff the cost has not so far in any case exceeded £2 a week.

    CONVICTS (COMMUNICATION WITH AMERICAN GOVERNMENT).
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is now in a position to say what facilities are afforded to American citizens who are convicts in this country for alleged political offences for communicating with the American Government for the purpose of obtaining its protection and assistance in establishing and making effective any rights they may have as American citizens; and what means are afforded to them for assuring themselves that any such communications transmitted through the British Secretary of State really reach the American Government?
    Mr. BRACE: I would refer the hon. Member to the answers which were given to him on the 27th and 29th March.
    Mr. GINNELL: The hon. Gentleman has not noticed that I asked him whether the convict has any means of ascertaining whether his communication reaches its destination?
    Mr. BRACE: If a convict desires to-make representations as to his conviction or treatment, he must address his representation to the Home Secretary.
    Mr. GINNELL: Has he any means of ascertaining whether the communication reaches America?
    Mr. BRACE: He must, in the first instance, address his communication to-the Home Secretary.

    DISABLED OFFICERS (PENSIONS AND TRAINING).
    Sir HENRY NORMANasked the Pensions Minister if he has now completed a scheme of pensions for disabled officers, and when he hopes to submit this to the House of Commons; and if any arrange-

    2031
    ments are in contemplation for the vocational training of such disabled officers as may desire it?
    The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Mr. Barnes): I hope to submit a draft revision of the Royal Warrants for officers pensions to the House. It is proposed to provide in this Warrant for the support of an officer while undergoing training which, in the opinion of the Minister, would benefit him and for payment of the fees on account of it.

    "NATION" NEWSPAPER (FOREIGN CIRCULATION).
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the fact that the article in respect of which the foreign circulation of the "Nation" newspaper was suppressed was republished by the "Pall Mall Gazette" last week; and whether he has taken or proposes to take any action?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: No, Sir, it is not proposed to take any action.
    Mr. SCOTT: Is not the article as dangerous in the "Pall Mall Gazette" as in the "Nation"?
    Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Prime Minister, in view of the fact that the suppression of the foreign circulation of the "Nation" newspaper has been justified on the ground that the Commander-in-Chief in France wrote personally saying that it was most discouraging to the soldiers that things of this kind should be published, whether he will publish the letter referred to?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: The answer is in the negative.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Is it because it is stated from France that no request was made from headquarters to have the foreign circulation of the "Nation" suppressed?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: If such a statement was made, it was quite untrue.
    Mr. A. F. WHYTE: In whose hands does the decision of such a policy as this lie, as we have the statement of the Prime Minister that he was entirely ignorant when the actual action was taken?
    Mr. HOGGE: Can my hon. Friend produce the letter from headquarters in France asking for this edition to be suppressed?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I cannot add anything to what I have said.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Are we to understand that no such letter exists?
    Mr. HOGGE: It does not exist.
    Mr. MACPHERSON: It does exist.
    Mr. KING: Is it because the letter was in reply to one suggesting such a course to the Commander-in-Chief in France?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: No; that is equally untrue.

    IMPERIAL WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.
    Sir H. NORMANasked the Prime Minister whether the Government are prepared to give consideration in any manner to the question of British and Imperial weights and measures and the decimalisation of British coinage after the War; and, if so, whether he will appoint a small Commmittee, as a Sub-Committee of the Reconstruction Committee or other wise, to consider and report to him upon this question?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: This matter falls within the terms of reference to Lord Balfour of Burleigh's Sub-Committee of the Reconstruction Committee on Commercial Policy, and I am informed that this Committee is considering the subject.

    FRANCHISE (EXTENSION TO WOMEN).
    Sir CHARLES HENRYasked the Prime Minister whether the representatives from India on the Imperial War Council have been consulted as regards the decision of the Government to introduce a Bill which would contain a provision for the extension of the franchise to women; and if he can state the views of the representatives of India as to the effect of that extension of the franchise to women in the United Kingdom is likely to have in that country?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: No, Sir; the representatives of India have not been consulted on this question of the domestic policy of Great Britain.
    Sir C. HENRY: Is it not a fact that India is in a different position from the Colonies?

    ALCOHOL (PROHIBITION OF MANUFACTURE AND SALE).
    Mr. MILLARasked the Prime Minister whether he has received a resolution passed on 4th April by the Convention of Royal Burghs in Scotland, representing all the burghs of Scotland, in favour of the prohibition of the manufacture and sale of alcohol during the continuance of the War and the period of demobilisation; and whether, having regard to the terms of this resolution and to the 550 petitions and resolutions forwarded to the Government and to the Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic), and the 200 petitions presented to Parliament, by public meetings of citizens, public bodies, local authorities, churches, and other organisations in Scotland in favour of prohibition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicants during the War, he is now prepared to give effect to the declared wishes of the Scottish people on this question?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The Prime Minister has received the resolution referred to. I fear I can add nothing to the answers which I have already given on this subject.
    Mr. MILLAR: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is very widespread dissatisfaction in Scotland at the inactivity of the Government in this matter, and does he think it is right to ignore public opinion coming from such bodies as the Convention of Royal Burghs, representing all sections of opinion in Scotland?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: No, I am not aware of the feeling to which the hon. Member refers, but it is obvious that this cannot be carried any further by question and answer.
    Mr. MILLAR: I shall raise the question on the Adjournment on a very early date.
    Mr. HOGGE: Has the Cabinet yet come to a decision with regard to the whole question of State purchase?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: They have not come to any decision on the subject.
    Mr. DEVLIN: When is there a likelihood of the Government coming to a decision on the question, as the universal opinion of all sane minds in this country and in Ireland is in favour of State purchase?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I am sorry I cannot make any statement as to the time
    2034
    when a decision will be made, but if the hon. Member is right there are a great many insane minds in this country.

    CENSUS OF ANIMALS.
    Mr. MOLTENOasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the Quartermaster General has issued an Order requiring from all owners of horses, mules, cattle, sheep, and pigs a return by 1st May of such animals, with particulars regarding them, as well as of agricultural implements; why it is necessary to subject the civil population to a military Order of this character, particularly at a time when all their energies are occupied in putting in their crops; and whether the Board of Agriculture could furnish the War Office with all the information on the subject which is necessary?
    Sir R. WINFREY: The Order has been issued as a compulsory Order under the Defence of the Realm Regulations for important purposes which concern several Government Departments. It was issued by the War Office merely for convenience of procedure.

    PRESS (OFFICIAL CONTROL).
    Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the official control of the Press which has been established, he will take steps, in the interests of man-power and paper economy, to suspend the publication of controlled news papers and issue as a substitute an official sheet of communications from the various Departments?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The Government are not prepared to adopt the suggestion of the hon. Member.
    Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Prime Minister whether he will have placed in the Library copies of all official directions that may be issued to the Press?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The suggestion is not one which could be adopted by the Government.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Would it not be advisable to endeavour to inform hon. Members of the instructions given to the Press as to what they are to tell their readers?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: No; obviously it would be both inconvenient and undesirable.
    Mr. WHYTE: Can we be assured that the authority which exercises this control is really a responsible authority and not a military officer acting on the whim of the moment?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: It is a responsible authority and not a military authority.

    RUSSIAN DELEGATION TO GREAT BRITAIN.
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Prime Minister if the Government will extend an invitation to the Workmen's and Soldiers' Council at Petrograd to send a delegation to great Britain so that they may learn first hand of the sympathy of the British workers with the revolution, and that an exchange of views may take place for promoting closer relations among the international proletariat and the prosecution of common aims?
    Lord R. CECIL: A complimentary mission has already been sent by British labour to Russia for the purpose of expressing the sympathy of the British workers with those of Russia and of promoting closer relations in their mutual cooperation to defeat the common enemy.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Is the Noble Lord aware that no mission, complimentary or otherwise, has been sent to Russia on behalf of British labour, and that the only mission which has been sent is one sent by the Government to carry out the Government's policy?
    Lord R. CECIL: No; I am not aware of the truth of that statement, which appears to me to be altogether at variance with the facts.
    Mr. PRINGLE: By whom was this complimentary delegation selected?
    Lord R. CECIL: I am told by the representatives of labour.
    Mr. DEVLIN: Will the Noble Lord consider the desirability of inviting representatives of free Russia to come over and consider the government of Ireland?
    Lord R. CECIL: I do not think I should like to impose that burden on anyone.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Would the Noble Lord mind answering my question on the Paper, to which he has made no reference, whether the Government will invite representatives to confer with British labour?
    Lord R. CECIL: I have already explained what action the Government has taken. It appears to me to be an answer to what the hon. Member asks.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Will not the Noble Lord consider the question of inviting to this country a delegation from Russia so that we can know the views at first hand of the Russian people?
    Lord R. CECIL: I shall consider any suggestion made by any hon. Member, and I will consider that.
    Mr. DEVLIN: Will the Noble Lord consider my suggestion?

    INTOXICATING DRINKS (USE OF FOODSTUFFS).
    Mr. D. WHITEasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the increasing need for economy in food, the Government will now take steps to prohibit the use of foodstuffs in the manufacture-of intoxicating drinks?
    Captain BATHURST: I have been asked to reply. As I informed the hon. Member for North-East Lanarkshire on 28th March, the manufacture, from barley or any other cereals, of any malt suitable for use in the brewing of beer has been prohibited since the 20th February last. As regards the use of grain in the making of potable spirits, I would refer the hon. Member to the answers just given to previous questions.
    Mr. WHITE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Government is lagging behind public opinion in this country?
    Mr. MILLAR: Has any other licence been issued since 20th February for the malting of grain, and is any additional allowance to be made in respect of the request put forward by the Army Council for beer for the Army?
    Captain BATHURST: I think I must have notice of that question?
    Mr. A. WILLIAMS: Did not the hon. Gentleman tell me just now that licences for the malting of grain are still being issued?
    Captain BATHURST: I said licences for the production of certain malt for certain industrial purposes were being issued. This question is directed to the production of malt for brewing purposes.

    REBELLION IN IRELAND.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Prime Minister whether he has received from the Supreme Council of the Irish Nation League a resolution demanding that the treatment of Mr. John MacNeill and the other Irish prisoners of war in England shall be such as should be given to prisoners of war by a civilised people; and what action he has taken or intends to take towards complying with that demand?
    Mr. BRACE: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. I understand that he has received the resolution mentioned. As I explained on the 4th instant in answer to a question by the hon. Member for Salford, there is no power to treat the prisoners referred to as prisoners of war; but, within the discretion allowed to the Prison Commissioners by the statutory rules, important special privileges have been given them.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Prime Minister, seeing that the English Government in Ireland has found itself unable to take up the challenge of the twenty-eight Irishmen deported from Ireland last February, without charge or trial, to put them on trial before even a packed jury in one of the counties proposed to be excluded from the Government of Ireland Act, whether they are now at liberty to return home; if not, when they will be permitted that liberty; and, in view of the official declaration, made for the benefit of other nations, that Ireland is peaceful, whether the Government will follow the example of the Republic of Russia in recompensing these Irish political exiles for the loss of time, position, and salary caused them by the edicts of deportation now shown to have been issued without cause or justification?
    Mr. DUKE: The Prime Minister has asked me to reply to this question. The Government has not come to any such decisions as are suggested in the question.

    MR. PARTEDGE
    Mr. GINNELL(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether Mr. Partridge, a member of Dublin Corporation, in penal servitude as a political prisoner at Lewes under sentence of a secret court-martial, still lives; if so, whether he is in a dying condition; and, if the Government do not wish to incur responsibility for the slow-
    2038
    execution of a political opponent as such, whether Mr. Partridge will be released forthwith?
    Mr. BRACE: Mr. Partridge is now in a nursing home in Brighton under the care of his wife. He was suffering from chronic-Bright's disease before he was first received in prison, but his health has been fairly good till about ten days ago, when serious symptoms appeared. A physician was called in for consultation, and on Thursday last authority was given for his release for treatment in the nursing home.
    Mr. GINNELL: Was the motive for his release to escape responsibility for executing him?
    Mr. BRACE: The order for the release was made after consultation with a very eminent physician, and I do not think that it is quite relevant for the hon. Member to make such a suggestion.

    CIVIL SERVANTS AS PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATES.
    Mr. SNOWDENasked the Prime Minister what are the Regulations governing the participation of Civil servants in politics; what are the Regulations governing Civil servants becoming candidates for Parliament; if the conduct of Sir James Leishman, chairman of the Scottish Health Insurance Commission, in attempting to induce Members of Parliament to resign their seats to provide a constituency for Sir George McCrea, another permanent Civil servant, is in conformity with the Regulations; if Sir George McCrea is conforming to the Regulations in seeking to become a Parliamentary candidate without having resigned his position; and what action is being taken upon the conduct of these Civil servants?
    Mr. S. BALDWIN (Lord of the Treasury): My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. Under the Order in Council of the 10th January, 1910, any Civil servant seeking a seat in the House of Commons is required to resign his office so soon as he issues his address to the electors, or in any other manner publicly announces himself as a candidate. With regard to the general question of the participation of Civil servants in politics, I may refer the hon. Member to the reply given to him by the late First

    2039
    Lord on the 28th October, 1909. I am not aware that Sir George McCrea or Sir James Leishman has infringed the Regulations; if the hon. Member will supply me with particulars as to the allegations made, I will cause inquiry to be instituted.

    GOVERNMENT EMPLOYES IRELAND PAY.
    Mr. CLANCYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether Government employes in every grade and class of employment in Ireland are paid much less remuneration than the corresponding employés in Great Britain; and, if so, on what ground is this differentation based; whether, if the differentation exists, it will be abolished; and whether equal remuneration will be paid for the same work in both countries?
    Mr. DUKE: My right hon. Friend has asked me to deal with this question, and I answered it on Thursday last in conjunction with a question by the hon. Member for the Harbour Division of Dublin.
    Mr. CLANCY: In view of the answer to which the right. hon. Gentleman has referred, that it was not until the conditions of employment were uniform that the rates of pay would be uniform, will he say whether that answer means that wherever the conditions are uniform the rates of pay will be made uniform immediately?
    Mr. DUKE: I think where the conditions are uniform the pay will be uniform. If my attention is called to a ease where that is not so, I will look into it.
    Mr. CLANCY: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say the rates of pay are uniform now where the conditions of employment are so?
    Mr. DUKE: That is a matter I could not answer in a few words in reply to a -question.
    Mr. DEVLIN: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he lays down the principle that where employers sweat their workers down to a low wage that that is to be the basis upon which the Government will pay their wage?
    Mr. DUKE: No, Sir; I do not wish to lay down that.
    Mr. DEVLIN: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether that is not precisely the position he has taken upon a number of occasions; and, if it is so, we would like an opportunity of discussing that economic principle?

    SALONIKA FORCES.
    Mr. WALTER ROCHasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can, consistently with the public interest, give the number of casualties incurred up to date by the British Forces at Salonika?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. I am afraid that it would not be in the public interest to give this information.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Is my hon. Friend aware that in regard to the Dardanelles operations the late Prime Minister gave the casualties, and is the present Government going to set a lower standard of information than the late Government?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I would remind my hon. and learned Friend that the conditions were not the same.
    Mr. PRINGLE: They are!
    Mr. ROCHasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can make any statement as to the present position of the British Forces at Salonika?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. I have nothing to add to what has appeared in the Press communiqués

    RAILWAY FARES.
    Mr. BUTCHERasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the necessity for limiting travelling on railways and of the fact that the ordinary civilian who is compelled to travel in the course of his business has to pay a 50 per cent. increase of railway fares, and of the fact that many of our soldiers at the front have, owing to military necessity, been unable to get leave for a year or eighteen months or more, he will restrict the present facilities granted to conscientious objectors for getting leave and travelling at the public expense?
    Mr. BRACE: The Committee on the Employment of Conscientious Objectors will consider this matter at their meeting to-day.

    NAVAL WORKERS' WAR BONUS.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether it is proposed to give to the third grade clerks and hired writers, as well as to other members of the clerical staffs employed in His Majety's naval establishments, any additions to their present war bonus so as to place them on an equality in this respect with the workmen employed in His Majesty's dockyards?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): The question of granting an additional war bonus to members of the clerical staff is now under consideration.

    POST OFFICE RECONSTRUCTION.
    Mr. T. RICHARDSONasked the Postmaster-General whether a reconstruction committee has now been set up within the Post Office; and, if so, whether it is proposed to give the staff, through the trades unions, representation upon it?
    The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pike Pease): No committee of this character has been set up.

    BRITISH MUSEUM (READING ROOM).
    Mr. E. HARVEYasked the hon. Member for Worcestershire (Bewdley Division) what would be the estimated cost of opening the Reading Room of the British Museum to students on two nights in the week?
    Mr. BALDWIN: The cost of opening the Reading Room for two additional hours on two nights in the week would be between £250 and £300 a year, provided that the hours followed continuously after the day opening (i.e., from five to seven p.m.). To reopen at a later hour, after closing at five p.m., would be even more costly, and would also cause great inconvenience to the staff of the museum.

    WEKE (CEYLON) COURT-MARTIAL.
    Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what in the nature of reparation has been made to the families of the six men tried by court-
    2042
    martial at Weke, Ceylon, on 17th June, 1915, on a charge of riotous demolition of buildings, sentenced to death, and hanged, though no life was lost in the riots with which the men were alleged to have been connected?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Steel-Maitland): I am not aware that any reparation has been granted in these cases, and I see no. ground for proposing such a Grant.
    Mr. GINNELL: Do the Government approve of the execution of men in a case in which no life has been lost?
    Mr. STEEL-MAITLAND: The circumstances justified the action taken in this case
    Mr. GINNELLasked what notice has been taken of the conduct of Mr. R W. Bryde, special commissioner at Colombo, Ceylon, in issuing a Proclamation in Colombo on 10th June, 1915, that all persons refusing or neglecting to obey any Order by the military or civil authorities, or who may be found carrying firearms, will be liable to be shot, and further that any person harbouring any rioter, or suppressing evidence with regard to the offenders in the recent riots, or spreading any false reports, will be treated as an aider and abettor, and will be liable to be shot; and how many persons were shot without trial under this. Proclamation, and what official position this special commissioner now occupies?
    Mr. STEEL-MAITLAND: Notices warning persons of penalties to which they would render themselves liable by the commission of certain acts were issued by the orders of the General Officer Commanding the troops, martial law being at the time in force. I see no reason to question the action of Mr. Byrde, who is an officer of the Ceylon civil service. No such notice would, of course, give any power not otherwise possessed by the Executive, and no persons were shot under the Proclamation.
    Mr. GINNELL: Was this official entitled to issue a public notice that certain persons would be shot without trial? That is the point.
    Mr. STEEL-MAITLAND: If the hon. Member will read the notice to which he refers he will see that there was no notice issued saying that anyone would be shot without trial. I think that he has misunderstood it.

    LICENSED TRADE (IRELAND).
    Mr. COOTEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in view of his suggestion to consider, amongst others, the claims of publicans in Ireland to compensation for loss of employment, if he is aware that the restrictions of the Board of Control do not operate in Ireland, nor is the retail trade restricted in any way; that the falling-off of the earnings of publicans is due to the higher prices of spirits and beer, and to the more enlightened and thrifty habits of the people; whether he will consider these conditions in respect of compensation; whether he is aware that hundreds of small public-houses are run by men of military age who should be fighting the German abroad; and if he will take into account also the claims of the many other trades who are ruined, not by natural causes but by the necessary Orders and restrictions of the Ministers of Food and Shipping?
    Mr. DUKE: The Defence of the Realm (Liquor Control) Regulations, 1915, have not been applied to Ireland. The restrictions on the retail liquor trade in Ireland are those made with respect to hours of closing under the Intoxicating Liquor (Temporary Restriction) Act, 1914, those made by the competent naval and military authorities under Regulation 10 of the Defence of the Realm Regulations, and those resulting from the Orders relating to the output of alcoholic liquors. The last-mentioned are no doubt those which most largely affect the trade. All relevant considerations will be taken into account in dealing with the question raised by my hon. Friend.
    Mr. COOTE: Can the right hon. Gentleman see any reason why these restrictions should not be applied to Belfast, where there is a great number of munition works?
    Mr. DUKE: I have not heard of any necessity arising in Belfast.
    Mr. DEVLIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman not resent this insuit to the loyal people of Belfast?
    Mr. DUKE: It will be resented in other quarters, if it is an insult.
    Mr. DEVLIN: I resent it.

    Swine Fever.
    Mr. FIELDasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture
    2044
    (Ireland) the number of pigs slaughtered in the year 1916 and up to date in 1917 in compliance with the Order regulating swine fever; in how many cases the serum treatment was applied; and the number and ratio of cases in which its application was successful in preventing swine fever?
    Mr. DUKE: The number of swine slaughtered in Ireland under Swine Fever Regulations in the year 1916 was 2,139, and in the year 1917 to date, 637. The Department of Agriculture do not at present possess facilities for the preparation of serum for swine fever, and have no information on the parts of the question relating to the use of serum.
    Mr. FIELD: Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Department to inquire what steps the Board of Agriculture in England have taken in regard to this matter. because it has been very successful?
    Mr. DUKE: I will call attention to that matter.

    Royal Navy (Sailmakers)
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will consider the possibility of granting sailmakers, Royal Navy, chief petty officer rank, seeing that their rating is the only one to which this concession has not been granted; is he aware that sailmakers are paid lower than any other lower deck rating; and can he see his way to grant them further remuneration in order that they may be placed more on an equality with other ratings in this respect?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The question of establishing the rate of chief petty officer for sailmakers is under consideration.

    Dockyard Pensioners.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that many old age pensioners, man and wife, are receiving 15s. a week. whereas many dockyard pensioners who have to maintain their wives are only receiving from 10s. to £l; and whether, in view of the concession made to old age pensioners, he can see his way to make a similar concession in the case of dockyard pensioners so far as the men whose pensions range from 10s. to £l are concerned?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the latter part, I fear

    2045
    there is nothing to add to the replies which I have previously given to my hon. Friend. It is not possible to deal with dockyard pensioners separately from the whole body of Civil servants, all of whose superannuation allowances are governed by the same Acts of Parliament.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the hon. Gentleman considering the question of dealing with the whole of these pensioners whose pensions are only 10s.?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: As my hon. Friend knows, that is a very large question, involving also the War Office and other Departments, and I would remind him that the Civil Service Non-Effective Votes are now something in the region of £4,000,000.

    Land Purchase (Ireland).
    Mr. O'DONNELLasked the total net amount deducted from the local taxation Grants to county Kerry during the years 1903 to 1916 on account of land purchase?
    Mr. DUKE: £7,188.

    BILL PRESENTED. CORONERS
    (EMERGENCY PROVISIONS) BILL,—"to reduce, in connection with the present War, the number of jurors at coroners' inquests," presented by Mr. BRACE; to be read a second time Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 34.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Sir F. BANBURY: Will the right hon Gentleman say what Orders he proposes to take to-day?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I hope to take the -Orders down to the Societies (Suspension of Meetings) Bill.

  GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: Can the right hon Gentleman say whether the Prime Minister will be in a position to make a statement on Ireland on Thursday?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: It is impossible to say definitely.
  Mr. PRINGLE: If any statement is made on the Irish question on Thursday, will an opportunity be given for discussion?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I would rather say nothing more about it in the meantime.

  VENEREAL DISEASE BILL [Lords.]
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): This Bill to which I ask the House to give a Second Reading to-day was introduced in another place by my Noble Friend the President of the Local Government Board (Lord Rhondda), who ever since he has presided over the Department has lost no opportunity of emphasising the need of dealing with all that concerns the mortality among children and the health and welfare of the community. This subject was inquired into by a Royal Commission, to which the country owes much for its laborious investigations into very painful and difficult problems, and for its very practical and fertile recommendations. This Bill had an uneventful passage through the other House, but I cannot hope that it will have a similarly uneventful passage in this House, for I see that the hon. Member for North Somerset (Mr. King) has put down a
  2072
  Motion, the object of which is apparently to defeat the Bill: and I much regret that he is opposing a policy which has at its back the Association of County Councils, the Association of Municipal Corporations, the London County Council, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Surgeons, and last and not least, the National Council for Combating Venereal Diseases. This Bill is the outcome of a very important Royal Commission.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: No, no!
  Mr. HAYES FISHER: It is a matter of opinion, and my opinion is that it was a very important Royal Commission, dealing with a very important subject, and making very important recommendations. This is not a war measure; it is not war legislation, but it has a connection with the War, and the aftermath of the War, in regard to which the Royal Commission reported:
  "All experience shows that after a War an excessive incidence of disease is certain to occur, even in districts previously free. In order to meet present and future conditions, it is essential to make provision, and no lime should be lost."
  The Royal Commission was appointed by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Monmouthshire (Mr. McKenna), who was then Home Secretary. After two years' work, they made their report, which contains unanimous and practical recommendations. The subject with which the Bill deals is very much in view at the present time, and it is a matter of conversation in many quarters where it was never before discussed. But I think it is right that neither the House nor the country should jump to the conclusion that there is any increase in this very formidable disease. Except in regard to the Army and Navy and the Police Force, there are no accurate statistics which enable us to arrive at safe conclusions in regard to the prevalence of this disease. But if we take the deaths recorded from syphilis, I think that, on the whole, the evidence leads us rather to the conclusion that the disease is stationary, or at all events not increasing. As regards the Army and Navy, the Commission reported:
  "The statistics available for the Navy and Army, dealing with large bodies of men under close and constant supervision, are accurate and complete to an extent which is, at present, impossible in the case of the civil population. They indicate a very satisfactory decline of venereal diseases."
  Of course, that was before the War. So far as we are able to obtain particulars,

  2073
  there is really nothing to show that the ratio per thousand of men in the Army and Navy is in any way increased. Of course, there is more venereal disease in the Army, because the Army has so enormously increased in numbers. So far as the Royal Commission was able to obtain evidence, it reported that the percentage of infected recruits in the German Army is more than five times as high as in Great Britain, and Professor Blaschko considers that the prevalence of venereal disease in Germany is higher in the civil population than in her army. Take another form of statistics, that relating to venereal disease in the Metropolitan Police. There it is reported that it is very small indeed. We often hear criticism and complaint of the way in which police handle traffic in the streets, we often hear criticism and complaint of the kind of evidence they give in Court, but I do not think there is any real ground for that criticism and complaint. Every now and then, of course, the police make mistakes like other people, but at all events they give us a very good example in their own life of cleanly and orderly conduct. It is not necessary, really, to try to prove any increase in this disease. The statistics are clearly quite sufficient to make it well worth while to try to deal with the problem, without there being any increase at all, or even if the disease is stationary. After all, on the evidence which it took the Royal Commission reported that no less than ten per cent. of the population in our great towns are infected with syphilis, and a still greater percentage of the population are infected with gonorrhoea. One figure in London alone shows that the disease has got to be attacked in a very earnest and thorough manner. In the Lock Hospital in London alone, in the year 1916, there were 36,500 cases treated, as compared with the figure for 1913 of 23,974. Then we have the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, which took evidence on venereal disease, and reported:
  "We have received evidence to the effect that these diseases work terrible havoc with the physique and stamina of the community, and that much of the infant mortality and bad health of children is due to their after consequence,"
  In the Report of the Minority of that Commission it is stated:
  "A grave problem, which in our judgment cannot be ignored, is that presented by the widespread suffering of the poor from venereald sense 'These,' testified a medical expert,'constitute be of the greatest evils of
  2074
  the age. I am nut sure that they do not give rise directly and indirectly, to more suffering and more injury to us as a nation than even tuberculosis.'"
  4.0 p.m.
  The Royal Commission was appointed in 1913, before the War, and unanimously made recommendations. They came to-the conclusion that if early and efficient treatment of the most scientific type were afforded to that portion of the people who suffered from these diseases, those diseases would be held in check, greatly controlled, and could be narrowed down to a comparatively small compass or degree; and that new scientific methods had now come to the knowledge. of the medical body, and that by means of those methods diseases which had hitherto-refused at all events to be cured, can now be cured if only the victims would apply at once and be treated at once on a sound scientific system by men qualified to administer that system. They came to the conclusion that everywhere there ought to be centres set up for scientific diagnosis and for free treatment, and that it was not likely those centres would ever be set up unless they were set up by the State and largely at the expense of the State, and they recommended that national finances should bear 75 per cent. of the burden of setting those up. They went on to say that if those treatment centres were set up and properly, equipped, and if they were made free to everybody, that men would be persuaded to go to them rather than as they go now to quack doctors; but that no questions should be asked of anyone, and that the whole system should be secret and confidential, with no records of names and no-attempt in any way to identify the patient. We all know what happens in many eases with the Reports of Royal Commissions, but this Commission met with a very different fate. The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Long), who was then President of the Local Government Board, warmly welcomed the proposals. He issued circulars to the local authorities requiring them to set up, in conjunction and cooperation with the hospitals, those centres for scientific diagnosis and full and free treatment. In a recently issued White Paper, Cd. No. 8509, particulars-were given of the number of schemes that have, up to the present, been submitted by the local authorities. Schemes for the diagnosis and treatment of these diseases: have now been submitted to the Local

  2075
  Govemment Board by ninety-nine out of 145 councils charged with the execution of the recommendations. Sixty-one schemes, serving a population of over 3,000,000, have been approved. A good many schemes submitted have not yet been approved. When we contemplate the extraordinary difficulties under which our hospitals are at present working with depleted staffs and the need for doctors and nurses everywhere, I think the House may fairly say that we owe a great debt of gratitude to those hospitals which have, on the whole, very freely come forward to co-operate with the local authorities to undertake a new task under new circumstances.
  Mr. KlNG: How many of those schemes are in full operation, not only approved, but in full operation?
  Mr. HAYES FISHER: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman means by full operation.
  Mr. KING: They are only paper schemes approved of?
  Mr. HAYES FISHER: That is a very unfair suggestion. In London alone, in six hospitals out of twenty-two which are dealing with these diseases, from the first three months of this year 1,195 males have been treated, and 350 females, making a total of 1,545 new patients treated under this scheme. In the Newcastle district 309 males and 154 females have been treated in the first three months of this year. The Report was only issued last year, and the circulars could only go out some months ago, and having regard to all the difficulties through which we are passing, it is really wonderful that over those great areas practical schemes should already have been brought into operation. I have the very greatest hope that these schemes will rapidly mature, and that the results from them will be, I will not say all we can possibly expect, but very substantial indeed towards the cure and gradual diminution of those diseases. The policy being adopted is one of the maximum of persuasion with the minimum of penalty, and it is the complement of administrative action, and is calculated to secure a speedier and larger scope for that action. There is a positive and negative policy. There is the policy of persuading those who are victims of these diseases
  2076
  to abandon quack methods and go to centres where they will meet with early and scientific treatment by men who are well qualified to give that treatment. There is also a negative policy, which is to deal with specious, fallacious, and pernicious remedies, and which is of a prohibitive character. What the Bill does is to prohibit all persons except qualified medical practitioners from treating venereal disease, or prescribing or advising in connection with it. The Bill makes it illegal to dispense any drug or other preparation as a remedy for venereal disease unless on the written prescription of a qualified doctor. The Bill will not apply to the sale of those substances to doctors or to wholesale supply. Offences are punishable on summary conviction to a fine of £100 or six months' imprisonment, or on indictment to imprisonment for two years. The Bill will only operate in areas to which it is applied by Order of the Local Government Board, and the Board will have to be satisfied that free centres for the treatment of the diseases have been set up before they apply a Bill of this prohibitive character to any area.
  The person, man or woman, who contracts a disease of this kind is injured vitally, but it injures still more innocent people and arrests the whole growth and efficiency of the community. Men and women will, unfortunately, conceal these diseases after they have contracted them, and will resort to quacks and will not go to the family doctor but somebody else, while if they would only resort to the proper remedies which now exist an early cure might be effected, The Royal Commission said let us set up these treatment centres and persuade the people to go there, and let us also do something to prohibit those who are not really qualified for treating them and whose remedies have been very often, I will not say worse, but almost as bad as the disease. What are the arguments for this measure of prohibition? It may be said, "You have something more at the back of your mind; you are trying to drive out all those who are not qualified medical practitioners." I want to disclaim that. That is not the intention of the Department. We have no desire to drive out generally the non-qualified medical practitioners. It may be said, "Why do you apply it (prohibition) in venereal diseases?" This is a very exceptional case, and I think very exceptional treatment can be made out for this case. After all

  2077
  in the case of an ordinary man who suffers from an ordinary complaint it does not matter so much to the community to whom he goes to be treated for that complaint. If he prefers a herbalist or a quack of some sort, it is his concern. His liver or his lungs may be affected, and? while it is of importance to the man himself it is not of such vital importance to the community to whom he goes. In the case of venereal diseases it does matter; it is of importance. The whole of the evidence goes to show that the great point about this disease is to prevent its infectivity to the person. By the treatment of salvarsen or something of the kind infectivity can be stopped at an early stage. We have evidence to show that infectivity, instead of lasting for several months, can be reduced to a period of several weeks Here is another reason for this prohibition: A man who suffers from this disease is not really a free man, but is under arrest the whole time of fear and shame. He grasps only too greedily at the remedy that is held out by these quacks who have advertised so extensively. We had evidence given by a body themselves composed of non-certified and unqualified practitioners, who said there were at least 5,000 men calling themselves herbalists offering remedies of sorts for this disease, and tempting young men by the very fact of secrecy to come to them. Secrecy is the great agent of these men. The man who suffers from this disease is really in a very different position from the man who suffers from any other disease, and the community has a right to say, "You are a danger to innocent people, you are a danger not only to this generation, but to the third and fourth generations from now, and if we provide an efficient remedy for you and treatment of a most scientific character, entirely free, without any inquiries or registration of any kind, we have a right to say that you shall not go to someone who will drive the disease into you and very likely prevent your being cured, but that you shall go to somebody who will cure you, and therefore relieve the community of infectivity."
  Sir F. BANBURY: There is no means of making a man or a woman go to qualified men.
  Mr. HAYES FISHER: I quite agree, but the policy will have to be largely one of persuasion, and, personally, I hope that
  2078
  there will be more or less of a State Publicity Department attached to this, and that we shall spread the news far and wide where these centres are, and that we shall give, as far as we can, the same information about what we think are the right and proper scientific methods of treatments as the quack gives of his own little centre of treatment, which we think neither right nor proper. But, although we must rest on persuasion, that policy is retarded and hindered unless we do something to prevent these five thousand and more gentlemen who hold out these so-called remedies from carrying on their trade and luring into their nets those who we think would be far better dealt with, in their own interests and in the interests of the community, by the schemes which are now being set up. I have now summed up the arguments for the Bill, but there are a few arguments against it used by the hon. Member for North Somerset (Mr. King). He first of all says it interferes with the liberty of the subject. Yes, it does, and I think we hear sometimes a good deal too much about the liberty of the individual and too little about the safety of the State; for my part I think the liberty of the individual has got to give way quite constantly to the safety of the State, and I think it has got to give way in this case. After all, all our Act a of Parliament which provide for compulsory notification of diseases, such as small-pox, measles, and so on, interfere with the liberty of the subject, and every time you isolate a man with smallpox or measles you interfere with his liberty, and you often take his clothes away and burn them. I admit also that it interferes with chemists. I have no desire to do any harm whatever to chemists, who are a most splendid body of men doing a particularly great service at the present time, but all Acts to prevent the adulteration of food and to secure the provision of pure milk interfere with the liberty of somebody or other, and the liberty of the individual must give way, as I have said, to the safety of the State. But it is an infringement of the liberty of the subject with a view to preserving the greater liberty of the community. Another argument is that the Royal Commission did not advise the prohibition of unqualified practice. The Commission hesitated at that point, it is quite true, but I would like to read the paragraphs dealing with unqualified

  2079
  practitioners in the Report of the Royal Commission. The Royal Commissioners said:
  "We have no hesitation in stating that the effects of unqualified practice in regard to venereal diseases are disastrous, and that in our opinion the continued existence of unqualified practice constitutes one of the principal hindrances to the eradication of those diseases. cannot be too strongly emphasised that the essential point in the control of venereal diseases is to secure for the patient the best treatment at the earliest possible moment. By the intervention of the unqualified person the stage at which the permanent eradication of the disease is possible is lost, and the many and terrible after-effects which we have described may supervene, for although the disease is difficult to cure. symptoms are readily made to disappear. In any case the treatment is rendered more difficult, protracted, and expensive, and the risk of the disease being communicated to others is very largely increased."
  And they add a paragraph on which I think the hon. Member for North Somerset relies, namely:
  "We should have advocated legal provisions making the treatment of venereal disease by unqualified persons a penal-offence, but we recognise the practical difficulty in securing the effective operation of such a law in present circumstances."
  Yes; they did not contemplate that so soon as their Report was issued these treatment centres would spring up in such numbers as they have sprung up, otherwise they would have made a very different report to that which they made in the last paragraph, and on that point I may quote the opinion of the Noble Lord who presided over this Royal Commission (Lord Sydenham) when this Bill was introduced, and this is what he said:
  "My Commission were so strongly impressed with the evils arising from this cause, that we unanimously reported in the very strong terms which the Noble Lord has quoted. But, as he has said, we did not like at that stage to recommend legislation for the suppression of quacks; we felt that we could not say to people, You shall have no treatment whatever, while the State was doing nothing to provide treatment; and we were also aware that among the working classes especially there was really no means of treatment on reasonable terms. Therefore, we did not make a specific recommendation, feeling that it ought to come at a time when free treatment and ample treatment was made available for all classes in this country."
  We do not propose to apply this Bill to any area until we have made that treatment free and complete for all classes of the community, but when we have done that, I believe this House will support us in our full policy and will say that, considering the interest which the community has in stamping out this disease, if the State goes to the enormous expense and trouble and labour of setting up all these treatment centres and making them free and thoroughly well known to the population, in addition to persuading those who are victims of the disease to go there for treatment, it is only fair that power should be given to prevent others
  2080
  from hindering and retarding this policy of treatment by offering remedies which are no remedies but which, as I have said, are specious, fallacious, and often pernicious. There is only one other argument that the hon. Member for North Somerset uses in the Amendment which he has put upon the Paper. He says that these remedies are not adequate to meet the state of things existing at the present time. Nobody is more conscious of that than I am. I am perfectly conscious of the limitation, not only of this particular measure, which, indeed, only touches; the very fringe of the question, but also of the whole policy of remedies. I would, in concluding my speech, say that we have-to bring to bear upon this disease all forces—educational, moral and spiritual, and there is a very powerful passage which ended the Report and recommendations of this Royal Commission on this point. I will read it:
  "If venereal diseases are to be stamped out it will be necessary not. only to provide the medical means of combating them, but to raise the moral standards and practice of the community as a whole. Such an improvement can only be brought about by closer co-operation between religions bodies. the teaching and medical professions, and the education authorities. Though we are not unmindful of much excellent work that is being carried on, we are strongly of opinion' that there is urgent need for more careful instruction in regard to self-control generally, and to moral conduct as bearing upon sexual relations throughout all types and grades of education. Such instructions should be based upon moral principles and spiritual considerations and should by no means be concentrated on the physical consequences of immoral conduct. But the fact that we recommend that free treatment should be provided for all sufferers makes it, in our opinion, all the more necessary that the young should be taught that to lead a chaste life is the only certain way to-avoid infection."
  I fully endorse these recommendations, and I hope that every head of every college and school, and that every parent may take heed to these admirable words-of advice and recommendation, and that by those means, as well as by these means, we may be able at least to stay the ravages of a disease which causes many men and many women a painful and miserable life and a death too often full of mental and moral remorse. If this Bill is carried a second time, I propose that it should be sent upstairs to the same Grand Committee that dealt with the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, and I hope that when we get upstairs and deal with it we shall provide this House and the country with legislation which will at least be ancillary to the policy of persuasion.
  Mr. KING: We have listened to a very interesting statement on a very grave

  2081
  subject, and I for one wish at once to say that it is because of my great interest in the subject and not from any lack of appreciation whatsoever of the efforts and the work which the Local Government Board already have in hand to deal with it that I am taking the line which I propose to take this afternoon. I wish at the outset to say that Lord Rhondda's efforts and the efforts of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hayes Fisher) to take up this question as soon as the Royal Commission Report was out, instead of pondering it over for two or three years, which is usually the practice of Government Departments after a Royal Commission has reported, and at once to get schemes submitted to and approved by local authorities in the midst of this War, meet with my highest approval and sympathy, and I am sure therefore that in one way the activity and energy of the Local Government Board in this connection are bound to be generally approved. I therefore consider this a very curious thing. It takes a course of action which might be advisable later, but in my opinion is quite wrong now, and will be quite futile if really put into operation. A few weeks ago there were statements in the public Press about the new Bill which Lord Rhondda was to introduce in another place. We were told that this Bill was to establish yet another Ministry, the Ministry of Public Health. We were told that this Ministry of Public Health was to concentrate in the hands of one set of men all the organisations and opportunities there are for seeing that our nation is as healthy and virile as possible. The Bill was to add certain new powers to those existing. We have not had that Bill introduced. There has been no attempt yet to set up a Ministry of Public Health. -I am here to say that after a year or two even of the Ministry of Public Health, if this Bill had been thought advisable, there might have been some reason for it. You are putting the cart before the horse. You are not taking things in the right order. Moreover it is quite obvious that the Royal Commission did actually consider this proposal to make the treatment of venereal disease by unqualified practitioners a penal offence and definitely, for the Commissioners came to the conclusion that it was undesirable. The right hon. Gentleman has quoted certain extracts or paragraphs dealing with this which occupy a page and a half. He quoted
  2082
  about six lines. If I were to read the whole page and a half of sixty or seventy lines I am sure the House would realise that there is a very much better case for deferring legislation like this than for proposing it. I will only quote the few lines necessary To show the other point of view:
  "The wide provision of free treatment will tend to diminish unqualified practice."
  Undoubtedly:
  "Until you get wide treatment provided by the State you will have unqualified practice."
  You will not be able to stop it. It is that argument which prevailed with the Royal Commission. In their Report they point out the experience of other countries, and quote both Denmark and Italy. From each country they had witnesses. Both the Danish and the Italian witnesses pointed out that as there was a widespread system of treatment of this disease gratuitously, treatment by quack doctors or unqualified men of no reputation or standing had been diminished. Therefore the whole gist and point of the Report of the Royal Commission was: Do not make unqualified practitioners liable to any penalty for treating this disease until you have got the widespread operation of gratuitous treatment by every country, and have had that in operation for some time.
  Mr. D. MASON: The evidence you are quoting docs not prove that.
  Mr. KING: Yes, it does. Has my hon. Friend read this Report? If not, I wish that he would do so. I am really trying to argue the matter not on party lines or in a spirit of antagonism. I am trying to take the real gist of the Report, which was considered for years by very able men, and I am trying to give the real conclusions. I say that at present the Government have not done anything like providing free treatment for this disease for the whole of the United Kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman pointed with pride—and I congratulate him on the record, for it is a very remarkable achievement—to the fact that he has already got ninety-nine councils who have submitted approved schemes of treatment. Out of how many of the 45,000,000 of people of this country are there already living in the areas for which these schemes have been approved? Only 19,000,000. Not half of the great population of this country are already provided for. Even when in a

  2083
  few weeks schemes which have been submitted acre approved; there will only be 25,000,000 of our population provided out of 15,000,000, leaving 20,000,000 for whom schemes have not been submitted.
  Mr. HAYES FISHER: The Bill refers only to England and Wales, not to 45,000,000 but to 37,000,000 people.
  Mr. KING: The right hon. Gentleman is quite right. His purview is limited to that. Apart, however, from that, my argument is good to this extent: Before you legislate in such a way as proposed—because Scotland, I suppose, will subsequently be brought in—as to make unqualified practitioners liable to a penalty for prescribing for this disease you ought to give gratuitous treatment a fair chance for some time over the whole of the United Kingdom. That is my argument. I do not think anything that the right hon. Gentleman has said or can say has touched that point of view, which is the point of view of the Royal Commission. That is why I think that this Bill at the present time is quite unnecessary and undesirable. I go further, and say that the form in which the Bill is drafted is altogether wrong. For this reason: It makes it an offence for a man who is not a duly qualified practitioner to treat any person for reward, cither directly or indirectly, for venereal disease, or prescribe any remedy or give any advice. The Bill is drawn in the widest possible terms. Suppose, for instance, a medical student is suffering, or has suffered from this disease, and he finds his brother or fellow-student suffering in like manner. If that medical student says to his fellow, "Use this ointment, or take this drug," or gives any advice of any kind, that man is liable to two years hard labour.
  An HON. MEMBER: As a reward!
  Mr. KING: Suppose the medical student says, "I have a useful drug which has cost me 2s. 6d.; you give me half the money for it," he brings himself within the law.
  Mr. HAYES FISHER: Does the hon. Gentleman suppose that the Local Government Board would take action of that sort?
  Mr. KING: I think the principles on which our Government Departments are now being run tend to tread down all liberty, and what I suggest is, I think,
  2084
  likely to be the case. The question is not one as to whether our laws are going to be put into force in a tyrannical spirit or in the proper spirit. It is whether the law is good or not. I say that the intention of this Bill, when it becomes an Act, is to make it practically impossible for anybody not a duly qualified practitioner to give any advice whatever in connection with this disease. That leads to the question whether or not it is desirable and possible to put down all unqualified practitioners. Here I wish to say at once that I am in favour of liberty—-liberty even for the unqualified man to pursue his calling. Though I favour trade unions in connection with law and medicine, yet I do not favour trade unions in the learned professions to such an extent as to crash out all independent men. What is a quack? A quack is a man like Mr. Barker. What have we seen in this House? Mr. Barker though not a medical man and with no qualifications in surgery, undoubtedly has a marvellous gift in certain applications of the healing art. Certain Members in this House would prevent him carrying on his business and profession as he does. The feeling generally in the House is against it. There may be and there have been Mr. Barker's in the sphere of medicine. I need only point to the case of the great Pasteur himself, and to the much advertised and very hopeful remedy Salvarsan. When Pasteur's great discovery of the methods of diagnosis, pathology, and treatment based upon his inquiries and investigations were first brought before the world, eminent physicians in this country discouraged them and threw cold water upon them. They pointed out that Pasteur was not a medical man.
  Men of the very highest medical standing threw a slight upon Pasteur and his work, simply because he was not a medical man. Everybody knows that in the medical profession there is a tendency to regard the fashionable remedy, and particularly the style treatment at the time, as final. There must be men here who remember-—T am just old enough to remember -when the late Lord Lister introduced his new methods of surgery. We owe it today to Lord Lister that we have the enormous number of recoveries in all great surgical operations. We owe it perhaps to Lord Lister beyond anybody else that many of the

  2085
  recoveries of our wounded men are effective, because surgery by his advocacy was entirely revolutionised. But Lord Lister when he first introduced these ideas and practices was entirely out of the fashion. He was combated and disregarded by the great majority of the medical profession, and if he had not been a man of the very highest determination and character, and a man, too, of independent private means who was able to get one medical faculty to give him the opportunity which he could not get anywhere also, the great revolution in surgery, initiated and developed by the great genius of Lord Lister, would possibly have been delayed for years.
  At this stage to make the treatment by Salvarsan a State monopoly, and to make that the only method of treatment is altogether wrong scientifically. I believe, from the point of view of the the State and the public interest, this scheme of the Local Government Board, which is nothing less than to give this Salvarsan treatment the monopoly of treatment in the country, is altogether a wrong policy. I say that for two reasons. First of all, Salvarsan is a patent medicine, a proprietory medicine not available in the ordinary way. It is very undesirable, I think, that we should pin our faith in a great movement in public health to one particular medicine, and that a German medicine, which has now passed from a German manufacturing firm into the hands of a private firm, or possibly two or three private firms. To make the treatment of these terrible venereal diseases depend solely upon a patent medicine is altogether wrong, especially at this stage, because great as are the effects already achieved by Salvarsan, no doubt in many cases the remedy fails. For myself, I very much doubt whether the Royal Commission frankly faced the facts in connection with this. I believe that anybody who reads the evidence of the Royal Commission will see that a not very fair account of that evidence is given in the conclusions of the Report. For instance, Ehrlich, the great German inventor of Salvarsan, himself admitted that he had seen 164 deaths under Salvarsan. That there is no reference in the Report to the fact that 164 deaths under Salvarsan had been chronicled by the man who invented it, and brought it out to the world, is a very remarkable fact. Why is it suppressed
  2086
  in the Report of the Royal Commission? It is bad policy, it is unscientific, and it is not in the highest and best interests of the profession, at this stage, to give a Government monopoly in Salvarsan for the treatment of these diseases.
  There is another point in connection with this. It is that the Royal Commission's Report admits the fact that the average qualified medical man is in many cases extremely ignorant of the treatment of this disease. Now a quack may be, and very often is, a man who has definitely studied this disease, and is an honest, a straightforward, and an honourable man. There are such men. I can assert myself that I have met such men, and know such men. There are decent quacks, but there are at the same time very ignorant doctors indeed, and if my right hon. Friend will turn to page 42 of the Royal Commission's Report, he will see that the Report speaks there of "the existing lack of full appreciation by practitioners of the importance of pathological aids to diagnosis," and then it says that "partly because of the expense involved in the examination, the assistance of pathologists is not utilised to the extent which is essential." Lower down it says that "the training of medical students with regard to venereal diseases has not in the past been sufficiently thorough." The whole of that page might be quoted, but I have quoted enough fairly to show what is perfectly true, that many doctors do not understand the real nature of these diseases, and are not able to diagnose them or treat them successfully from the start. Therefore, it does seem to me that it is altogether wrong to penalise one man who may know, and has perhaps given a great deal of time and ability to the study of a case, when you allow another man to be perfectly free to treat this case, although you admit all the time he very likely does not understand it. I am very glad we shall have this Bill in Grand Committee upstairs, and I intend to put down some Amendments. I can assure my right hon. Friend I do not do so in any cantankerous spirit, but in the effort which I shall exercise to make this a practical measure, the hardships and the injustices of which must be modified, because otherwise the Bill will not work. But I hope he will be a little more reasonable than he has been in the speech just now in meeting my point of view.

  2087
  I am going to call attention to one fact more. I have already referred to the difficulty under the Bill of saying when a man is giving advice "for reward either direct or indirect." I will give another case which is very likely to occur which, I say, will be an anomaly under the Bill. Suppose two men in a workshop together find that they are suffering from a certain disease, and the nearest place of treatment is twenty miles away, and one goes and gets some medicine, and the other pays half his fare and something else for his expenses. Now an offence has been committed under this Bill in a case like that, and it is quite obvious that such practices might become not uncommon, and, I think, not morally wrong. There will be cases also of this nature: A man will go, we will say, to a quack who will treat him for one disease, not knowing that he has got a venereal disease, and may treat him for what appears to be another disease, when he is really treating him for one of the consequences of venereal disease. To get a conviction in a case like that will be very difficult. But, on the other hand, it may be very possible to have serious injustice done to a perfectly qualified man, and a perfectly honest man, who does not wish to contravene the conditions of this Bill in the case of a man suffering from a disease which may not be, or cannot be at the moment, diagnosed as a venereal disease.
  I will only point out in conclusion one more aspect of this Bill, which, I think, ought not to be forgotten—the difficulty of getting convictions. Men go, it is said, to quacks or unqualified men who practise in these diseases, and have been in the habit of issuing advertisements for the sake of secrecy. Now, if a man goes to a stranger for the sake of secrecy, is it likely he will be willing to go into Court and give public evidence in order to get a conviction against that man? Why, there will be the very greatest difficulty in getting evidence, and it will be a very cruel thing, when you are holding out this opportunity of gratuitous treatment of a private character which is not to be published, to make men who have been in this way subject to the treatment of unqualified persons bring evidence in a public Court. I think I have said enough to show that there are points of view in this Bill which are open to grave objection. I hope they will be fairly con-
  2088
  sidered not only by the right hon. Gentleman representing the Local Government Board but by the Grand Committee upstairs. Of course, I am well aware that it is useless at the present time to get such a Bill dropped. I should prefer that this Bill were dropped until a later time. I am sure it would be desirable not to bring in legislation like this for another year or two, when we had a complete system of gratuitous treatment in operation all over the country. I am afraid what the Government proposes and determines to put through they can put through at the present time. In the interests of public liberty and scientific and professional progress, as well as the real interest of the nation in grappling with this great evil of venereal descuse, I believe this Bill to be ill-conceived, unnecessary, and altogether ill-timed.
  5.0 p.m.
  Captain FREDERICK GUEST: My only reason for intervening in this Debate is due to the fact that a subject such as this very rarely conies before the House of Commons, and I think this opportunity is too good a one to lose, and that we should fairly face the magnitude of the evil, and the smallness of the effort made to deal with it, and see whether we cannot out of this opportunity obtain something of which the House of Commons may be proud. So far as the Bill is concerned, I find no fault with it. Possibly in detail it may not meet with the approval of everyone in the House, but I most certainly support the general principle that quack medicines nearly always, if not always, do more harm than good, and, to put it in plain language, usually effect, or attempt to effect, an impossibly rapid cure, the result of which usually is to drive the disease in instead of bringing it out, in which case no doubt the constitution suffers at a later date. But before being prepared to go so far as to support the Bill, if necessary, in the Lobby, I would have liked to hear a good deal more about the free institutions which, we are informed, are being set on foot to handle the. difficulty. I am convinced that the spirit is willing in all the corporations and in all the various councils that have applied their minds to this, but I am afraid I am one of those who believe that the machinery, even if it is ever obtained, will be too slow- adequately to tackle the disease in time to secure a remedy, anyhow for the purposes of this War. The statistics given

  2089
  to us this afternoon by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board seemed to me to make so terrific a case for a larger treatment of the measure, that I feel more encouraged than when I first came this afternoon to ask the House to give its mind for a little to the magnitude of the evil. I had myself presumed that the introduction of this Bill, or the Second Reading of this Bill, in the House of Commons to-day was merely an indication that the Government were prepared to consider the details of a serious measure, as the House of Commons had been invited to collaborate with a view to grappling with the problem. As I have said, I am surprised at so poor an effort; in fact, I go further and say that it seems to me that this Bill might quite easily have been possibly a Sub-section of a real Bill for grappling with the evil, but that it is not worthy of the position of a Bill by itself. I go to the extent of saying that if this measure is to be a war measure we must make it effective, and effective in a very short space of time. Later I shall ask the House to allow me to give them my view of the magnitude of the case so far as the Army is concerned. I understand that the introduction of this Bill in the other House was due to the presssre of public opinion regarding the effect and inroads that this disease has made upon our fighting troops rather than actually to its effect on the civil population. If that is so, and if this is to be a war measure—and that is largely the reason why I welcome it and intervene in the Debate—it seems to me a pity not to face the issue once and for all, and go for it properly. There are in my opinion only two ways in which good can be done. The first, is to remove temptation from the soldier, and the second, is to subject the civil population to compulsory treatment and detention until cured. I know that is asking a good deal of the House, composed as it is of sixty or seventy members of the Grand Committee which has been sitting on the other Bill which comes up for discussion here on Wednesday. This seems to be a subject on which they have already made up their minds that such stringent treatment is not likely to be successfully carried out, and that public opinion is not ready for it. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] I am only too glad to hear that
  2090
  there is someone who is disinclined to believe that to be the state of public opinion.
  I think I may say again that this Bill evades entirely the real problem. Dealing with quack doctors and the advertisement of quack medicine is, as I think the right hon. Gentleman said, merely the fringe of the matter. I wonder if the House has had time, with the immense amount of business it transacts, really to grasp what inroads this disease and similar diseases have made into the fighting ranks of the Army. We were given a figure a few days ago by the Under-Secretary of State for War who told us, with some nervousness, that the figure was not a very serious one, and that it only amounted to 43 per 1,000. Forty-three per 1,000, in these days when you are combing out industries, when you are hunting among funk-holes in different parts of the City to get men in hundreds, seems to me to be a very large figure indeed. Forty-three per 1,000, If you take it over an Army such as we may possibly imagine we had last year, without giving any figures away to anybody, a very fair average calculation gives something like 107,000 cases. I know that a 107,000 men are very sorely needed at the present minute, and that the weight of those men, if we could keep them fit, would be very valuable indeed at this minute. This is the War Office figure. I do not know whether that covers all the cases which have accrued in France as well as in England. It is impossible for those of us who are outside to criticise with any chance of success figures put forward by the Government, but I have a certain number of figures, very few, which make me rather suspicious. The most noticeable fact seems to me to be the following: that the admissions into hospitals in England since the War began go very nearly all the way to fill up the 43 per 1,000. My figures are these. They are open to challenge, and I submit them purposely to challenge from the Department who can verify them. During the two and a half, or two and three-quarter, years of war we have had admitted into-the hospitals of England over 70,000 cases of gonorrhoea, over 20,000 cases of syphilis, and over 6,000 cases of another disease somewhat similar to syphilis which goes by the name of soft chancre. Those diseases have the effect in different proportional strengths of incapacitating the men from further activity or further par-

  2091
  ticipation in the war. I am quite openly prepared to state that of these 20,000 cases of syphilis you do not get much work out of them under two and a half years. I know from what I have seen of the modern conditions of this War that you may absolutely wipe them out, except for a few handfuls, for any practical use they will be. So far as the other disease which has produced the smallest number of cases is concerned, the effects for a considerable period of time are very debilitating.
  When you come to the great mass of casualties under this head you are dealing with a disease of which—and doctors will support me—unless you do give time, trouble, and care to its complete eradication and cure, the only effect is to drive it into the system and to turn out a man who is neither fit nor absolutely unfit, but who will succumb immediately the conditions of service becomes severe. These figures mean that you have a Division constantly out of action, due to one cause or another. I consider, and I think any man who knows the pressure that exists at the present time will agree, that at present to have a Division, or very nearly a Division, month by month permanently out of action is a very serious loss. If you have anything like 70,000 men enfeebled—and I think "enfeebled" is a very generous word to use—you find that you suffer to that extent also. It is not only that you lose the men, and not only the men who are partially cured and are suffering for many months to come, but I have considerable experience from a hospital with which I am intimately connected, and their chances of recovery from wounds are not nearly so good as those of men who have escaped the disease. That is only in England. What has happened in France? What the figures are I admit I am not in a position to say, because very wisely they are kept wrapped up and from us. I do know of a hospital which was instituted for the purpose of handling venereal cases, and which it was found necessary to expand from its normal accommodation for 500 or 600 up to 2,000 cases, and they are continually full. It is a British hospital in France. A figure I should like to submit to challenge, and I should be only too delighted if the Government would say that these figures are wrong and that my case has been grossly exaggerated, is that during the course of the War it is no exaggeration to say that
  2092
  between 40,000 and 50,000 cases of syphilis have passed through our hospitals in France. I admit that some of these reappear in the figure of cases which are regarded as admissions into England, but I do not believe there are many. When you come to the figure for gonorrhoea, which is probably a case which is kept until it is cured, I doubt whether those figures do appear again in those I have given. The figure given me which covers that is between 150,000 and 200,000 cases. I submit those figures in the hope that the Government will be able to challenge them and to satisfy the House that I am inaccurate, and I shall be only too glad to accept their answer. I think, however, they will find it very difficult. For the past five minutes all I have been trying to do is, as inoffensively as possible, to build up a case to show the magnitude of the problem with which we are faced, and largely to show how meagre and small is the effort put forward by the Government as, I imagine, a measure to overcome the difficulty. Those are the figures which deal with those who have passed through the hospitals in England, and, so far as I can make out, in France. There are, however, one or two rather striking things, which are public property, which narrow this down to a more personal issue—personal in the sense that they bring it down more to some concrete section of the community. I take the Canadians. They come three or four thousand miles to assist us in this great War, and are men who in most cases are entirely lost when they arrive in this new country. Certainly they are lost in London, and very often in the camps in which they are placed. They are much more liable to the temptation which is thrown in their way, but when you give a figure such as this—that is, in one camp during last year, and two months of the previous year, namely, fourteen months, there were 7,000 cases—it seems to me that it is about time we realised definitely the size and magnitude of the evil. I do not know what has happened to them, except that I imagine a large number have gone back to Canada, and have, not been able to play the part in this great War which they had hoped to play when they set out.
  I begin by suggesting that the Government might, if they cared to tackle the subject, confine their desires and determination to two proposals, the first to remove temptation from the soldier, and

  2093
  the other compulsory treatment of civilians and detention until cured. The remedy, so far as the soldier is concerned, and the punishment for the offence, should, I think, be appreciated, because during the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill through the Grand Committee a great deal of opposition was raised, sometimes, perhaps largely, by women's societies, on the ground that legislation was being rather levelled at their sex, and that discrimination was made in favour of the men. I think that so far as the Army is concerned, it is only fair that the public should understand that it is a military offence to contract this disease. It is, first of all, a military offence not to admit it by those who have grounds for thinking that they have it, that is, by submitting themselves to the doctor at the daily inspection. Apart from that, a penalty is inflicted on a man when he has it. His proficiency pay is cut off. I do not know what the exact effect of this may be under war conditions, but so far as peace time is concerned, it is a very serious penalty. His proficiency pay is cut off until he is able to rejoin the ranks and do duty. Another punishment was confinement to barracks, and being debarred from such recreation rooms as were available, including the canteens. I only mention this to show that we are prepared to apply the King's Regulations certains pains and penalties to the soldier who has contracted the disease, that pressure is put upon him to get cured as rapidly as possible, but that we are afraid to apply it to the civil population. That seems to me quite illogical.
  Passing from that for a minute to more war considerations, I must ask the War Office, if it will, to pay closer attention to the care of the soldier when he comes home on leave. It is only a few months ago that the following scene might be witnessed. Hundreds of them may be seen on the arrival platforms, and they are exhausted men. Soon after arrival they are paid, and as soon as they pass through the barrier often there is someone waiting to lure them off Surely, if the War Office do not look after the soldiers in this respect, it is asking a good deal from the Local Government Board to deal with the matter in other directions. I think it could be dealt with, in the first place, in the camps, and, secondly, when the soldier comes home on leave. With regard to my views as to the treatment of the civil population, I do not think anyone need be
  2094
  afraid of the re-entry into British legislation of the Contagious Diseases Acts. Many of the suggestions which have been made, none of which are incorporated in the Bill which will be brought forward on Wednesday next, have no relation to the Contagious Diseases Acts of the old days and are as different as chalk and cheese. One of the essential conditions of the Contagious Diseases Acts is that there should be State brothels, but that has been made impossible and legislated against in the measures which have been adopted.
  The suggestion I put forward is one which I think was frightened out of court at the commencement of the discussions during the weeks that have gone by. My suggestion is that it should be a criminal offence not to report yourself to a doctor when you have grounds for suspecting that you have this disease. This condition is imposed upon the soldier, and penalties are attached for non-compliance, and under these circumstances I do not see why the same rules should not apply to a civilian, whether to a man or to a woman. I know the word "notification" is something at which many people jib. I do not see why anybody should be afraid of the word "notification," and I suggest that there should be compulsory powers for a man or a woman to notify the disease to a medical practitioner, and, if they fail to take the treatment ordered, then it should be the duty of the medical practitioner to pass that name on to some other authority. I do not think that is imposing too great a burden on the public, in view of the magnitude of this evil. If persons, after the disease has been notified, refuse to attend treatment, they thereby make themselves into a walking menace to society and a danger to the public, and they ought to be treated in a very drastic manner. It is only at. that stage that the word "notification" becomes serious. If a patient refuses to continue treatment after notification, the local medical authority should have power, either from a magistrate or from a Court, to apprehend the person and detain that person—I suggest for not more than four weeks—until cured.
  The Under - Secretary to the Local Government Board (Mr. Hayes Fisher) said that people would not resign their liberty, but we have to remember that we have got to fight our battles abroad, and under these circumstances it is just as well to make up our minds to resign

  2095
  our individual liberty and hand it over to the Government to increase our chance of success. At the present time in the War we are giving all we possess, and we are prepared to give up more, and if the public refuse to give up their liberty in order to enable the Government to handle drastically a plague which is ravaging not only our soldiers, but the men and the women in the civil population and the children who follow after, I call that a miserable form of false pride. I admit that the women's view on this subject is very important, but I do not think that it has been properly cultivated or ascertained, and that if the full weight of women's opinion could be properly ascertained, I feel sure it would lie in the direction of drastic legislation. I think the want of agreement on this subject amongst women is due to the fact that they believe that we desire to legislate against them as a sex, and it is the duty of the Government to show that we have no intention of doing that, and to convince them that what is fair for the men is also fair for the women.
  I said something just now about the Canadians who had suffered in this War, but I would like to ask what will the Canadian mothers say upon this subject? What a pity it is that we do not throw off some of the hypocrisy and the sham with regard to this subject! The women of Canada have given of their best in the men, and they have sent them to the War; in fact, in Canada the women have made the men go, and it was largely the women there who made it impossible for any man of able-bodied age to stay behind. If the women do this, are they not entitled to demand that we should do for the soldiers what I am asking the House to do? I would go further on this point. We have have now entering into the War another partner, who has very strong views on this subject, and the Americans look things very directly in the face. I have had some considerable experience of them in the East and in the West, and I can assure hon. Members that they will not tolerate or forgive this country if we play with an evil of this magnitude, and do not do our utmost to cure it and save their people from becoming sufferers. I believe if we do not do our best to satisfy them of our intentions and by our performances in checking this evil, it will do a good deal to undermine the loyalty and the harmony which exists at the present time. I gather that the Government
  2096
  attitude on this measure is largely one of leaving the question to solve itself. I do not say that in any offensive sense, but it amounts to that. They are prepared to set up free institutions and machinery, but the general attitude they adopt towards the question is one of letting people work out their own salvation with a little bit of assistance. I do not think that is a rapid enough way of dealing with this question, and I think that if the method I have suggested, or a similar one were adopted, we might get good results before the summer is over, instead of waiting for these free institutions, because by the time they are established the summer will have gone before they can come into active operation.
  It may be true that you cannot make-a nation either moral or sober entirely by legislation, but you can do a great deal; you can remove temptation, and in a case of this kind where a person becomes a public nuisance and danger, you can punish the offenders after you have given them reasonable notice. This has been honestly described as a. plague, and I ask the House, before it is too late, to take great care that this plague does not get out of control. You come to a condition in society where everything is a little bit loose and disconnected, your doctors are getting tired of this subject, their numbers are getting short, and only within the last few days there has been an additional call of 1,400 or 1,500 doctors to do further work in France. With a shortage of men to handle it, and with less officials in different parts of England to control the department, I think there is a danger that this plague may get out of control. We are in the middle of the third year of the War, and probably as most people admit we are arriving at the climax of intensity, and you are getting many people with their nerves in an overwrought and strained condition, and such men are inclined to say, "I will have a short life and a merry one, because what does it matter what I do before my turn comes?" In this way you get everything disorganised, and under these conditions you will find evil and plague raise their heads higher than they otherwise would do. I hope it is not too late for the Government to reconsider the inadvisability of putting forward so small a measure to deal with so big a case. I ask on behalf of the Army and on behalf of a large section of the public who are prepared to face this question 4hat what I have asked should

  2097
  be done. I ask the Government to look this question fairly in the face and to reconsider the inadvisability of bringing forward such a small measure to deal with so dreadful a plague.
  Sir WILLIAM COLLINS: The hon. Member who has just spoken has emphasised the magnitude and importance of this question, and he seems to think that there was a tendency on the part of previous speakers to minimise the seriousness of this social evil. He has also incidentally raised the question whether other principles ought not to be considered in approaching anything like a satisfactory solution of the problem of how to deal with this serious matter of venereal diseases. I agree with the speaker who moved the rejection of this measure in complimenting the former President and the Noble Lord (Lord Rhondda) upon the activity they have shown in taking advantage of the Report of the Royal Commission and in making provision for subsidies by the State to the extent of 75 per cent. of the cost of the diagnosis and treatment of venereal diseases. I cannot help thinking, however, that the legislative efforts of the Government have not been quite so fortunate as their administrative efforts. It is our duty to inquire what are the principles which should underlie the policy in dealing with these questions of contagious diseases, and what is the relation between the administrative efforts which have been made and the two legislative projects which have been brought before this House.
  Two courses were open to the Local Government Board—either to endeavour to see how far legislation in regard to infectious diseases was capable of extension to these contagious diseases or to follow the Report of the Royal Commission. The Government has not seen fit to do either. The other Bill, which has been through Grand Committee, and which is coming back again to this House, made it a crime for a person suffering from a venereal disease to perform certain acts or to solicit to the performance of those acts, and this Bill now introduced invites the suppression of unqualified practise or the prescription of remedies by unqualified persons for these particular diseases, and these alone. The first proposal embodied in the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill was not recommended by the Royal Commission. It was silent on the subject, and when that particular question was inquired into in
  2098
  1870 a Royal Commission then condemned it, because it thought that anything like an enactment of that kind would be likely to produce a great deal of blackmailing. With regard to the second proposal in this. new. Bill, the Royal Commission did not recommend the suppression of unqualified practice. It might very well be asked whether the two things are not somewhat contradictory. Administratively, under legislative powers which I think were never intended to deal with cases of contagious diseases—they were originally introduced in connection with epidemic and infectious diseases, notably cholera—centres for diagnosis and treatment have been established over a large part of the country under secrecy and confidence, and the very fact that you are providing free efficacious diagnosis and treatment under secrecy and confidence one would have thought might have been sufficient to attract those who desire to be treated in that way to these publicly provided centres. At the same time, to introduce a proposal to suppress unqualified practice seems to imply a certain mistrust of the administrative provision you have made, free and confidentially, for those who desire to avail themselves of it. It seems that the Local Government Board desire to exercise vis a tergo as well as vis a fronte, and that they are not content to rely upon the efficacy of the provision they have made.
  A great deal has been said about quacks. It is not a term easily capable of definition. It belong to that class of question begging epithets which imply their own condemnation, but I am not quite certain that it would be possible in regard to a profession, which after all is experimental, to draw up a definition of an empiric which would include all those unqualified practitioners, and not at the same time apply to some of those who are qualified. I do ask the House seriously to consider what are the principles which ought to underlie the policy of the legislature with regard to unqualified practice. Allusion has already been made to the case of the bone-setter: I have only returned to this House within the last couple of months or so, but at Question Time I have often heard the case of the manipulative practitioner spoken of in the highest terms, and endeavours have been; made to see that he receives recognition at the hands of Government Departments. In the case of the Insurance Act special provision was made under a particular

  2099
  Regulation whereby a man might contract for treatment by an unqualified practitioner, and a good deal was said at that time with regard to the free choice of a doctor. Quite recently I have seen a Report of a Departmental Committee on the subject of the use of cocaine in dentistry in which it is recommended that a whole body of unqualified and unregistered persons should receive recognition by the Home Secretary for certain purposes.
  These things may be right or they may be wrong, but I confess that I am a little perturbed at the suggestion that unqualified practice with regard to these particular diseases which the State has largely undertaken to treat should be suppressed and that in all other directions it should be permitted. It seems to me that this Bill and the other Bill might be more suitably sent to a Select Committee than be subjected to the mauling which the other Bill has received at the hands of a Grand Committee upstairs. I submit that the present law with regard to unqualified practice is not illiberal, and I like to say that because I notice in the literature which has been circulated among Members that the profession of medicine is sometimes represented as claiming a greedy monopoly in the practice of medicine and surgery. The present law in regard to that subject is by no means illiberal. It was in 1858 that the legislature passed a medical Act whereof the Preamble said,
  "Whereas it is expedient that persons requiring medical aid should be enabled to distinguish qualified from unqualified practitioners."
  It did not forbid the practice of unqualified practitioners. It did not say, "It shall not be open to anybody to give advice or to sell advice or to offer to undertake any medical or surgical treatment." It forbad the giving of death certificates and precluded persons except those qualified from giving treatment in the Army or Navy, but it did not set up any rigid or close monopoly. I cannot help thinking, therefore, that this new departure in the case of these particular diseases is exceptional and anomalous. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that practice by the quack in the case of these particular diseases is most pernicious and objectionable, and from every medical and surgical point of view to be condemned—and when in addition to trading on the
  2100
  ignorance of the person the quack trades on the sense of shame, I feel it is a very despicable act. I do not desire adventitious protection for the profession against that kind of practice which ought to carry its own condemnation. There is also the case of the tuberculosis quack and the cancer quack The recent Departmental Committee on Patent Medicines said:
  "Amongst fradulent secret remedies the alleged cure for tuberculosis are perhaps the worst of all."
  I am not at all sure that the tuberculosis quack is not more shameful, and that the cancer quack is not worse than either. If you are going to put down unqualified practice at all it would be better to put it down altogether rather than deal with this particular corner of it alone. At the same time I wish to recognise that the practice of medicine, though a science, is not an exact science but a progressive science, and a science that should look for new light from any quarter from which it may proceed. The science or the individual which would silence all criticism would claim infallibility, and infallibility in medicine is the monopoly only of the charlatan or the exceedingly young practitioner. Personally. I should be prepared to see the practice of scientific medicine and surgery, which needs no justification, stand upon its own merits without these illegitimate rivals being suppressed under penalty of hard labour or fine. The profession suffers rather than gains by association with the policemen and the gaoler in enforcing its prescriptions, and I would rather see it rest upon its own merits and upon the force which attaches to moral suasion.
  Mr. GLYN-JONES: The statement which the right hon. Gentleman has made as to the progress of the Department during the last few months in setting up institutions for the treatment of the diseases which are the subject of this Bill will be well received in this House; but I am inclined to think that those who have taken any special interest in public health matters will regard the Bill itself with mixed feelings. I think they thought that it would have been said that the reason for bringing in this Bill in this particular narrow form was in order to meet a special war difficulty, but I understood from the right hon. Gentleman that it was not put forward as a war measure. We have had some figures given by the hon. and gallant Member (Captain Guest), who spoke from the Front Opposition Bench as to these diseases in the Army; but I think

  2101
  I am right in saying that it is almost impossible to get really satisfactory and reliable data which will enable anyone to say what is the degree of mischief which has to be met. It is common knowledge that the mischief is one of long standing. and I would have preferred that the House were dealing with this matter in normal times, when we could go into the whole question in a way which I am afraid is quite impossible under the circumstances. It is right to say that the present day provision for the prevention—and I lay a good deal of stress on prevention—cure, and relief of those diseases is unsatisfactory; but I have every sympathy with the hon. Member for Somerset (Mr. King) when he said that he would have preferred this matter to have been dealt with as part of the great problem of public health and of the practice of medicine in this country. It is a matter of common knowledge that the right hon. Gentleman's Department and the Government as a whole are seriously contemplating setting up a Ministry of Public Health, and there is a great deal to be said for not touching this matter at the moment. If yon do seriously intend setting up a Ministry of Public Health, you would be more likely to get a satisfactory provision dealing with this particular difficulty if it were dealt with by such a Department with the special knowledge of that Department and in connection with all the other problems appertaining to medicine.
  I. believe, however, that it may be argued that the excuse for dealing with this subject in this way at this time is due to the desire to take advantage of the quickened humanitarian interest from which such speeches as that we heard from the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite arise. The hon. Gentleman who just sat down (Sir W. Collins), whose views upon this subject are entitled to the greatest respect owing to the special knowledge he possesses, referred to the first Statute which deals with the practice of medicine, namely, the Apothecaries Act. I mention it. for reasons which will appear in. a moment. There the Legislature made it a penal offence for anyone to act or practise as an apothecary who was not a certified apothecary. That to-day is still the law of the land. It is still illegal for any person to act as an apothecary if he is not in fact a certified apothecary. I am satisfied that a good many of the practices of quacks, with which this Bill is intended to deal, could be dealt with
  2102
  effectively under the Apothecaries Act if that Act in fact were enforced. It is a mistake to keep putting on the Statute Book Acts of Parliament which, for some reason or other, are found to be unworkable and which are not enforced. When you come to deal with the subject again, instead of admitting that the old Act was a mistake and scrapping or amending it, you go off on another line entirely and bring in a new measure. One ought, perhaps, to define as nearly as one can what acting as an apothecary really means. The Courts have decided that. Years ago case after case occurred in which people were summoned by the Society of Apothecaries, the only people who could enforce that Act for penalties. The Courts said that acting as an apothecary was to diagnose a disease and prescribe a remedy for it. If the provisions of the Apothecaries Act were enforced against unqualified people who are to-day dealing with this disease, I have no hesitation in saying that nine-tenths of the evil which this Bill is intended to but would be removed. We do not enforce them, but we leave the Act on the Statute Book, and now start off on this new line.
  There is another aspect of the question which I feel bound to put to the Mouse. In this Bill you are giving—I think rightly—to the medical profession the sole right to treat these diseases. The whole question of the treatment of disease and who is to carry it out ought to be dealt with at one and the same time. If that were done, we should then, perhaps, examine what we have done under the Insurance Act, in which we have provided for the medical treatment of about 14,000,000 of the insured population of this country. Under that Act every insured person is entitled to receive at the hands of a qualified medical man treatment for this disease. The country has not apparently gone so far as the hon. and gallant Gentleman desires, for, if I understood him aright, he would go so far as to say that not only shall a person consult a doctor, but that he shall consent to be treated by that doctor, whatever treatment that doctor chooses to give him, or otherwise be guilty of an offence, be taken into custody, and kept in confinement. It is more or less natural that a soldier comes to think that you have the right to do anything by compulsion, but it is a very long step from compulsory military service to compulsory medical treatment. I do not think the country would be ready for compulsory

  2103
  medical treatment. When you gave the 14,000,000 of people the right to treatment by qualified practitioners, you recognised the different functions of the doctor and the pharmacist. You said in regard to these 14,000,000 that the doctor should prescribe and treat, and that the pharmacist could dispense, except in emergency cases and in rural areas.
  This Bill confers privileges upon the medical practitioner which are not already possessed by him. The Bill confines itself to venereal diseases, and it provides that the treatment should, for the first time by law, be limited to the medical profession, whilst allowing doctors when treating other than insured persons, to buy and sell for profit to their patients any drugs or appliances they might require. That is contrary to the fundamental principles which have always been recognised between the leaders of these two professions. It is contrary to the practice of every European country, and certainly contrary to the practice the country has set up in regard to the 14,000,000 of insured population. The pharmacists have every desire to see the treatment for these diseases as well as all other diseases in the hands of those who possess such a hallmark as the State will give them of their qualification, but they do find it difficult--I say this quite seriously--to understand how the medical profession does not realise the illogical and inconsistent position they occupy in supporting this movement, while at the same time insisting that they shall have the right not only to an income which they derive from the fees for their own professional work, but also to turn into customers patients whom the law compels to consult the doctors or go without treatment, out of whom they make a profit for selling the remedies which they supply. The pharmacists are not claiming too much when they say that if you give the medical profession the sole right to prescribe for patients who cannot get treatment anywhere else, you first of all drive the patients to them, and that sole right carries. with it the ability to usurp the functions of another profession, and to make a profit out of buying and selling the remedies which are supplied to those patients.
  So much for the general objection to the Bill. There is a serious flaw in the first Clause. The House will notice that the prohibition against treating this disease by unqualified practitioners is confined to
  2104
  areas. The right hon. Gentleman has explained why that is so. He says that they are not prepared to impose the provisions of this Bill except in areas where they have institutions for treatment. It has been said that the result of this Bill will be to drive patients into those institutions. We might as well know exactly, as far as we can ascertain it, what will happen. What will happen is this: Of course, everyone will be compelled to consult a doctor. If the patient is in a position to pay the doctor his fees, unless it is a case requiring treatment by Salvarsan or one of the substitutes for Salvarsan, the doctor will treat that patient. The patient who can afford to pay will not be sent to an institution. Indeed, if he can afford to pay, he will secure Salvarsan treatment and will not be sent to an institute. He will be sent to Harley Street, to another man in the profession, who will act as a consultant, and between them, rightly enough—I am not complaining in the least, but let us understand what is going to happen—they will charge the fees to which they are justly entitled for treating these diseases. The institution is only set up for the special treatment of syphilis, which is only one of these diseases. I do not think that the Local Government Board would argue that the ordinary general medical practitioner is unfitted to do work, such as the treating of ordinary gonorrhoea, without sending the patient to an institution. The setting up of the institution is due to the fact that during the last ten or twelve years a special system of treatment for these diseases has come into vogue which was as new to the profession ten years ago as it is to the quack to-day. It has established itself on evidence which is regarded to-day as satisfactory, and it is a form of treatment which cannot be given by the ordinary general practitioner. What will happen when this Bill goes through is that the people who to-day go to quacks or who buy remedies from chemists will go to the doctors, and that in the case of those who are too poor to pay and who will require Salvarsan treatment they will be sent by the doctor to an institution. If they are suffering from the minor forms of these diseases-one is thankful to say they are by far the majority of cases which come within the term "venereal diseases"—they will be better treated by doctors than by quacks, but they will not be treated in institutions.
  6.0 p.m.
  According to the right hon. Gentleman, however, it is only in ninety-five

  2105
  out of 145 areas where these provisions will be enforced. One heard in this House recently a suggestion that you might enforce an Act of Parliament in one part of the country which liked it, but not in another part which did not like it. In a question of this sort it is no attraction to say that you are only going to enforce the Bill in districts which are constituted as areas. You have to ask the local authority whether it is to become an area, because you cannot cumpulsorily sot up an institution there. You have to go to the local authority and get them to set up an institution. it you deal with this question piecemeal, you are running a serious risk. Everyone in the area who objects to this Bill and wants to continue the present arrangements will be against institutions being set up and will use all the influence they possess to block the local authority in setting up the institution, because they will say that once the institution is there you bring in the scheme which is enforced under the Bill. Suppose, for instance, there is an institute in Manchester. What is the use of raying to the people in Manchester, "You shall not go to a quack in Manchester, but you can in Salford"? There are now, according to the right hon. Gentleman, about fifty areas in this country where any quack could treat these diseases, and anyone can go to him without being amenable to the law. That objection is very much worse when we come to the second sub-Clause of the Bill prohibiting the sale of certain articles. This, again, is only in areas. What is the good of saying to people in London, "You shall not sell or buy these articles," if people in Bristol or Cardiff or Brighton can sell them and send them on by post or in any other way? The provision will not work in that way. In the view of the pharmacists it is absolutely unworkable. It is made an offence to offer to supply or dispense any drug or medicine or other preparation as a remedy for venereal disease. What constitutes the sale of anything as a remedy? The offence for which a person is to be liable to two years imprisonment is to sell a thing as a remedy for these diseases. In what circumstance is the sale of an article a sale as a remedy for these diseases?
  There are dozens of common, well-known drugs which are used for all sorts of diseases, and, therefore, a person going into a pharmacist's shop may say, "I want a little weak solution of sulphate of
  2106
  znic," and it may be for an eyewash or it may be used as an injection. Or he may ask for half a dozen grey powders. It may be that he is in a tertiary stage of syphilis, and is taking powders for them, or that he has got some noisy twins, and is taking them home for the babies—for they are one of the most common remedies given to children. How can you make an offence by an Act of Parliament by saying, "you shall not sell as a remedy," unless you define what are the circumstances which constitute the selling of the article as a remedy?' Then it is provided that it shall not be sold unless it is dispensed under and in accordance with the written prescription of a duly qualified medical practitioner. The onus is upon the seller to prove that what he did was to sell something upon the prescription of a medical practitioner. Twenty-five years ago I saw a good deal of what purported to be prescriptions of medical practitioners, brought into my own shop. What is a prescription? Something written in dog Latin. A person comes in—a stranger; he brings what is called a prescription, with a name upon it that can seldom be read, and some stuff called Latin on it. Any schoolboy could write the signs after a little instruction. As a rule there are only initials underneath which nobody can read. How is the man behind the counter to know, first of all, that it is a prescription, and then that it is the prescription of a duly qualified medical man? How can you throw upon him the onus, having satisfied himself that it is a prescription, and that a medical man wrote it, of then satisfying himself that it is supplied for the use of the person for whom the remedy has been prescribed? How can he say, when an article is sold across the counter, for whose use or for what use the article sold is going to be employed?
  Sub-Clause 2 of the Bill is absolutely unworkable. The way to deal with the matter is by means of an Amendment, which I hope the Home Office will consent to include in the Bill, dealing with the advertising of remedies for these diseases. If you provide that nobody shall by advertisement or label hold out anything for the prevention, cure or relief of these diseases, that is as far as you can possibly go, or as far as it is practicable, and then you had better drop Clause 2 of the Bill. It is a great pity to have two Government Departments dealing with the same sub-

  2107
  ject in two Bills, one of which has gone up to the Grand Committee, and will be down in this House on Report stage on Wednesday. They overlap in this particular. It would be very much better if the Home Office and the Local Government Board between them decide, between now and Wednesday, whether they will deal with this particular side of the subject in the Home Office Bill by means of that Amendment, or whether they are going to substitute that Amendment for Clause 2 of this Bill. The pharmacists for whom I am speaking desire me to say that the last thing which they would desire to do is to prevent in any way the treatment of any disease, and they agree that there is a case, not stronger than in reference to tuberculosis or other diseases, that the ignorant public should be protected from the charlatan and the quack; but they think that this is the wrong way of doing it, and that it would be much better to deal with the question as a whole. They would be sorry to be the means of preventing this Bill going through, but I assure the right hon. Gentleman that so far as sub-Clause 2 and the provision limiting application to areas are concerned, they will meet with the most strenuous opposition. I shall be glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman that he is prepared to consider the suggestions which I have made.
  Sir J. D. REES: The hon. Member for Derby, in his speech, which as usual was weighty and well informed, said that the hon. Member for Somerset (Mr. King) had moved the rejection of this Bill. I think, however, that he merely put down the Motion and that he spoke upon and criticised the Bill, and I thought that there was a great deal in his criticisms. He did not, like the hon. and gallant Gentleman on the Front Bench, deal with another Bill which is before the Committee upstairs. My knowledge of this matter is not like that of the hon Member for Somerset, whose knowledge of diseases and medicines ranges from shingles to syphilis and from soothing syrup to Salvarsan, but I know something about it because at one time as cantonment magistrate I have seen the ravages of these diseases upon our soldiers. But that does not make me think that any remedy that is put forward is likely to be efficacious. Venereal disease just now is in the air—I wish it were nowhere else—and the Government are being pressed to legislate, and it seems to
  2108
  me that you are in great danger in legislating without remembering the saying of the most philosophical, perhaps the greatest, of historians that the more corrupt the republic the more numerous the laws. What we have to consider is whether this particular Bill is likely to have any effect in generally arresting the ravages of syphilis. It seems to me to be worse than useless, and I confess that though I appreciate very much the speech of my hon, and gallant Friend, as showing how serious this matter is to our troops, yet he did not deal with this Bill and show how it was in any way going to remedy the ravages of this disease in France.
  The Report of the Royal Commission has been referred to many times. I will not attempt to criticise it, but I am sure that they have exaggerated the matter most enormously. I have had the advantage of discussing the question with a great many practitioners, who have assured me that the ravages of venereal diseases are exaggerated in that Report. That is likely to be the effect of any Report on the subject coming at a time when there is general attention naturally directed to it on account of the necessity, which is greater than ever now, of having our troops fit to fight in the field. But surely the only question before the House now is this particular Bill. It is most inconvenient that two Bills should be before the House. Whether this Bill is due to the efforts of the House of Lords to assert that concurrent jurisdiction which has been so often condemned in this quarter I really do not know. But the result is that we have one Bill upstairs before the Committee, and another Bill down in this House which is going before the Committee, where I prophesy that it will be pounded into pieces like its predecessor. How is it possible to provide that a person shall not treat a case, unless he is a duly qualified practitioner, and so on, according to the Section?
  Take the case of the administration of Salvarsan. That has been described here as a patent medicine. I suppose that it practically is that, but it results from that that any person with any surgical knowledge, or any person merely instructed ad hoc, could perfectly well administer this drug as well as the most capable surgeon or the most capable doctor in the three Kingdoms. Why, then, should it be made an offence for a person to study the administration of this particular drug, which

  2109
  by common consent is the most likely to amend this most serious of diseases? Yet that would be the result of that Bill. A manipulative surgeon might be able to administer it far better than anybody else. I suppose that a man like Mr. Barker would probably administer Salvarsan far better because of his manipulative skill than any ordinary practitioner, but not only would he be ruled out by this Bill, but he would be made subject to serious penalty. My right hon. Friend declared at one period of his speech how far more serious are the ravages of venereal diseases among the civil and military elements in Germany than in this country. What was the inference from that as to the necessity of introducing this Bill? I should have thought, if any deduction were to be drawn, that the argument was the other way about. The right hon. Gentleman has now an opportunity of explaining what he meant, if he cares to avail himself of it. The Section goes on to say, that any person who is not a duly qualified medical practitioner is not to give any advice to the person who is to be treated or to any other person. It seems to me that if any one man said to another, "Tell A B C he had better try Salvarsan," he would be subject to this penalty, unless some words are added "to another person duly authorised on his behalf to receive such advice." This Section, it seems to me, might expose to these penalties anybody in the world who indulged rashly in conversation. Then, again, it is a matter of the most common knowledge that mercury is, in a way, I believe, a specific; at any rate, a treatment. Is anybody who advises another person to take a mercury pill to be subjected to these penalties, and is anybody who provides it to be a criminal? I remember seeing chalked upon the walls of a hospital, occupied by people of no very great intelligence or education, who were suffering from this disease, a pseudo-classical representation, entitled "The advent of Mercury and the flight of Syphilis," something in the style of the Elgin marbles. The whole population knows that mercury is a specific; is it really to be supposed that nobody can re-cominend a supply of it who is not a qualified practitioner? The hon. Member for Stepney who spoke seemed to me to riddle this part of the Bill with his criticisms, and therefore I shall not venture to trouble the House with saying any more about it.
  2110
  Then, we have another Sub-section which, says that a person shall not sell, offer or dispense any drug or other preparation as a remedy for the disease. Surely you must, therefore, insert the words "other than remedies which are universally acknowledged by the medical profession to be efficacious in that behalf"; otherwise one trembles to think what might be the effect upon persons who mean well and are really doing good, but who have unfortunately offended against this drastic and, as I think, hardly well-considered legislation. The hon. and gallant Member who spoke from these benches was carried away, I think, by his. desire—a very natural and proper desire—to save the soldiers, but he made a general plea for equality of treatment. How can there be any equality of treatment upon this subject as between the sexes so long as the profession of prostitution is recruited, and must be recruited, from one sex? It seems to me that his speech, however well-intended, neither went to the root of the subject nor dealt with the Bill before the House. My right hon. Friend, in speaking, was very anxious to explain that this Bill dealt with exceptional cases; that this was an exceptional matter; and that therefore it was permissible to create a law applicable to these cases which would not be applicable to others. I can only say that if hard cases make bad law, exceptional cases make worse law. This particular Bill, it seems to me, is hardly needed; and if it is needed and is really to be considered and is likely to be in any degree efficacious, it should, at least, be most drastically amended and filled with safeguards. Otherwise, perfectly well-meaning people, meaning well in their limited sphere of doing good, may be subject to exceedingly severe penalties without any good accruing to the public.
  The right hon. Gentleman said nothing about the cost, which would result from the general application of this Bill. The hon. Member for Stepney showed that a partial application of a Bill would simply lead to a transference of the place in which the offences were committeed from one area to another, and therefore, if the Government began to enforce it they would have to do so generally. I think the right hon. Gentleman contemplates that. The right hon. Gentleman did not favour the House with even the roughest calculation of what would be the expense of the operation of the Bill. That would be a material consideration, especially at a

  2111
  time like this, when in all directions expense of every sort and kind is on the increase.
  Mr. DILLON: In my opinion, having sat in committee upstairs on a Criminal LAW (Amendment) Bill, this Bill and the criminal LAW (Amendment) Bill are rattier bad specimens of panic legislation, and of all legislation that is the worst. one particular subject with which this Bill deals is one of the very worst subjects which we can select for panic legislation, because it is one of the most difficult things to legislate for that can possibly be presented to any assembly of workers; it is full of pitfalls and subtleties, and requires an almost lifelong acquaintance with the technical and medical aspects of the case. Now, I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for Derby, and the view which he put forward on behalf of the profession to which I was proud to belong. That profession has never gained, but, on the contrary, has lost ground whenever an attempt has been made, as it frequently has been made, in its past history, to obtain a monopoly and to enact severe penalties against any people encroaching upon its privileges. That is a sign not of strength but of weakness. The profession of medicine and surgery is one of the greatest and most blessed that it is the privilege of a human being to enter, but. like all other professions—like the Churches, which have often suffered from the same disease—like all other professions open to human beings, there grows up a spirit of monopoly and hatred of any attempt, on the part of "poachers," if I may call them so, to intrude on the domain which they consider to be sacred to their particular cause. The inevitable result of that has always been to lower the tone of the profession, and to limit and check its desire to obtain knowledge and information from every source, no matter from what quarter it may come. The Government were driven into this, and, as has been so frequently the case, as in many other matters since the War commenced, they are really under the lash of an ignorant and unlearned Press, which, without understanding these matters at all, has called out that something must be done to check this great and terrible evil. It is great and terrible, but the gentlemen who wrote these articles are not at all acquainted with the history of the various efforts and attempts that have been made to deal with this great and terrible evil;
  2112
  their idea is this—we saw it in the Committee upstairs—"put into your Bill stringent Clauses inflicting severe punishments," and that has been done. That is the last way we should proceed; if we pass these drastic Bills with severe penalties, and apply them, either the Bill becomes entirely inoperative and is proved to be useless in that way, or else you raise a tremendous body of public opinion against you, and its operation is impeded in that way. Now, why should the Government undertake to raise this vast question of the legal protection of the profession of medicine on this one particular issue and in respect of this one particular disease? I think that is one of the most difficult and drastic questions which the Government could possibly raise, and this is a most drastic example of the danger. The hon. Gentleman who spoke from the Front Bench made a long and efficient speech, but he never referred to this Bill at all. He was talking about the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, which is not before the House at all. His speech only shows the temper of mind in which, at the present moment, the public, some Members of the House and the Press approach this subject. Now, this proposal has for its object to force everybody who has the misfortune to contract one of these diseases to place himself under the care of a qualified medical man. I want to say, first of all, that it is a long time since I studied medicine, but I am sorry to say that in those days—J hope it has improved since then—to imagine that because you placed yourself under the care of a qualified medical man who had a degree that you had therefore placed yourself under the care of a man who had had any experience in the treatment of this disease or was fitted to deal with it. was one of the greatest delusions that could possibly be held.
  Mr. KING: The Report says it is so still.
  Mr. DILLON: I am very sorry to hear it, because I have been out of the medical world for a long time, but in my day men were turned out of the schools duly qualified who could not have diagnosed this disease, and were wholly incompetent to treat it. I pass that by, however, but it only shows the enormous difficulty of Bills of this kind. Looking at it from a broader point of view, as regards the treatment by alleged quacks, or by nonqualified men—because it does not follow absolutely that a non-qualified man should

  2113
  be a quack—it is an absolute fact that some very great improvements in medicine and surgery have been the result of the wit and intelligence of a non-qualified man. Now, I myself, travelling in Italy many years ago, met a gentleman who introduced himself to me—we travelled for some days together—as Mr. Ainger, of Boston. He told me the whole history of his discovery of Ainger's Emulsion, which is very well known to medical Members of this House, and which is now prescribed throughout the civilised earth by qualified men as a very efficient remedy for a certain disease of the chest, and many other sorts of diseases. The result of the discovery was that he made a colossal fortune, and this remedy is now prescribed by thousands of qualified men. But when he first started his remedy, as he explained to me—it had arisen in his mind through reading medical books and observing certain difficulties in the administration of one particular drug which was known to be very effective in this way, but which could not be obtained in a digestible and easily stimulated form; and after years of labour he succeeded, with the assistance of some chemists whom he hired, in obtaining this drug in that form—the qualified medical men of Boston declared war on (him, and he had the greatest possible difficulty in getting anybody to take his drug. Now, this Bill would have actually put him in gaol, and would have made it impossible for him to produce this remedy. That would be the case in a great many other things.
  There is another aspect which I would recommend to Members of this House. One hon. Gentleman said that everybody knew that mercury was a specific in this unhappy disease. There is a great amount of difference of opinion in the medical profession on that, and I know that when I was in practice in the medical profession anybody who recommended mercury as a specific would have been denounced as a quack. It had passed entirely out of use, and we were taught, in the school of that time, the most appalling stories of the ruin and destruction that had been wrought on tens of thousands of unhappy men who had been placed in the hands of duly qualified practitioners and treated by mercury; how they were slowly ruined, and their constitutions destroyed for life. We were warned against that treatment. But that treatment, I know, had, for forty years before, been accepted in the schools as
  2114
  the authorised treatment for every person suffering from this disease Now, you must always remember, as the hon. Member for Derby said, that medicine is a progressive science. It has made great mistakes, which have often extended over whole generations of practitioners and inflicted great suffering on the human race. But observe the effect of that principle, which cannot be denied, on this Bill. Salvarsan is now, I believe, the accepted remedy. Who can tell that the time may not come when Salvarsan will meet the fate of mercury and be denounced as one of the greatest curses, as I have heard it denounced, that ever fell on the human race? I believe it has somewhat recovered its name now, but that was the accepted doctrine at the schools when I was at school. Salvarsan may meet the same fate, and yet you propose to force the whole population to accept whatever is the orthodox medicine or treatment of the day and be guilty almost of a criminal offence; in fact, you cut off every resource from them unless they accept the remedy. That is a most dangerous principle, and what is the effect of it? I have watched that very much in the course of the years I have been in the House, and the effect of it is that the moment you commence legislation on these lines you create a set of objectors, conscientious or otherwise, and they increase. You might conceive of such legislation as this in Germany, where the people are more amenable to discipline and are accustomed to obey without calling in question whatever the State lays down, but the instinct of the Englishman is to kick. If you say to him, "You must do this," his instinct is to say, "I am damned if I will"; and if your legislation is on the face of it unreasonable and unjust, you are almost certain to be faced with popular opposition so widespread as to make your Bill impossible to administer. Therefore, I think you ought to be very cautious how you pass it.
  Further, I cannot understand on what principle the Government has split these Bills into two. The idea was to pass a measure dealing with the whole evil. Instead of that, the Government sent their Bill upstairs, and the result, which has rather justified the view of those who voted against sending it upstairs, is that we have an extraordinary Bill, which its author and draftsmen will not recognise when it gets through the House, if it ever

  2115
  does, dealing with a large section of the subject, and now they bring down this Bill from the House of Lords dealing with the same subject—another side of it, but a portion which ought to be in the main measure—and when the two Bills come before the House everyone will say that the common sense of it will be to get the whole scheme together, so that we can understand the whole plan of the Government to meet this evil. I think the Government will realise, before they have done with these two Bills, that they have put the cart before the horse. They have gone at this troublesome, sad, horrible and painful subject in a wrong spirit, that is the spirit of heavy penalties. Many of their penalties have been knocked to pieces in Committee. More will be knocked to pieces when the Bill conies into the House this week. Some of them were grotesque in their severity and in their operation. In my opinion the way to deal with the subject would have been to go at it first from the moral and economical side, because a great deal of the evil of this arises from economical causes—and also to have set up a Ministry of Health, the necessity of which, I rejoice to observe, has at last dawned upon the people of this country. It ought years ago to have occupied one of the foremost positions in the Ministry that is ruling this country.
  I have heard eloquent and heart-rending appeals about soldiers in this city wandering about and exposed to the most hideous temptations; It is perfectly true. You have only to go to Victoria, or any of the other great railway stations, and it is a reproach to the people of this country and the Government, and above all the War Office, to see crowds of strangers—soldiers—wandering about the streets, sitting down on the edge of railings and all kinds of places, where there ought to have been, according as this vast agglomeration of soldiers grew up, comfortable and attractive resorts abundantly provided for them. That is the way to keep them off the streets and out of these filthy public houses, all of which ought to have been closed up long ago in the neighbourhood of the big stations, and there ought to have been clubs. There are one or two started lately, but there ought to be abundant clubs where the soldiers could be made welcome and have social entertainment, agreeable amusement, warmth, light and comfort provided for them without wandering about the
  2116
  streets, as I have often seen them, wet and miserable, and therefore the victims of all kinds of temptation. These are the things which ought to be done, though I do not say that will complete the subject. The attempt to exterminate this disease by penal methods ought to be postponed until all other means have been exhausted and until you have got a Ministry of Health and a great machine, organised with the best intellect of the country, to take it into control. I have talked this matter over with medical men, and there are medical men who are so attracted—I do not quarrel with them—by the idea of trampling under foot all human feelings in the pursuit of an ideal state of health, that they take the view that we could, if we were brave enough, exterminate this disease altogether. So we could. I am convinced we could. We could exterminate it by compelling every human being in this country to submit to medical examination every six months, and seizing all the people infected with the disease and locking them up until they were cured. That would exterminate syphilis and all these diseases from this country within five years. But where is the man who is brave enough to propose it? You could exterminate this as you exterminated rabies by muzzling dogs. There are medical men who boldly advocate that course. I rather admire their ideals, but it is a bold course, and I do not think any statesman for a long time to come will have the courage to propose it. These little, petty remedies which we are now invited to apply ourselves to have most of the evils of a really radical system like that without the benefits, and therefore in my opinion the whole of this legislation is panic legislation. It is not a thought-out scheme, it is not practicable, it is a gross interference with public liberty, and it is legislation against one sex. There is no attempt in either Bill to do justice as between the two sexes, and there are proposals which some of us will fight to the bitter end before we allow them to pass, because they are scandalously unjust to the unhappy women on whom they would fall, and therefore I think the Government would be well advised to withdraw both Bills and reconsider them.
  Colonel Sir H. GREENWOOD: With certain of the hon. Member's remarks in reference to the difficulties which beset soldiers I am in hearty agreement, and

  2117
  I should like to emphasise what was said by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Dorsetshire (Captain Guest) in reference to the perverse sort of hospitality that has welcomed Colonial, and especially Canadian, troops to this Mother Country. It is in keeping with what the hon. Member (Mr. Dillon) has just said. Every Canadian soldier who comes to this country comes after months of segregation in a camp in Canada. He is examined before he goes on board the transport. That transport takes two, three, and sometimes four weeks to reach this country. He is examined on landing. He arrives here not only a first-class specimen of a fine soldier, but as cleanlimbed and as clean a man as the Creator Himself could create. The figures given by my hon. and gallant Friend, namely, that in one only of the three Canadian camps in this country 7,000 of these clean Canadian boys went through the hospital for venereal disease in fourteen months, is a record of negligence, largely Governmental, that is not only a great discredit to any Government in this country but has an effect in Canada which I can assure the House does not make for a better feeling with the Home Country, and does not make for what we all desire—Imperial unity. During a recent visit to the Dominion I met many fathers and mothers whose boys had been sent back to Canada debilitated and ruined for life because they had been enmeshed by some of the harpies who are still allowed to go very near the camps, and especially in this great Metropolis, and again and again these parents have said to me, "We do not mind our boys dying on the field of battle for old England, but to think that we sent our sons to England to come back to us ruined in health, and a disgrace to us, to them, and to the country, is something that the Home Country should never ask us to bear." To think that this is still going on is a criticism upon the Front Bench which I hope, by this and other Bills, and by administrative action, will be remedied as soon as possible.
  I welcome the Bill only as an instalment. It is a very small Bill, which deals with what I think is an important phase in this great question of venereal disease, and I disagree absolutely with the hon Member (Mr. Dillon) when he says it is the result of the lash of an ignorant and intolerant Press. That is not so. The Bill is supported by every authority which has dealt with the question. It is supported by all
  2118
  the county councils and municipal associations of this country—the very bodies which must administer, directly or indirectly, every Act of this Parliament which deals with this very serious menace to the health of the community. It is not fair, therefore, to say the Bill is introduced either because of the ignorance or intolerance of anyone. I did not know before that the hon. Member had been a medical man in his youth, which makes his speech all the more effective and interesting. I am sure he regrets as much as we all do that his student days were a long time ago. Happily he is quite independent of the medical profession as far as the vigour of his health is concerned. We need never deplore that he chose the green benches of the House rather than the other profession as his career. For thirty or forty years the medical profession have dealt with these diseases, and are they to be set aside?
  Mr. DILLON: How do you know that thirty or forty years hence there may not be some other treatment adopted by the medical profession?
  Sir H. GREENWOOD: I am aware that medical science is progressive.
  Mr. DILLON: That is all I said.
  Sir H. GREENWOOD: All we are dealing with in this Bill are forms of a disease which require personal and immediate diagnosis if they are to be cured at all. We know that the use of a certain drug immediately applied will stop the infectivity of this disease and will result in a permanent cure. That is not disputed. [HON. MEMBERS: "No; it is !"] I have not heard it disputed by anyone who speaks with authority in the medical profession.
  Mr. DILLON: I hope it is true.
  Sir H. GREENWOOD: It is not disputed by the medical profession, and in these three phases with which the Bill deals, a certain drug, if used in time, will work a permanent and quick cure. I submit, therefore, that this measure is only incorporating the stage of progress in medical science at which we have arrived to-day. If, in the next year or so, or at any time later, another stage is arrived at, then, if necessary, we can have another Bill. The House of Commons is not bound by any tradition or by any feeling of limit to its power; it is all-powerful. The hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) made a comparison between the treatment of lung disease with some emulsion or other

  2119
  and the opposition offered that remedy by the medical profession, but that is a comparison which, when applied to this disease, will not stand for a moment. The three phases of the disease provided for by this Bill depend upon immediate personal diagnosis, and the very essence of this measure is that the unfortunate people who contract this disease shall be certain of immediate professional and sympathetic treatment, in their own interests and in the interests of the whole community. I congratulate the President of the Local Government Board (Lord Rhondda), and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board (Mr. Hayes Fisher), on having introduced this Bill, which is a great advance in the study of health. I know that they are backed up by the great local authorities of the country. It is regrettable to think that only war makes clear the necessity of healthy men, and of dealing with this and other diseases; but, at any rate, we have this opportunity of passing a Bill that I hope will go through the House of Commons, and will be applied as rapidly as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board said it is already being applied, to various areas throughout the country. I think it is an earnest effort to deal with a disease which is largely due to lax administration in the past.
  Sir G. RADFORD: I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman who introduced this measure on having obtained what I think is the second supporter of the Bill. The hon. and gallant Member on the Front Bench gave it his support, and, I think, promised to vote for it, although, apparently, it is not the measure he wanted, and that he desired to see a very different one. The whale catches a sprat, but wants something more, and the hon. and gallant Member apparently hopes to get something more later on. I agree with my hon. Friend below the Gangway in his observations as to the right hon. Gentleman bringing in two Bills of a similar character, a procedure which will largely increase the difficulty of this House in dealing with the matter. By taking that course he has put the House in a difficult position in deciding with regard to these two measures. We have had great difficulty upstairs in dealing with the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, because we did not know what the Bill now before us would contain, and we shall be in a similar difficulty in dealing with this
  2120
  Bill, because we will have to dovetail it in with the other, so that the two may become one whole. The adoption of such a course places burdens on Members' shoulders which they ought not to be called upon to bear, and alone it is almost a sufficient reason for rejecting this measure. While listening to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in introducing it, I found that he himself gave some very excellent reasons either for dropping the Bill, or for postponing it, until the effect of the administrative scheme, to which he referred, had been duly ascertained. The right hon. Gentleman has put forward a method which, by securing confidential treatment of venereal disease, will meet most of the difficulties which have to be faced. He told us, in effect, that the measure was not pressing, that it was not a War measure, that the disease was not increasing, yet we are to devote our energies, that ought to be applied to the prosecuting of the War—and in that way they would be better employed—to dealing with a measure which has nothing whatever to do with the business which mainly occupies our minds at the present time. The right hon. Gentleman ingeniously cited the Reports of the Royal Commission, and he hinted at another Report which he did not cite. He did not dare to say, and could not say, that any Royal Commission had ever recommended the measure that he has brought forward to-day. If that is not a reason for rejecting it, certainly it is not a reason for proceeding with it. The medical profession, which has something to do with this matter, and on whom its success largely depends, do not want the Bill, and do not like it.
  I accept the statement of my hon. Friend the Member for Derby that the medical profession generally hold liberal views on the subject of compulsion, and do not desire to have any measure of compulsion introduced. The right hon. Gentleman apparently thinks that he is doing a virtuous action, and in my experience a politician is never so dangerous as when he is quite sure that he is virtuous. I wish to speak with great respect of the medical profession, but we know that their opinions differ from time to time, and that a remedy considered infallible in one period, at another is discarded as an altogether impossible one. I can remember the time when there was inoculation, which was very popular indeed; it was spoken of highly by a great many

  2121
  people who had gone through it, and the medical profession showed the number of deaths of persons who had been inoculated and of persons who had not been inoculated; but now inoculation is a criminal offence, and Salvarsan is the infallible specific for venereal disease. I can remember the time when mercury was recommended. Which of these two poisons is really the better to be applied? I do not know, and must leave it to another age to find out. I think the Bill has not been carefully thought out, and that its being brought forward is the result of a spasm of virtuous indignation. It is not clear that it will be of any good at all, and therefore I think that it might well be delayed. I hope the House will not be carried away by the arguments of my hon. Friend on the Front Bench, who wants this Bill and a great deal more. What he really wants is the reintroduction of the Contagious Diseases Act, and the House would not agree to that. I hope the supporters of the right hon. Gentleman who introduced this Bill will not be many in number, but I am afraid that my hon. Friend will be one of them. If any Member sees fit to move the rejection of the Bill I shall be glad to support him in the Lobby, in order to save this House from what I think would be futile labour in carrying the Bill through Committee, and reducing it to a form in which it might be acceptable to the House, and then, when it has reached that stage, finding that the best thing to do with it would be to chuck it into the dustbin.
  Mr. BOYTON: I do not think that the diagnosis of the hon. Member opposite in regard to this Bill will turn out to be correct. I think it has a very great deal of support, and it would seem hardly necessary, when one is sure as to its result, to unduly prolong proceedings. I should not have risen in this occasion had it not been for some remarks by the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken and the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), after the very clear and dignified speech of the hon. Member for Derby, who so well dealt with the whole question. It is quite clear that the medical profession take a dignified position in regard to this as to any other legislation which this House desires to promote. I am not so well qualified as the hon. Member for Derby to speak on behalf of the medical profession, but I represent a constituency which has within its confines, I suppose, more medi-
  2122
  cal men than are to be found in any other constituency in the United Kingdom. The medical men in my Constituency are very highly placed members of a distinguished profession, and I may tell the hon. Member for East Mayo and the hon. Member who has just spoken that they follow the dignified view of the hon. Member for Derby, and, so far as I am aware, the medical profession in my Constituency—and they are a very large body of men—leave a Bill of this kind to the House of Commons to decide. It is a Bill which is the result of pressure of public opinion: it is not the outcome of a trade union, as is suggested of the medical profession. The medical profession, as represented by the hon. Member for Derby, have a clean slate. It is not their desire, I am sure, to get any close legislation of a trade union character.
  Sir G. RADFORD: I made no suggestion of a trade union.
  7.0 p.m.
  Mr. BOYTON: I acquit the hon. Member of that, but I have heard it said that this Bill was promoted by the medical profession or largely promoted by them. Representing a very large number of medical men, I can say that is not the case. No direct representations have come to me from any medical man in connection with this Bill I am pleased to say that, so far from desiring to interfere, as a rule, in political matters or anything this House does, they do not attempt to use their very great influence. I am firmly of opinion that this Bill is the outcome of pressure which has at last been brought to bear on the Government, and I welcome it most heartily and the other Bill. I think they are both necessary, and I hope they will pass.
  Mr. CHANCELLOR: I suppose hon. Members on all sides are in entire sympathy with the objects of the Government. We recognise that although this is a disappearing evil and has been reducing during a long course of years, and that, while it is not so great as it was two years ago, still it is one which does require to be dealt with, and the question is whether this particular measure is likely to enable us the more effectively to deal with it. The first thing it will do is to make almost impossible the conducting of the ordinary chemist and druggist business. It will be dangerous for any chemist to sell any medicine of any kind unless he has a prescrip-

  2123
  tion, and if a person purchases medicine otherwise it will become his duty, I suppose, to ask whether it is for one of these specific diseases or not. The danger pointed out by the hon. Member for Stepney is a very real one, and this Bill will, I believe, make very much greater the dangers which exist in connection with this business. Another danger is this: Whatever the intention of the medical profession may be with regard to this Bill—and I can quite understand the speech of the last hon. Member—the effect will be to create a close co-operation which alone can deal with this particular disease as none but qualified men are to be allowed to give advice or prescribe or give medicines to persons suffering from these diseases. It is quite right that none but qualified men should be allowed to deal with matters of the kind, but what kind of qualification is the man to have? The ordinary medical man may never have treated this disease and may know nothing about it, except what he has read in text-books, and he may not even have attended lectures on the subject. He may, therefore, be absolutely unqualified, except for the fact that he has passed certain medical examinations. If you can guarantee that each person dealing with patients shall be qualified to deal with this particular disease, then there may be something to be said for a proposal of that kind. The tendency of recent treatment has been to rule out the ordinary attendant to patients, and to transfer the diagnosis from clinical observation to the bacteriological, especially in regard to diseases of this kind. Tests are applied in the laboratory in the absence of any knowledge of the patient, and the tendency will be to make the corporation become closed and to bring the treatment of these diseases within the compass of a very limited number of specialists, who will keep it in their hands as far as practical, and it will make no progress in medicine except along the lines they lay down. Science seeks to know everything about a subject, and to get experience in all kinds of directions. They will rule out all treatment except orthodox treatment, and this will not tend to the discovery of real cures of this disease.
  Something has been said about Salvarsan. I am not a medical man, and I know nothing about it, but I have seen the. statement that the introduction of
  2124
  Salvarsan would be the destruction of this disease. We do know evidence was given before the Commission that in the treatment by the discoverer of Salvarsan a large number of deaths took place. The only thing certain is its uncertainty. You are going by means of this Bill to place it in the power of the qualified men of the medical profession to make impossible to sufferers any kind of cure except their cure. I do not think that that would tend to eliminate the disease from our midst. You make it dangerous for persons to give advice and to tell others of their own experience, and doing so might be so interpreted as to lead to imprisonment for two years for a perfectly innocent and proper thing. I do not believe these measures will tend in the direction in which they are intended. I believe that the cure for this evil in our midst is not a legal cure, but that it is along moral lines we shall eliminate this disease, which has become less widespread than it was a few years ago, because I believe there has been an improvement in the morals of the people. It is along the lines of education rather than repressive legislation I think will be the promising path which we ought to tread if we are to eliminate this disease. As one who has had to travel in Committee through all the nauseous details of the other Bill, I wish to say that I think we ought to have had this Bill alongside the other and not have to go over the matter twice. I think there are very few friends of this Bill in the House; only two hon. Members have spoken in its favour, and I hope the Government will withdraw it.
  Mr. D. MASON: I think the reason why very many hon. Members have not spoken in support of the Bill is because they believe that the best way to advance the Bill is to keep silent and allow it to get a Second Beading. I think the speech of the hon. Member (Sir G. Rad-ford) was very unconvincing. The hon. Member who has just spoken did not advance any arguments of any substance against the Bill. He said it would stop all experiments.
  Mr. CHANCELLOR: I did not say that. I said it would prevent any experience' outside the experience of the profession.
  Mr. MASON: I doubt that. I should think the medical faculty would be stimulated all the more, because this Bill throws

  2125
  the responsibility on the thoroughly qualified men for the stamping out of this disease.
  Mr. CHANCELLOR: It rules out all unauthorised persons.
  Mr. MASON: I apprehend this is to put an end to quacks and those not qualified from experimenting on human bodies. I am sure the hon. Member for Derby (Sir W. Collins), who made a most admirable speech, will bear me out that this will not discourage the medical faculty from still further research. The hon. Member (Mr. Chancellor) said this would ruin the chemist's business, but surely this is not such an enormous business that it is going to do so. I think the hon. Member rather exaggerated the dangers and the difficulties. The Bill is a great step upward in trying to meet this terrible menace. The hon. Member told us the evil is decreasing, but owing to the War it has, perhaps, increased in certain quarters. If the Bill leads to a better state of health and is the beginning of the foundation of that Minister of Health which the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) welcomed, I do think it is worthy of our support.
  Mr. FRANCE: If this Bill were the means of bringing the medical profession more directly and more interested in connection with these diseases, especially in connection with the schemes to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, throughout the country, I for one should support it as far as it goes. Reference has been made to this evil as a diminishing evil. That view was put forward by the right hon. Gentleman to-day and by the last speaker. I do not understand on what ground that optimistic view is taken.
  Mr. HAYES FISHER: I merely said there were no figures to show it was increasing. I did not give any countenance to the idea that it was decreasing.
  Mr. CHANCELLOR: The light hon. Gentleman did say it was diminishing in the Army.
  Mr. FRANCE: I cannot enter into a discussion between the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Gentleman. That view has been expressed. I want to put this view forward, as the matter is one of grave importance when we consider the problem as to whether this Bill is of sufficient magnitude to deal with the seriousness of
  2126
  the evil. The other day, from the Front Bench, reference was made to the Army, and we were told the figure was 43 per 1,000, or 4 per cent., being less than in previous years in connection with the Army. If 43 per 1,000 was a serious figure, or even higher than that, in the days of a professional Army of something about 250,000 to a maximum of 500,000, it is a very different thing when that figure of 43 per 1,000 has to be considered of an Army which is not a professional Army in the strict sense of the word, and an Army which is a citizen Army, drawn from the Colonies and from country districts, and an Army of men coming from all parts and chosen for their physical fitness. If in the Army it is true, as I believe was said from the Front Bench a few days ago, that there is anything approaching to forty-three per thousand men affected, then the infective effect and the national effect and the Imperial effect of that is of such a magnitude that I agree certainly with the point of view put forward by the hon. and gallant Member that a Bill such as this is doing very little more than touching the fringe of the subject, and that it is almost playing with it. The whole subject is so mixed up with the other Bill that it is not easy to separate the one from the other. But I should like to add something to what has been said by the hon. Member for Sunderland (Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood) and the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), that in dealing with an evil which has been aggravated by this great increase of numbers in the Army, I think the Front Bench and the Government, and particularly the War Office, have to shoulder a very heavy responsibility that they have not done more than they have done in the matter. It is only too true to say that if it had not been for the organisation of the work, the splendid work, of the Y.M.C.A. huts, and the provision that they have made—helped, I agree, to some extent by the War Office, but initiated by that outside organisation taking over responsibility which really belongs to the War Office—the situation would have been even worse. The Government must, I think, see that this kind of Bill is not tackling the subject with half enough seriousness. London offers great temptations to men on leave after long segregation, and I wish to add my words to those already spoken here in urging the Government and the War Office to do something more than

  2127
  they have done to see that practical measures are taken to help the men for whom they are responsible.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

  BILLETING OF CIVILIANS BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  The MINISTER of MUNITIONS (Dr. Addison): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  The Ministry of Munitions have only presented this Bill to the House with great reluctance. We have engaged in very many housing schemes up and down the country, sometimes in co-operation with the local authorities, sometimes assisting private firms, and sometimes wholly on our own account, and we have built in some cases quite large towns. Nevertheless, in many districts it has been increasingly difficult to obtain decent lodging for a large number of workers, and we have adopted all manner of expedients in order to try and provide the necessary accommodation. We are now confronted with a task which has arisen out of the shipping situation, and it is this particular task which compels us to ask the House to provide us with some such powers as this Bill confers. We are now working on a great scheme to increase the output of iron ore in this country, and it means bringing many thousands of workers into districts where the housing accommodation is poor; in some cases it is of a middle-class type, and we either have to provide a large number of huts or temporary buildings of various sorts, or to try and obtain housing accommodation in the district. This great iron-ore scheme on which we are just now getting to work necessitates either very extensive housing construction or a considerable measure of either lodging or hostel provision in existing buildings. The difficulty of undertaking any housing scheme, apart entirely from the cost of it and from the delay that it necessarily involves, is intensified nowadays very much by two important considerations. In the first place, it is difficult to get the material, and it is more difficult still to get the labour. The result is that we scrutinise with almost microscopic care nowadays any additional proposal for extra building or housing construction.
  2128
  There is another aspect of the question which has become increasingly important, and which, I am afraid, raises social problems of very great importance. In some places—for example, Barrow, where we have trebled the number of people working in the munition works—we have had necessarily to draft into those districts a very large number of workers quite strange to the locality, and many of them women; and it is not so long ago that I had a deputation, which I must say was one of the most difficult to deal with and at the same time one of the most attractive deputations I think I have ever had. It was from the women workers at Barrow, and the complaint was in substance that it was well nigh impossible to obtain lodgings, the number of people who were prepared to let being limited, and that in some cases they had to obtain their beds by a sort of shift system of one woman occupying it one shift and another one another shift; and then, again, we have great complaints from there and elsewhere as to the charges which are made. I am not expressing any opinion as to whether they are unfair or not. I know the cost of living has very much increased, but it was quite clear that the charges that were being made in some cases were out of all sight beyond what had previously been the case. The girls at that time were receiving, I think—whatever they may have obtained from overtime and extras—a minimum of 23s. or something of that kind, and I think it has been raised since by 4s. a week, but at all events there was a very small trifle left in consequence of the high charges for board and lodging. It is therefore quite clear that if we were to see that the people going into these districts were decently housed, we needed some additional organisation, and possibly some further powers.
  With this in view we have arranged to set up a number of outside welfare committees, as we call thrill, in these large districts. They will have many things to do. They will have to see. for example, that the workers when they come there get decent lodgings, to investigate the capacities of the place before they are sent, to make arrangements for their reception at the railway stations, and all manner of domestic details of that kind, which are of great assistance to workers in a strange place. It was clear to us that we must at all events have some local organisation which could so far as possible consider and

  2129
  deal with the local housing accommodation, if possible on voluntary lines, and to couple up with that some organisation which would be competent, so far as it is necessary to do so, to keep us advised of anything which was wrong in connection with the housing or other social conditions of the munition workers—a sort of local welfare organisation. These two requirements are met, I think, in the Bill before the House, and it will be seen that we insist as far as possible upon the people in the locality doing the work and upon the voluntary character of the organisation. I could multiply instances, of which I have a large number on this sheet before me, of the painful cases which have arisen under existing circumstances, and which we think could be obviated by such measures as are contemplated in this Bill. We propose that where a Government Department certifies that the carrying on of any particular work is of national importance, and that accommodation is required, they can invite the Board, set up under this Bill, to provide such accommodation, and it is suggested that there shall be a Central Billeting Board set up, of which I may say at least two of the members must be women, and that it will combine the requirements of the various departments. There is of necessity a certain amount of overlapping, which we hope by this Bill to get rid of. The views and requirements of the Admiralty, the Ministry of Munitions, the Board of Agriculture, the Labour Ministry, and the National Service Department are all to be represented on this Board. There are certain districts which may have to be excluded from any such operations where military necessities demand it, and it is provided that they may be banned by an Order of the Army Council.
  Then the Board are to set up in different localities where munition and other workers are required a local committee, and they are instructed in the Bill to use the services of any existing organisation. In most of the districts there are local organisations of sorts, and sometimes I am afraid there are too many, and the difficulty is to get a small number of people who can devote sufficient time to doing the work thoroughly and well, but it will be the first endeavour of the Board to get good working committees in each locality, formed of the people of the locality who know the local requirements and conditions. The local committees, under the third Clause, will find it their
  2130
  business where this lodging is required to obtain the names of persons who are willing to take in lodgers and to state how many they can accommodate, and so on. It will be the business of the local committee to make recommendations as to what shall be the rates of pay for lodging and for attendance. There has been the grossest possible inequality in some places. There is no doubt about it that advantage has been taken of the overcrowded state of the houses to make very, very high charges. We shall hope to get good sensible advice to meet these difficulties, and to have the power to prescribe what should be a reasonable charge.
  It will be the business of the local committees to hear and settle complaints. There is an instruction in the Bill to the effect that when the workers are being allocated, so far as possible all the allocations shall proceed on the lino that those who have expressed their willingness to take in lodgers shall be those who are dealt with in the first place. Persons shall not be billeted on those not willing unless all those who have expressed their willingness to receive lodgers shall first have been dealt with. There are various provisions which make it the duty of the occupier to provide the necessary information. We hope that these local committees. I should like here to say that I think this will be their most useful function—will deal with various grievances in the locality as they arise. The House will be well aware that probably in regard to three-quarters of a million of people who are working, so to speak, in new places, the Ministry of Munitions has been in undated—and obviously so; it could not be helped—with all kinds of small grievances and sometimes large grievances. This has placed a great task upon the Department, and they have every reason to hope that both for economy of time and good temper that there shall be some sensible committee to, so far as possible, settle differences on the spot. It will be for this committee to secure that, just as the munition worker is fairly dealt with, so the person who lets lodgings is also fairly dealt with, that she receives her payment weekly, that various damages shall be made good, and so on.
  The rules of the Billeting Board are, according to the Bill, to be laid on the Table of the House, and if this Bill becomes law my hon Friend behind me

  2131
  the Member for the Morley Division (Mr. France) has been good enough to say that he will be glad to assist in the capacity of chairman of the Billeting Board. My hon. Friend is in touch with the outside work of the Ministry of Munitions. Similarly, the local committee will go into the various complaints which may be made for or against any particular person who is billeted. I myself believe, however, that in very few instances will it be necessary to exercise any compulsory powers or extreme measures. We have always managed somehow or another—and nothing surprises me more than the way it has been done—to get a large number of workers accommodated. Nobody is more conscious than we that in many cases, owing to pressure of time, we have, I am afraid, had sometimes to draft a larger number of workers into a locality than could reasonably be accommodated. Some of them in consequence have had to take long journeys by train or tram, which added to the weariness of things after their day's work. I hope that the House will agree, when they read this Bill, that we have tried to make it as moderate as possible, that we have before us a method of setting up some local machinery which will be competent to handle and be useful in connection with the needs of war and other workers, and which, I hope, will form the basis of an organisation of a welfare kind which will be a permanent -feature in British industry.
  Mr. GULLAND: I am sure the House is much indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for the very lucid and frank statement that he has made in regard to this Bill. I do not often trouble the House, but I should just like to say a word on this matter, because this particular Bill does affect my Constituency. I am sure in my Constituency they will welcome this Bill. They do not complain that civilians have not been billeted upon them: rather the reverse. For they say that on several occasions they have been asked to prepare themselves for the voluntary billeting of civilians, they have made all the arrangements necessary, and then they have found that the particular Minister—we are not allowed to specify the Minister of this House—has not made use of the facilities they have provided. My hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary knows something of this matter as well as the right hon. Gentleman. I think my Constituents will be rather glad that we have now a definite
  2132
  scheme to put before them. As I understand it, it is not considered necessary in every case to put this Bill into operation. I know, as a matter of fact, that there are some cases at present in progress where discussion is going on for the voluntary billeting of munition workers. I am told that the right hon. Gentleman in these cases will, where they can be carried out, allow it, and, indeed, prefer that it should be so done. I am quite sure that the House generally will be extremely glad that the hon. Member for the Morley Division is to be at the head of this Billeting Board. Those of us who come under this Bill will go to him quite sure that he will give his genial and generous attention to anything that we have to bring before him. I hope that he will have the wisdom—I am sure he will—to take into full confidence the local committees that are to be set up under the Bill. It is no use trying to drill and dragoon localities in this matter. You will get lots of assistance if you go about it the right way. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his selection of his chairman, for I am quite sure there is no one in this House who will devote himself more successfully to this work than will the hon. Member for the Morley Division.
  I am very glad of another point in this Bill. This deals chiefly with the Ministry of Munitions, though the right hon. Gentleman mentioned other Departments. I am glad they are going to have billeting in private houses rather than in housing these girls in halls and big places of that sort. I do feel, and I have felt in many case's, that it is not fair treatment to bring girls a long way away from their homes—where many of them have been very carefully brought up—many in Scotland come from the Highlands and other agricultural parts of the country—to be brought into quite new surroundings and herded together in halls, barns, and so on, under conditions which are not desirable. The Young Women's Christian Association makes provision for some. Still it is nothing like the care they would have in private houses. Therefore, I am very glad that the idea now is to house these munition workers in private houses where they will be properly cared for. It is far better to do it that way than to herd them together in big buildings. There are a great many people, I am sure, who will be glad to take in these lodgers, and will regard it as their bit of war work. There are numerous old ladies, many single, who

  2133
  feel that there is not much that they can do except to knit socks or mufflers. These will be delighted to feel that they can take in somebody and, so to speak, mother them. There is a great deal of mothering open under this Bill. I hope the right hon. Gentleman, and the hon. Member for Morley, will so work that these girls especially shall be well looked after in the private houses, and that they will be specially under the charge of the local committees, many of which are in existence, and many of which can be very easily set up. I hope the Bill will be so worked that not only will these women not suffer because of their association with this new work, but that they will actually benefit by it. I welcome the Bill, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will get it easily.
  Mr. HOGGE: I regret I cannot follow my right hon. Friend opposite in his appreciation of this particular Bill. I confess that his moving picture of his constituents who at the present moment are concerned in knitting socks and mufflers, and will now have a greater joy in accommodating some girls who have apparently invaded his constituency, does not move me as perhaps it ought to do. I ask myself why it is that those same constituents to whom my right hon. Friend opposite refers could not now, without this Bill, take these same girls under their care and mother them, instead of the absent soldier whom they are mothering by means of socks and mufflers? I do not think that there is anything in the argument of my right hon. Friend, unless he means that he is in favour of those people who previously were voluntarily assisting in the War by knitting socks and mufflers will be far better occupied by being compelled by the Ministry of Munitions to mother munition workers. I am afraid my right hon. Friend opposite must reconsider his attitude towards this Bill if those are the strongest reasons that he can advance in its favour. I think this is one of the most extraordinary Bills that was ever introduced into the House of Commons It is, first of all, an indication of the lack of foresight on the part of the Ministry of Munitions and of this Government who have accustomed us to believe that they do everything "now." For long enough everybody has known about the creation of particular munition works. Everybody interested in the production of munitions has known that cer-
  2134
  tain large works were being placed in different parts of the country, and it seems to me an extraordinarily strange proceeding that not until now has the Executive and the administrative side of the Government, through the Ministry of Munitions, realised that it was necessary to provide homes and accommodation for people who were going to work in these particular factories. I do not think there is any indication of foresight.
  Dr. ADDISON: You cannot get men or materials to build.
  Mr. HOGGE: You cannot get men or materials! That again is due to the fact that this Government has not taken the proper methods of dealing with either the use of men or the provision of material. They have been warned over and over again from these benches and other parts of the House. My right hon. Friend may look around and smile. I dare say those who are in power and office do laugh at the paltry suggestions that may be made by other Members of this House. But fifteen months ago, from this very corner, I, along with another half-dozen Members, made speeches pointing out the great wastage in shipping which was being carried through by the members of the Government and which resulted in a shortage of material. Therefore, it is surely foolish to turn round to me and laugh when I say the shortage of material is due to the lack of foresight in our Government. There is the logic of the thing, and Scotsmen like my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend opposite are usually logical in their arguments. Therefore I say, and I think I am entitled to say, that when the Government bring forward a Bill of this kind, while they may excuse themselves, at any rate they must face the facts of the situation, and if it be necessary, then the reason of it being necessary is due to the lack of foresight on the part of the Government.
  Before one agrees at all to the Second Reading even of this Bill, one must have some explanation of a great number of its provisions. I am perfectly certain this Bill must take a long time to get through Committee, because there are so many Committee points, and points that affect so much the intimate and domestic interests of so many people, that I am certain my right hon. Friend opposite, who, after all, represents a type of very thrifty,

  2135
  canny Scots, will have something to hear from his constituents if he agrees to a Bill which may put into the best bedroom of one of his cottagers at Dumfries a man who may be turned out the next day for being drunk. My right hon. Friend knows the value of licensing restrictions in his constituency, and I advise him very carefully to read some of the Clauses further on in this Bill, and to make up his mind what type of person may be thrust upon those good ladies who have been in the habit of knitting socks and mufflers. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Munitions, in Clause 1, asks the House of Commons to give him extraordinary powers. He does not ask this House to give him powers with regard to particular departmental work which comes under his Department; he asks for a very much wider thing. "Where any Government Department"—not the Ministry of Munitions, but "any" Government Department. I see on the Front Bench the heads of a number of Government Departments. Any one of those Government Departments can certify not that any particular work, but that "any" work is of national importance. Do hon. Members realise what that means? It means that any Tom, Dick, or Harry on that Front Bench can certify any work anywhere as being work of national importance, and then this Bill becomes operative. It is not merely the Minister of Munitions, whom we know and to some extent trust in his Department—I do not mean that to be offensive. After all. the present Minister of Munitions has been in his particular Department for some time. We realise what he has been doing and we recognise it, but this Government is creating new Departments every day of the week, and any one of these new creations, if they certify—not if the Minister of Munitions certifies, not if the War Cabinet certify, not if the Board of Trade or any other responsible Department, but if any Minister in this present Administration certifies—not a particular work, but "any" work, what does that mean? If the English language means anything, it means that if any of them want to get under their particular control any particular work; all they have to do is to write a certificate and say, "This is work of national importance, and the labour that we require for it must be compulsorily forced upon the accommodation of the people in that neighbourhood," and
  2136
  these people will have no redress at all, except an appeal to a committee which may be set up. I do not think that that is a point which ought to be allowed to pass without some kind of explanation or reply.
  I think the House will appreciate the point that if the Government came to the House of Commons and asked, in view of the fact that there were, say, ship yards, high explosive factories, or munition works in a particular neighbourhood and that for the purpose of that particular and specific war work there was, on account of the lack of material and men, due to the lack of foresight of the Government, a lack of accommodation, then they might pursue this further policy; but when my right hon. Friend asked the House to give not only himself carte blanche, but any Minister, any Department, carte blanche to name any particular business a work of national importance, I think that is asking too much, and I think the House of Commons ought to protect the people who they represent against any incursions of that kind. My right hon. Friend opposite who welcomed this Bill on one of the infrequent occasions in which ho speaks in this House, spoke out of the fulness of the knowledge of what is going on in his constituency. I have also heard stories about his own constituency—I do not know whether they are true or not—but I have heard that on certain days in the week you cannot get along certain roads approaching that constituency on account of the drunken people in the way. That may or may not be true, but if it is true, they are the people who are to be compulsorily billeted on ladies who knit socks and mufflers. My right hon. Friend had better be cautions, in view of the fact that he, a well-known exponent of women's suffrage, may be voting for the extension of the franchise to women within a few short weeks.
  There is much more in this Clause, but I do not want to go into meticulous details that can be gone into in Committee. I want to refer to what I call a substantial point. We shall fight the minor points when we get into Committee. Clause 2 sets out the Central Billeting Board, and provides for a chairman who, I understand, is to be my hon. Friend and colleague the Member for Morley (Mr. France), I presume unpaid, because, as we know, every Member of Parliament is always willing to give his work volun-

  2137
  tarily for any of those posts. Therefore, I hope he will not misunderstand me when, having made that explanation, I refer to Clause 8—the financial Clause. What is this going to cost? Have we any estimate? Has my right hon. Friend any estimate? He has come down to the House of Commons to-night, and I put it to him as a business man, as a man at the head of the biggest business that is being run in this country to-day, that he ought not to bring this Bill to the House without saying that it is going to cost so much. He ought to know the kind of officials who are going to be appointed, the kind of salary they are going to receive, and the cost of buildings, etc., in which they may be housed. Are you going to take another hotel, for instance, to accommodate my hon. Friend the Member for Morley? There is a Morley Hotel. My hon. Friend may appropriately have ambitions to be housed in a building in London named after his constituency. We ought to have an assurance on the point from my right hon. Friend. I think he will admit at once the justice of the criticism I am making now, and I am surprised that my right hon. Friend opposite, who ought to be critical on these questions of finance, is willing to accept this Bill without any indication to the House as to what it is going to cost. My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Major Godfrey Collins), who has just come in, is keen on the question of economy. We are considering a new Bill, which is going to create new machinery, new officials, and will cost more money. Now that I have warned him, I hope he will read the Bill while I am making my speech, and give the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Munitions the value of his criticism. When is there going to be any limit to the creation of these endless officials. Is anybody going to be left in the country who is not an official? It certainly is getting ludicrous. This afternoon I was with perhaps one of the biggest business men in this country, a man who controls millions of pounds, and I asked him about his personal staff. I had been round to St. Ermin's Hotel, I had been to Montagu House and to the War Office, and seen the staff tumbling over one another in every one of those places, and also, as I am reminded, in the "Garden Suburb" in Downing Street, but this man who controls millions has three of a staff to run his huge business. If I mentioned his name Members would realise at once ex-
  2138
  actly the economy that can be exercised by men who understand business. I know my hon. Friend above the Gangway is a business man. I have known him long enough to know that if he is the Chairman of the Board he will exercise the wisest kind of economy in the staff. If he does not, God help him! He shall hear about it in this House, because if there is one thing Members of this House are more sick about than another it is this interminable creation of all kinds of officials, with clerks and buildings, to do what a great many other people can achieve at very much less cost. Therefore I wish to protest against the creation of a new body of officials. Has my right hon. Friend considered, for instance, whether there are not existing organisations that can do this work? The body created by this Bill is surely a new ad hoc body which will want a new office for itself. Is there not some room at the Ministry of Munitions, or some hotel commandeered by the Government where this little Committee could do its work?
  Mr. FRANCE: Why not?
  Mr. HOGGE: I take that as a pledge—
  Mr. FRANCEindicated dissent.
  8.0 p.m.
  Mr. HOGGE: That, as my hon. Friend is to be appointed, there will be no new offices, and that ho will find accommodation for his work in something that exists. Now look at Clause 3. I want to put a point which seems to me to be one which the Committee ought to consider. This is what I would term the domestic economy Clause of the Bill, and I want to draw the attention of the House to what duties are laid upon the local committees. First of all, the local committees are to ascertain the accommodation available in the locality for billets and so on. Why need they do that? It is known everywhere. I do not know any single town, be it on the coast or inland, where you cannot go, without any indication at all from anybody unless from your own personal knowledge of the locality, and know that this is the district of that particular town where you can get lodgings. It is a kind of topographical fact with regard to every town and village which exists, and it seems to me that to start able-bodied people on a new census of this kind, the facts of which can easily be obtained otherwise, is surely a waste

  2139
  of time. It is not work of national importance. It is not the kind of thing that you want to employ able-bodied men and able-bodied women on. You could make as many munitions with the people you are going to use and waste in this canvassing work as you will ever gain by the extra accommodation provided by this kind of systematic canvass. Then, you are going to allocate the persons to be billeted among the various persons liable to billets. Think what that means. I wish the right hon. Gentleman would consider what these things are going to lead to. Picture what is going to happen. First of all, this local committee is to find accommodation for billets. Having found accommodation for billets they get together the people who are to be billeted, and the local committee—townspeople or village people out of these districts connected with munition work—are to say, "This lot of men or girls are to be billeted here" or "That lot of men or girls are to be billeted there." What does that mean? You cannot do that by chance; you cannot draw lots. It means that this is imposing on the local committee the duty of segregating the munition workers wherever they may be, and saying, "You are a respectable class of munition worker, and had better go into the better class terrace of the village. You are a rougher type of munition worker, and you will do well enough in this poorer cottage. You are well known to be drunk at the week-end, and we had better put you in this town." Conceive the commotion that you are going to cause in the Scottish villages which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dumfries had in his mind, or about Gretna, if you are going to give the local committee, which must be drawn from the village, power to drive these munition workers in gangs, and to see that these are going here and that those are going there. If you are going to do that, you are going to establish a rival to the theatre, or to any other similar form of entertainment.
  The committees have to prescribe the nature of the lodging, the attendance, meals and foods to be provided, and the scales of payment. Really, what are we coming to? Are we not dragooned enough without entrusting to a local committee, an unpaid committee and a voluntary committee, drawn from the village itself of the small town, these functions?
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  Look what these functions are. They have to prescribe the nature of the lodging. What does that mean? Does that mean that they have the power over the health authorities in that particular neighbourhood to say how many people shall sleep in that particular bedroom. Have they the power to establish the "Box and Cox" system of sleeping in these particular villages? Who is going to have the ultimate power? The local body, or the health authority, or the Local Government Board for England or Scotland, as the case may be? They have to go into this house and say, "You are going to have a munition worker. You must bring his tea and toast at six o'clock in the morning because he has to be early at work. You have to provide this man with food and attendance, and if you do not we are going to take powers under this Act to impose penalties upon you." Did you ever hear anything more preposterous in your life? I know my own country; I know the kind of independent woman whom you get in your Scottish village, and do you mean that you are going to a woman like that—a great Government like this, a Government of eighty-four members, who would make a village themselves if they were planted out properly—and to tell her that unless she does these things in this particular way for these munition workers from all over the country—many of whom talk a language which you cannot understand, because I am sure the right hon. Member for Dumfries Burghs will never understand what a cockney will say, though he stay there for years—you are going to impose on that woman penalties if she does not carry out that particular attendance imposed on her. Then there are the meals and food to be provided. Where are you going to get to there? We get shorter of meals every day; we get shorter of food every day. We have a Food Controller Are these local committees apponted under this Bill to be subject to the Food Controller? Is Lord Devonport to be entitled to go to Sanquhar, or Dumfries, or Gretna, and examine the number of ounces per meal to be put at the disposal of these munition workers? Is the Scotswoman in her cottage in these villages to produce written proof that she only supplied two ounces of bread in the morning, five ounces of meat at dinner, and no meat on Wednesday or Friday—I forget which is the meatless day? My right hon. Friend may think I am pulling his leg at this pre-

  2141
  cise moment, but after all we know our own country and the kind of people you are going to deal with. Does he honestly think he can impose these conditions on a local committee, and does he think the local committee can compel that kind of woman to give that kind of attendance on a munition worker with the ease which he anticipates? Will he answer, when he replies, or when the Under-Secretary replies, as to whether the Food Controller or the other authorities are to step in and see whether that is done?
  Then they have to do with the scales of payment. Has my right hon. Friend ever had anything to do with satisfying women on the basis of remuneration? You go down to any Scottish village attached to any of these munition works, and you find a cottage of one size, and one of another size. Who is going to determine whether the lodging to be paid in one case is to be 4s. 6d. or 5s.? Is the time of the local committee to be taken up by an appeal because Mrs. X lodges a complaint that Mrs. A gets 4s. 6d. while she herself gets only 4s., and that the man in her cottage eats twice as much as the man next door? If you are going to interfere with people, do not carry it into their domestic arrangements. Interfere as much as you like. You have interfered, in all conscience, with the liberty of the people of this country. You have regimented us, dragooned us, and now under this Bill, called the Billeting of Civilians Bill—all these Bills have deceptive titles—if hon. Members would read it they would see how one by one every liberty is being filched by stupid, senseless, and unnecessary measures. This is the kind of thing that ought to have been provided for in a perfectly different way; and to carry into the houses of these people the dragooning and the regimenting of the population that you have outside is, I tell you, going to meet with strenuous opposition. The next thing is the supervision of billets. Did my right hon. Friend ever spend a holiday in a Scottish village? Does he understand anything of the resentment of the woman who keeps her cottage clean and tidy, and resents having people poking their noses in to see if it is being kept as this local authority wants it kept? It is inquisition. You talk of the Spanish Inquisition, but it is nothing to this Munitions Inquisition. It is enough to make angels weep to find things of that sort being put upon the local committee.
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  I could go through a lot more, but I think I have shown enough. I see the Minister of Labour (Mr. Hodge) thinks I have shown enough. The Minister of Labour is a representative of labour, and I suppose he was put in the Government because he was a representative of labour. Will the Minister of Labour get up from his seat and support not the provision of accommodation for billets, which is not the point I was making, but will he get up from his seat and support this inquisition into the home life of respectable women whose sons. and husbands, many of them, are serving across the water at the front now? Will he do it? I challenge him to do it. My right hon. Friend says there is not any inquisition. Yet his name is on the back of the Bill. I suppose he has not read it, and that that is why his name is on the back of the Bill. If he reads it, and if he listens to the rest of my speech, he will realise that there is a great deal of inquisition. I will put it shortly again. Under Clause 3 this local committee have power to put any munition worker into any cottage. They might put as large a man as my right hon. Friend into the smallest cottage of the village, and the smallest man into the biggest cottage. They are entitled to prescribe the nature of the lodging—the kind of meal and food the man must get. They are entitled to go in and see that these things are done; and this, that, and the other. If that is not inquisition, what is? Perhaps my right hon. Friend is so used to Montagu House and the new atmosphere of aristocracy as to believe that that is provided for the working classes all over the country, and that, therefore, there is no injustice in this Bill. After all he is billeted in a place where there is plenty of air space and no fear of over crowding, unless it be by unnecessary officials, and he ought to have regard to and sympathy for the class of people at whom this is being thrown. I do not believe there is anybody in the country affected by this Bill who understands what is going to happen, and they will not know that this Bill has become an Act until it is an Act, and these people are actually put upon them by force of law.
  Clause 4 deals with the duty to provide billets. I could make as much of that Clause as I have made of the others. I have only read this Bill for the first time since I came into the House, so that if these things occur to you now, what

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  would not occur to you if you studied this Bill in more meticulous detail? Sub-section (2) of this Clause provides:
  "Any occupier of any such premises who feels himself aggrieved by a proposal to billet persons on him, or by the number of persons to be billeted on him, or by the conduct or habits of persons billeted on him, may complain to the local committee, and the local committee shall take such complaint into consideration, and if satisfied of the justice of the complaint shall take such steps as may be practicable to remedy the grievance."
  Here is a new form of liberty. It is going to be applied to the cottagers in the land of the Covenanters, the people whom the right hon. Member for Dumfries Burghs, who welcomed the Bill, represents. The women in these villages—if they are saddled under this Bill with a rough type of munition worker who plays havoc with the woman's little household goods, who comes in drunk once, twice, or more times a week, or has objectionable habits—cannot say, "This is my home and castle; there is the door." They have to take it to the local committee set up in the village, set up in the land of liberty. You are going by compulsion to saddle a respectable Scottish woman with a lodger she does not, or may not, want, who may have all the filthy habits a man can possibly have, and yet she cannot show him the door of her own house. What does the Minister of Labour think about that? That is an incursion into the homes of the labouring classes of this country which one would think from his own experience of his own native country is the kind of thing he might term, along with me, an inquisition. It is preposterous, and I am certain the Minister of Munitions, when he looks at this from the Scottish point of view, and considers this discussion with the local colour we have given to it, he will be inclined to revise his estimate of the powers he is going to hand to the little Tom Noddies who try to dominate our village life. Our villages all over the country have had enough of the domination of the squires. You are going to tell these women that they must have that type of lodger and keep them if the committee says so. I think it is monstrous.
  I do not think my right hon. Friend has really considered where this Bill is
  2144
  taking him to. What would he say, for instance, if in his own house, when he went home to-night, he found that by an Act of Parliament his wife had been compelled to take a couple of men whom she considered objectionable into her own house; what would he think if his wife said those were men of objectionable character, and if all he could do in the matter would be to wait until the next morning in order that he might complain to the local committee? Next morning the right hon. Gentleman and his wife would have to give evidence against those men showing that they are undesirable, and unless their word was taken against that of the men they would have to keep them in the house. That is the way to look at these problems, and that is how they are going to affect people in all situations of life. This kind of thing has happened in the billeting of soldiers, because they have been billeted in all kinds of houses all over the country. The only difference between the billeting of soldiers and these munition workers is that the soldier is billeted under discipline, and if a soldier misbehaves himself he is subject to military discipline. But is the munition worker subjected to discipline? Would a local committee drawn from the locality be any protection? I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman, who is not devoid of instinct with regard to what the working people of this country feel and think. I honestly believe that the right hon. Gentleman does not want to put them to any unnecessary inconvenience, although he wants accommodation for his workers.
  Let us appeal to him in this way: Surely he must see that the woman who has to provide that accommodation must have more protection. Take some of the Scottish villages. Those women have given up their men for the Army, and frequently there is nobody left at home but the woman and her girls. Can my right hon. Friend contemplate with equanimity a defenceless woman and her daughter in a Scottish village in which munition workers have settled being saddled with the rough type of men engaged in munition works? I do hope when we come to this Bill in Committee the right hon. Gentleman will deal with this matter, because it is a very real danger, and one which cannot be determined by giving power to a local committee to say that this type of man shall go there and this type shall go elsewhere. You cannot contemplate, from the point of view of respectability

  2145
  and of what these women deserve, that you should impose this hardship upon them. I could go on through other parts of this Bill, and I might be tempted to make the same kind of criticism which I have been making, but I think I have shown quite clearly, at any rate, that these points should be dealt with before we agree to the Second Reading. I do not think there is any real purpose to be served by taking a Division, because the Government can win, and it will only waste unnecessary time. I think, after what I have said, and after what other speakers may say, we ought to have a distinct understanding from the right hon. Gentleman that before this Bill goes through the House of Commons a reasonable interval of time should elapse between the Second Reading and the Committee stage.
  This is a type of Bill which you cannot rush through at intervals of a day between its various stages. You are not entitled to legislate for the domestic hearths of the people of this country at intervals of half an hour. First of all, we should get a pledge from the right hon. Gentleman that there will be a reasonable interval between the various stages of this measure. In the second place, we should get a promise that the right hon. Gentleman will seek to protect a great number of people who will be affected by this Bill and who are left in an absolutely defenceless position. I insist upon that as an absolute sine qua non of supporting this Bill at any of its future stages, and if I do not get an assurance that in a Scottish village no committee will be allowed to impose upon defenceless women whose sons are fighting at the front in this way, I shall oppose this Bill by every Parliamentary manœuvre I know. I think this point is so important that we must get an assurance that our case will be met. I regret that this Bill has been introduced at all. I think it is lamentable that the conscription which began by the conscription of life for the Army and then by the conscription of labour which has been secured since for munitions, should be extended to the conscription of the democratic hearths of the people in remote villages all over the country. Surety something is sacred from the inroads of the dragooning habits of this Government and the length they have been driven to in their efforts to combat Prussian militarism. I hope the Minister of Munitions will not erect for himself in Scotland a
  2146
  monument of the man who invaded the democratic privacy of the homes of the women in those villages which ought not to be invaded at all.
  Mr. HAZLETON: The House has listened to a speech of very destructive criticism from the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge), and a good many Members will be inclined to agree with a great part of the case that he has made. I listened to the speech of the Minister in introducing the Bill, and I think he would have been better advised if he had told the House something more as to the nature of the problem this Bill has been introduced to meet and to solve. It is extraordinarily late in the day for this Government to come down to ask the House to pass a Bill of this kind. We know perfectly well that the problem which has been created with regard to munition workers, certainly as regards a great proportion of it, has already been met and solved in one way or another during the past two and three-quarter years. If there is any necessity for this Bill at all, why has the Government waited till nearly three years after the commencement of the War before asking the House of Commons for the powers to be taken by this Bill? The right hon. Gentleman gave us no indication at all as to the size of this problem. It is true he indicated in an aside to the hon. Member for East Edinburgh that one of the reasons this Bill is needed is because of the difficulty of getting men and material for the building of houses. Surely it would have been possible for the Ministry of Munitions to have got a clerk in the Ministry to have sent out a number of circulars to the districts where this problem arises endeavouring to get a local committee on voluntary lines to handle the problem. It that failed they could then come down to the House of Commons and propose something on this line, or something on different lines.
  I would like to know why the Ministry of Munitions, before asking for compulsory powers, has not tried the voluntary system. The voluntary system was tried in. recruiting before the House of Commons was asked to adopt the compulsory. The voluntary system is being tried in National Service before the House of Commons or the country is asked to adopt compulsion. Is it only the defenceless women of the country who have no real voice upon whom compulsion is to be imposed without being told whether there

  2147
  is real necessity for it or not. The Minister has told us that in a large number of districts the work of munitions is being held up, and the health of munition workers interfered with because of the lack of suitable accommodation. If he were in a position to bring a charge that people in the locality would not house munition workers, then he would be in a position to make some strong case for his Bill, but he has not suggested that for a moment, and it would seem to me that certain provisions of this Bill with regard to the compulsory powers to be taken are more in the nature of the thirst of this Government for compulsion and arbitrariness than anything else. I do not share all the fears expressed by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh. He drew an alarming picture of the interference with domestic life of the people in the various districts where it will be necessary to enforce the Bill. If the Government had to stretch these powers too far in that direction, there would be a great deal of substance in his contention, but I hope the people who would have the control and operation of this Bill would be more sensible than the Government, and that there would not be any reason for the fears which the hon. Member has expressed. At the same time I agree that we must take care when this Bill gets into Committee that there are safeguards in this and other directions and that injustice is not done as it might very easily be done under a Bill of this kind. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh gave us several illustrations of what might happen in Scotland. This Bill applies also to Ireland. Unfortunately, there are not many munition works in Ireland, and I do not suppose that the necessity for the Bill will be very great in that country.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Mr. Kellaway): Clause 11 says, "This Act shall not extend to Ireland."
  Mr. HAZLETON: I am sorry. I did not see that. There are, however, one or two points that I was going to mention in connection with Ireland which apply with equal force to this country. The Bill gives power to set up local committees, but it say3 nothing whatever as to how those local committees are to be constituted, or of what kind of people. It is very important, if you are going to try to work a measure of this kind, that it should be worked with the greatest harmony and co-operation, and that you should make
  2148
  every endeavour to work it smoothly. In most of the localities, as the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out, you have a great number of local associations of various kinds—too many sometimes—from which to choose, but my own belief is that you would secure the more smooth working of the Bill if, instead of leaving it indefinite, you were to insert some provision that the local committees were to be appointed in consultation with the local authority in each district. It would be quite practicable to do that. These various voluntary associations do not often work in complete harmony or pull together, and if the local authority in each district where it was necessary to set up a committee were consulted and had some voice in the nomination of the members of the committee the Act would be more likely to work smoothly. You take powers to compel certain people to find accommodation for munition workers, but I find it very difficult to understand whether you also take power to compel munition workers to go to certain billets. If that is so, it is an intolerable proposition. I know that no local committee would be anxious to enforce it, but I do not think it. is a measure which the House of Commons ought to be asked to pass. It is one thing to compel a person to provide accommodation, but it is a wholly different thing to say to a munition worker or to anybody else who is being sent to a certain district that he must go here or go there, and, if the right hon. Gentleman on examination finds that is so. I hope that he will introduce an Amendment in Committee to alter it.
  Mr. ANDERSON: I am sorry I was not present when the Minister of Munitions spoke on this measure, therefore I did not have an opportunity of hearing his argument in favour of these proposals. It must have been a very short argument, because, although I was only out of the House a few minutes, it was over by the time I came back. I should like to hear what is the case for this particular measure. A great deal would depend upon the extent of the problem, how far there is tremendous pressure, and how far you have been able to meet that pressure by ordinary means, without building up the enormous organisation now proposed to be built up. Can the Government give us facts in connection with towns where munition workers are unable to find house accommodation? Have they advertised or appealed to the people in any way to

  2149
  find house accommodation for those munition workers? That is the first step to be taken. If it can be shown that it has been tried and has broken down, there would be a much stronger case for this Bill than there appears to be on the surface. I suppose that one ought to put his judgment on one side in this matter, and say, as did the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dumfries Burghs (Mr. Gulland), that the Bill will afford a splendid opportunity to nice, kind old ladies to mother some poor, homeless munition girls. If that is all that is in it, and you approach the matter from that standpoint, there is no need to discuss the Bill at all, either on Second Reading of any subsequent stage. I understand that there is going to be set up in London another tribunal called the Central Billeting Board. That Board is going to be duplicated by local machinery all over the country. I understand that one or more of the offices in each of these local committees is going to be a paid office; so that, at any rate, whatever else it is going to do, if it does not find many new houses for girls, it is going to find a large number of new paid jobs throughout the country.
  Mr. KELLAWAY: No.
  Mr. ANDERSON: Then what does Clause 3 mean? That Clause sets out what the Board proposes to do, and it says:
  "In either case shall provide for the inclusion as members of the committee of one or more executive officers appointed by the Board, who shall receive such salary or other remuneration (if any) as the Board, with the consent of the Treasury, may determine."
  Is there no possibility of building up paid offices all over the country on the strength of that Clause?
  Mr. KELLAWAY: As a matter of fact, it will be hardly necessary in any case, certainly in very few cases indeed to appoint paid officers.
  Mr. ANDERSON: Surely the hon. Gentleman does not dispute that this Bill gives his Department power to create any number of paid offices so far as these local committees are concerned. If it is not so, I fail entirely to understand the Bill.
  Mr. PRINGLE: There is the financial Clause as well.
  Mr. ANDERSON: Yes, Clause 8, which says:
  "The salaries or other remuneration of executive officers"—
  at least they are to get salaries or other remuneration—
  of local committees under this Act and all other expenses of local committees, to such extent as may be authorised by the Treasury, shall be paid by the Board."
  If that does not create the possibility of a very wide extension of paid officialism, £ should like to know what it means. I should like to have had some estimate of the extent of this problem. I am really frightened that we are once more going to have repeated the farce we went through in connection with the scheme of National Service, where, because you wanted to transfer a few people from a less essential trade to a more essential trade, you built up an enormous national machinery—very expensive machinery—you sent people all over the country, held meetings in every part of the country, and money was poured out over the scheme in order to allocate between 2,000 and 3,000 workers up to the present time, which could have been done without any of the machinery being set up at all. We ought to have the matter gone into. This proposal infringes on what has been regarded as the domestic liberties of the people. It may be necessary, but it means that people can have forced upon them all manner of lodgers that they do not want—lodgers whose characters may not be in every case entirely of the most desirable nature, but the people will have no choice as to who is to rent the room under this Bill. I should like to know if the Central Billeting Board is going to have upon it any representative of the persons who are going to be affected by the Bill. I gather that they are not to be represented. It is the homes of the working people which are going to be invaded in the main in this way, because the homes of the working people are near the munition works and are convenient from the standpoint of munition works I do not believe that you have any serious intention of lodging many of these people in the homes of the wealthy people in the west end of the towns. I therefore ask whether the people who are most vitally concerned in the matter are going to sit upon the boards? If so, it ought to be definitely stated. in the Bill that the Central Billeting

  2151
  Board is to contain representatives of the working men and working women. A number of curious anomalies will arise under this Bill, although I suppose we ought to really talk about the mothering of homeless girls. One thing will be that you may have two workmen lodging together in the same house under entirely different conditions as a result of this Bill. One will be lodging there in the ordinary way, paying ordinary rent, and another side by side with him will be billeted in the house and is to pay merely the billeting scale. The Bill is going to create a new penal code, because a man who is billeted will be subject to punishment for his offences to which he would not be subject if he were not billeted. Sub-section (4) of Clause 5 reads as follows:
  "If a person so billeted is guilty of violence, drunkenness, or indecency of such a character as to require his immediate removal from the premises where he is billeted, he shall be guilty of an offence against this Act, and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds, and a person charged with any such offence may be arrested without warrant by any constable."
  So that you could have two men committing the same offence—going out together and drinking, for example—one a billeted workman and the other not, and one might be subject to a fine of 5s. the next day and the other to £20. These anomalies will be created right and left, and they run all through this measure. The hon. Member (Mr. Hogge) made a great many points against the measure—some good, some bad, and some in different. In fact, he had not had sufficient time to prune his case in order to throw aside the bad points and stick to the good ones. But I think he made a number of points which will have to be taken note of in Committee. I can quite easily conceive all sorts of questions arising. I can conceive moral questions arising under the Bill. You might foist into the home of a soldier's wife someone who was entirely undesirable, and, as far as I can see, she has no means of refusing to take any man you care to send into the house. That matter will have to be looked into to see what can be done.
  These are some of the points which occur to me on the spur of the moment. I think we shall have to go over the whole matter
  2152
  very carefully indeed, and therefore I would suggest that there ought to be some time between now and the next stage. I was very much surprised at the Minister of Labour saying that apparently there is to be no inconvenience caused, and no kind of hardship imposed under the Bill. He does not see any. He is quite satisfied with all its Clauses, and his name appears on the back of it. I am not sure whether he has really read it, but I think he ought to, to see just what is contained in it, because I see a great deal in it where objections of the most serious character might arise and where we shall have to try to see that something is done. But I should have liked, if a case had been made out, to show that voluntary arrangements have entirely broken down and proved inadequate. I have heard no case even to that effect. We might at least have had that. Therefore, although we do not in the least intend to oppose the Bill, it will be necessary to go over it very carefully indeed, and to put down Amendments which will safeguard to some extent the interests and the rights of those concerned. What I object to most of all is this constant building up at a huge bureaucracy even when you are dealing with comparatively trivial matters, for I believe this matter could be dealt with, and I least of all would desire to thwart any scheme for the proper housing of the men and women concerned, and even to do it on fair terms. That is important, because in some districts both men and women, because of the pressure for house room, are being fleeced in regard to terms by the landladies. There is certainly common ground between us on many of these points. All we want is to see a measure for the adequate housing of those concerned and for doing it under just and fair conditions, but we want to avoid, as I am sure hon. Members on the Front Bench must want: to avoid, the setting up of unnecessary machinery and of unnecessary salaried positions and the inflicting of needless hardship and restriction on the domestic privacy and liberties of individuals concerned.
  Mr. PRINGLE: The House has become so accustomed to having Bills of considerable importance put before it in a perfunctory manner that it is not surprising that the House has not resented the perfunctory and inadequate way in which the present Bill has been presented to it. It is extremely to be regretted that

  2153
  a Bill of this character, which is going to affect, in a manner of great intimacy, the domestic lives of large numbers of people is being discussed in a practically empty house, in the middle of the dinner hour. No real case has been made out as to the necessity of a large and far-reaching measure of this kind. The right hon. Gentleman's case was, in the first place, that, owing to the circumstances of the War, it had been found necessary to develop our iron-ore resources in this country, and that owing to our shipping difficulties we had for the first time to mine iron ore in this country in many districts where we had not in the past been in the habit of getting the ore, that in these areas there was inadequate housing accommodation, and that as there was neither material nor labour available to provide housing accommodation it was absolutely necessary to take measures of a compulsory character for the purpose of billeting these iron-ore miners. No attempt has been made to deal with the question voluntarily. In these areas the work has not begun to develop, consequently, up to the present time, the Ministry has no experience whatever to guide it as to whether or no these people can be housed voluntarily, or with certain temporary accommodation in addition to that which may be had for them. It is surprising that such a far-reaching proposal should be made where there is absolutely no experience to show that existing resources with some supplementation could not be made available by voluntary means. Then we are not told where are the areas in which this is necessary. The House was given no means of ascertaining where the situation in regard to housing accommodation was likely to be so serious as is represented.
  Then my right hon. Friend went on to say it was only in relation to this new undertaking in regard to iron-ore mining, but it was also in relation to existing munition areas that this had to be done. I have always understood that from the beginning the Ministry of Munitions had made some forecast as to housing requirements in relation to their new scheme for the manufacture of munitions. I remember hearing an early statement by the Minister of Munitions as to the great schemes he had in contemplation. New works were to spring up all over the country, and in every area where they were to be put down the very best methods were to be employed for the housing of all the
  2154
  workpeople who were to be brought into those areas. We had eloquent speeches, with glowing periods, picturing the garden cities which were to spring up concurrently with these new munition factories, and the House was delighted. But we find now that it has not been done. In Barrow, for example, where everyone knew that the munitions population was going to be multiplied many times, the Minister of Munitions now, more than two years after the Ministry was constituted, has to tell us that there are girls in Barrow earning 23s. a week—23s. a week at the present cost of living—who cannot get decent lodgings, but have to occupy beds on the shift system. That is an example of the foresight of the Minister of Munitions who, by advertising the deficiencies of his colleagues, has at length become Prime Minister. This is a case in which the Ministry of Munitions has to stand on its own feet. It cannot be said that it was due to other people not foreseeing this. When you ask any question about the late Government, the Press all over the country immediately sings forth in chorus that if the present Prime Minister had only had his way in the late Government everything would have been different. But he was omnipotent in the Ministry of Munitions, and here we have an example of his foresight.
  The new Minister has come to the House two years after the Ministry came into existence and tells us that because girls in Barrow, paid the munificent sum of 23s. a week, have to occupy beds on the shift system, it is necessary to have compulsory billeting. I say no more tremendous indictment could be made against the Department than the admission that in these days under present conditions of the cost of living, girls should be asked to live away from their homes on a wage of 23s. a week. It is impossible, and there is no use bringing in your Criminal Law Amendment Bills when you have a situation of that kind sanctioned by the Government, because, after all. the Ministry of Munitions lays down the rules about the payment of these girls. I say it is impossible, under present conditions, for any girl to live on 23s. a week away from her home. The case as disclosed from that box to-day is not a case for compulsory billeting; it is a case for better wages. It may be true—I am prepared to admit it—that there are cases where over charges are made, both for the cost of the room and for food; but that is not the way

  2155
  to deal with it. The Rent and Mortgage Bill, I think, was bad in principle because it laid down a standard which admitted of no increase of rent owing to war conditions. I think there was a case for increase owing to the increase in the cost of repairs and so forth, but no increase was allowed. When that Bill was under discussion in this House it was suggested that while the occupier of the house was entitled to have a stereotyped rent, nevertheless, if he himself let lodgings he was entitled to charge anything he liked for them. It may be impossible by legislation to fix a standard in regard to the price of lodgings, but why should you set up all this machinery for allocating accommodation for people? First of all, there is a new Department in Whitehall or in some hotel or club; and, secondly, local committees in every munitions area all over the country, with executive officers who are to be paid. It seems to me that the method of this Government is that, wherever you find a difficulty you must either establish a Board or set up a control. The cure for all ills the body politic is heir to is to be found in a new Controller or a new Board.
  9.0 p.m.
  Many kind things have been said of my hon. Friend the Member for Morley, who is to be Chairman of the new Board. I congratulate him, but I do not envy him. I congratulate every man who is singled out for the honour of preferment by this Government, even although the honour is getting very widespread; in fact, we will soon have the majority of the Members of this House connected in one way or another with the Government. But he will have a very difficult and a very delicate task to discharge. We will be told that this is analogous to the billeting of soldiers, and that many people have accepted the. billeting of soldiers without any objection. I quite agree that the billeting of soldiers has been necessary, but as a general rule the Army has always regarded the billeting of soldiers as a temporary measure, until other accommodation could be found. My hon. and gallant Friend below me (Colonel Greig) will bear me out that the effort of the Army authorities is always to get men out of the billets as soon as they can. But this is not a temporary measure. This is for the period of the War, and we know the Foreign Secretary stated only on Saturday last in the United States that this is
  2156
  going to be a long war, so we are going to have this permanent system of compulsory billeting set up under this Bill. It is the most extraordinary proposal that has yet been made to the House. There is this other difference between this and the billeting of soldiers: we know that the soldier is under military discipline, which makes a very great difference. The soldier is a man who is paid a bare pittance and for whom food and clothing is found. The munition worker is a man who is contracting his labour for wages at a rate at which he should be able to pay for both house accommodation and food. Thus the conditions are altogether different But the difference in respect of the discipline under which the two sets of men are treated makes, I think, a cardinal distinction and one that goes to the essence of the matter. The control which you can have in respect of the civilian, is very different from the control which the Army authorities can exercise over soldiers, and even the Army authorities know from experience that it is very difficult to exorcise control; in fact, it is the difficulty of exercising control and of enforcing discipline which makes Army officers always desirous of having their men out of billets. My hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Greig) will correct me if it is not so, but I have heard that stated.
  Colonel GREIG: If my hon. Friend wants to know, it is because the men are rather more comfortable than they would be in camps, and it is better for soldiers to be in camps and be rather less comfortable than they would be in billets.
  Mr. PRINGLE: I think it is also, as a matter of fact, a question of control. When the men were in billets in private houses the control over them was not the same as when they were in camp, and consequently the discipline tended to be much more lax than it was when they had them within the camp. I know from the experience of many private soldiers that the idea that they are billeted under comfortable conditions in many places is a totally illusory one. They are getting the minimum comfort, and, indeed, some of them are being placed in absolutely empty rooms, so that even the worst form of camp would be preferable to some of the accommodation they are getting in billets. I will not, however, pursue that matter further with my hon. Friend, as he is now attached to the Government, and of course is favourable to any Bill which

  2157
  they introduce I wish, however, to point out what the situation is in regard to control. You have under this Bill a provision that
  "any occupier of any such premises who feels himself aggrieved by a proposal to billet persons on him—"
  it is Clause 4, Sub-section (2)—
  "or by the number of persons to be billeted on him, or by the conduct or habits of persons billeted upon him, may complain to the local committee, and the local committee shall take such complaint into consideration, and if satisfied of the justice of the complaint shall take such steps as may be practicable to remedy the grievance."
  I do not know what sort of complaints there will be, but one can readily imagine the kind of complaint that may arise. This Bill contemplates the billeting of iron-ore miners, for example, and of other men, many of whom are in occupations which do not tend to cleanliness. Well, there may be complaints as to the clothes in which these men come into their billets, and so forth, and you will have your local committees probably overwhelmed with all kinds of complaints as to the habits of the workers who are billeted. Then the local committee, being satisfied of the justice of the complaint, shall take such steps as may be practicable to remedy the grievance. It seems to me the most extraordinary Clause that has ever appeared in an Act of Parliament. After all, if there is a definite offence, it is right to have a definite penalty, and later on in the Bill it is provided that if a person should be guilty of violence, drunkenness, or indecency there should be a penalty. But here an occupier who feels himself aggrieved is entitled to make a complaint, and the remedy is that if the committee are satisfied of the justice of his complaint they may take such steps as may be practicable to remedy the grievance. But why such a pious opinion should be put into an Act of Parliament I really cannot conceive. Then the committee is to have still more interesting work:
  "If any difference arises as to the amount of such compensation—"
  that is, compensation in respect of damage clone to the premises—
  "the amount (if it cannot be settled by the conciliation of the local committee) shall be such as may be fixed by a certificate of the County Court of the dis-
  2158
  trict in which the premises are situated, and the Lord Chancellor may make such rules as he thinks fit for the purposes of this Sub-section, and may, by such rules, provide for applications for certificates being made to and certificates given by the registrar, subject to appeal to the. judge."
  Here we have a new duty thrown upon County Court judges. There is no doubt that there is every likelihood that in any case where damage has been done an attempt will be made to obtain some rebate. When people are billeted in other people's houses, and the slightest damage is done to the premises there will be, on every occasion, under such conditions, a desire to make a claim for compensation. You will not get this arising when people are contracting freely one with another, but when a person with whom a worker is billeted forcibly and at compulsory rates finds that there has been any deterioration in the premises, there will be a desire to get some kind of compensation, and it does not take much knowledge of human nature to foresee that there will be a great many efforts to get compensation under this Clause. Therefore it is necessary that a new duty should be placed on the County Court judge, under rules laid down by the Lord Chancellor, to fix the amount of the compensation, and there is no suggestion as to whether evidence is to be taken, or by what method the compensation is to be assessed. I suppose that would be settled by the rules laid down by the Lord Chancellor. But it does seem to me that this is giving rise to a large class of disputes which would never otherwise have arisen, and for a totally unnecessary cause.
  These are some of the extraordinary anomalies which will arise if this Act is put into operation. It seems to me that before bringing in this elaborate Bill of eleven Clauses, and before setting up the extensive machinery, both central and local, for which this Bill provides, it was the duty of the Government to put some really serious case before the House of Commons. As I have endeavoured to show, the case on the facts has been put on two heads by the Minister. First, in relation to the iron-ore miners, in respect to whom there is no experience at all as to whether voluntary lodging will be adequate or not; secondly, he has put another case, where the difficulty, as he himself stated it to the House, was totally due to the starvation wages paid to the girl

  2159
  workers The figure of the wages was given by himself. But he told us nothing about the dimensions of the areas concerned, or how many areas were affected. He did not tell us in how many areas connected with iron mining there is inadequate accommodation, or in how many munition areas all the calculations of the Ministry of Munitions for housing accommodation have proved inadequate. We are left in ignorance on all these points, and on this shadowy, inadequate, and incomplete case we are called upon to set up a new Department, and to give these compulsory powers, enabling officials to enter private houses all over the country and to force people, no matter what their character may be, upon householders at rates in the decision of which they have no choice. All this is to be done without any case, and, if the House of Commons were worth its salt, it would not accept such a measure at the hands of the Government.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: I was not so fortunate as to hear the opening statement of the Minister in proposing the Second Reading of this measure, but I gather, from observations in speeches which have just been delivered, that no adequate case was made for proposals so drastic in their interference with family life and the privacy of home life, as are proposed in this Bill. We were told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in reply to a question to-day. that there is not, and there is no danger of there being any interference with individual liberty in this country in these days. It is rather singular that a reply like that should have been given as a prelude to the introduction of such a measure as this. It has been the proud boast of Englishmen in the past that the Englishman's house was his castle. I think we shall no longer be able to make that boast with any degree of truth. I speak upon one aspect of this question with a certain amount of special knowledge. I have been associated, in company with the present Minister of Labour, for the last eighteen months or two years in paying special attention to the conditions which exist in the munitions areas of the country, and I do not think my right hon. Friend will disagree with me when I say that that particular problem with which we were concerned has been very greatly aggravated by the overcrowding conditions which have existed
  2160
  in consequence of the increase of the population during the last two or three years in these munition areas. Take, for instance, the now well-known case at Carlisle. In the early days of the War, the Minister of Munitions started very extensive works a few miles away to the north of Carlisle. One would have thought that the very first thing the Government would have done or considered would be the making of adequate provision for the proper housing of the thousands of workpeople that they brought to that particular neighbourhood; but, as a matter of fact, the Ministry of Munitions did nothing of the sort. Thousands of people came into the neighbourhood, gathered from all parts of the country, and they were left to find accommodation where they could. It is said that the population of Carlisle has been increased by something like 20,000 owing to the incursion of these workpeople, and that it is impossible either to get housing accommodation with private families or lodgings in the city of Carlisle.
  What the Ministry of Munitions ought to have done was to provide hostels for the accommodation of these workers. It might be urged, as an objection, that the need for these workers is likely to be of a temporary character. To that I reply that so long as the works remain there, the need of larger accommodation for the people who are brought to those works should be met, and the cost of providing that accommodation would be a very slight addition to the aggregate capital expenditure which has been incurred. Apart from the strong objection to this Bill on the ground of its interference with family life and the privacy of the home, I venture to suggest that it is not. going to attain the purpose for which it is designed. Reference has been made to the fact that an attempt is likely to be made to make provision by such a measure as this for workers in Barrow. Anybody who knows the condition of things in Barrow is aware that it is almost impossible to get housing accommodation there, to be used for the purpose of this Bill. There is not one house in Barrow to-day that is not full, and most of the houses are in an overcrowded condition. The same remark applies to the conditions in other areas. Therefore, if an attempt is to be made to billet munition workers, you are going enormously to aggravate the terrible evil of overcrowding. We know

  2161
  that one of the most serious results of overcrowding is immorality, and I am appalled when I contemplate what may be possibly the result of such a measure as this. If it is not too late I would suggest to the Ministry of Munitions that they are going the wrong way to try and meet the difficulty of lodgings for munition workers. I entirely associate myself with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Attercliffe (Mr. Anderson), and criticism and opposition to this Bill really arises because we are very anxious that proper accommodation should be provided for munition workers at a reasonable cost. If it is not too late, I would suggest to the Ministry of Munitions that they should reconsider their policy and instead of proceeding by these means, which I repeat will be ineffective and which will not succeed, they should tackle the problem themselves, and with the enormous powers they possess, and the enormous amount of money they command, they could in the course of a few weeks time provide proper accommodation. We are hearing just now everybody talking about the need for national economy, and we all know that there is enormous waste in the present individualistic method of life—that is to say, a thousand people could be provided for at a far less cost together, or in a few hostels, than a thousand persons can be provided for if billetted in private houses. I am sure greater economy would be effected by the Ministry of Munitions if they dealt with the problem in that way. I was rather astonished at the concluding observation of my hon. Friend the Member for Attercliffe when he said that this Bill would not be opposed on the Second Reading. Of all the interferences which have been made by this and preceding Governments in the last two and a half years, no interference with individual liberty, I think, has been more outrageous than this which is proposed. Certainly, if there were a desire on the part of those Members who are opposed to this mesure, to take their opposition into the Division Lobby, I should join them.
  Mr. J. HEN DERSON: I think no Bill has been introduced into this House which has had such an evil aspect as this one. It may be necessary, I do not say it is not. But, really, how far are we going in the direction of bureaucracy, and of all the bureaucratic Departments we have set up, I give my hon. Friend the credit that the Munitions Department is the biggest. I
  2162
  know of no Department which so thoroughly interferes with other people's work as does the Munitions Department. I dread another Department being put under their control and direction. I also dread this eternal appointment of salaried officials, and local committees, with all the expenses of those committees, and so forth. I really do not know where we are going to. This House of Commons has absolutely lost control over expenditure, but the day of reckoning is coming when we will have to go into all this. They have got so accustomed to going to the purse and taking out whatever is wanted, without regard to this House or anyone else, that the ultimate result will be very serious indeed. The Munitions Department has had no difficulty whatever in dictating to controlled firms the amount of wages which they shall pay their men; it has insisted upon all controlled firms, amongst them engineers, raising the wages to just as much as it thinks is right. If that is the fact, I do not know why the Munitions Department should scruple to give these people who are going away from their homes to engage in work of national importance sufficient wages, at all events, to enable them to make their company desirable where they are billeted if people wish to billet them. But to tell men that they are going to some town—say, Coventry or any of those places—and that it is really so overcrowded that they must be billeted, is not likely to draw workers to the national service. It certainly would not draw ordinary men. In military matters it is wholly different. In some districts where they notified billeting the military, by the erection of huts and so forth have avoided it, or very little has taken place. I cannot see why you are to draw people to various places without providing some place whore they can live in decent comfort. I see here that every man is bound to give the local committee information respecting his premises and the number of persons residing there, and to provide such billets as may be required. If a town is overcrowded, how are they to billet a great many people in it? It seems to me you have fallen into the mistake of sending people to various places to do certain work without having in the first instance discovered what you could do with them when they were there It is little inducement to any man to volunteer for National Service to know that he may be billeted in an already overcrowded town The number of people en-

  2163
  gaged in these operations from first to last under the Ministry of Munitions seems to me to be getting enormous and beyond all control and knowledge. The War is a very great war and brings about this very ! extraordinary case, but I do protest. I suppose this is the first Bill of the kind in this or any other country to billet civilians. The case of soldiers is totally different. They do not ask when billeted for very great accommodation. Where I have heard of them they have been most amenable, and have accepted any reasonable accommodation. So long as they are provided with a mattress and blankets, and get their food, they are content. You cannot expect people drawn from civil appointments, especially when they are over age, to put up anyhow and make the I best they can of it. I dread this power, above all, of local committees and squabbles and disputes between people of a town going on constantly, and no peace or rest for them: and discontent at having people billeted on you when you do not want them, however objectionable they may be, and when you do get them you cannot get rid of them without going to the local committees. We know what local committees are; some are bad, and some will deal fairly and some not. You will have a great deal of unrest and disappointment and annoyance throughout the country. It may be necessary, though I very much doubt it. I think the proper course is to make provision by huts or hostels. Why not take a hotel or two? You did not hesitate to take them for yourselves in London. I look Forward with very great concern to the outcome of this Bill.
  Notice taken that forty Members were not present. House counted, and forty Members being found present—
  Mr. WING: We have heard a number of speeches critical of this measure, and in some the arguments have been so various as to be mutually destructive of each other. One hon. Member objects to the Bill because the Government have got such a way of spending money and Departments put their hands into the public purse with great audacity and without a blush. He immediately follows that by saying, why do you not spend more money, and that what the people want is more accommodation, and that the Government should continue to spend and be lavish. You cannot have expenditure and economy
  2164
  both prevailing at the same time. Personally, I sympathise with the Ministry of Munitions in relation to the introduction of this Bill. There are some of the evils pointed out by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Snowden), but they are not evils of the creation of the Ministry or Munitions. They are difficulties which the Ministry have come against and for which they are endeavouring as well as they can to find a solution. The hon. Member for Blackburn pointed here and there, and said what they should have done was to make proper provision. Really, we have got to remember that the Ministry of Munitions is confronted with the question of the provision of munitions for the period of the War. The War is going on, and they cannot suspend it while they arrange conditions of an ideal character. I wanted recently, if possible, to transfer a number of miners who, on account of difficulties of transport, were unemployed. It occurred to me that it would be an opportunity for transferring the; miners from one point to another. The very difficulty of which the hon. Member for Blackburn complained was the difficulty which prevented the transfer of those miners. The Coal Controller said. "Yes, the men are wanted, but I want to know what the accommodation is for them before they are sent."
  This is a practical difficulty, and. as I read the Bill, it in no wise interferes with the possibility of the creation of huts, but what it does say is that the Ministry must know what is the accommodation in the district in which accommodation is wanted. It does not necessarily mean that a person shall be forced to take in lodgers. I have as much reverence for the working man's home as any of the hon. Members who have spoken, but I can imagine there are a number of conditions in this Bill which people who take in lodgers will be exceedingly glad to have, such as what is regarded as a just payment to be given to the person who billets, and also some security that he or she will get the money for billeting. We are told by one hon. Member that we must have representation of the people who are to billet these folk, but I take it that a local committee is really for the purpose of providing that. Then it is said that we are setting up another organisation, but if we want the working people represented we must give them some organisation. Considering the many difficulties that the Ministry of Munitions have to face, I think they have

  2165
  looked all round the problem and have endeavoured to meet every difficulty that presented itself, and I hope the House will not stand in the way of the Ministry obtaining the billeting powers which they desire. It is quite possible to have under-tenanted houses in a district, even in an overcrowded district. Here you have an organisation with a view to knowing what are the possibilities of a particular district. If it can billet no more people, huts must be provided. I would point out that if the Ministry had said "We want to build huts for these people," the hon. Members who oppose the Bill would have said, "Why not see what the present accommodation is; why do you not get to know?" This Bill gives them an opportunity of inquiring what are the conditions and possibilities, and if the requirements are not met by the housing possibilities of the district huts must necessarily be built. With regard to all the unpleasant questions that arise out of overcrowding, I thoroughly agree with the hon. Member for Blackburn, but it is a very difficult time in our national history for us to be speaking of ideal conditions, and carrying them out, when our soldiers are requiring munitions and every form of industrial endeavour is fully occupied. I have very great pleasure in supporting this Bill, because I believe it is an honest effort to solve a difficult problem. I feel that we are getting in this House into a way of cavilling, and a determination that there can be nothing right presented by the Government, rather than of seeing the decent, points in the various Bills and realising the tremendous difficulties with which the Government are called upon to deal.
  Mr. D. MASON: The hon Member who has just sat down made a statement to which many of us take exception. I wonder if he has read the Bill.
  Mr. WING: Yes, I have, and I hope you have.
  Mr. MASON: The hon. Member said that many of those who oppose this Bill complain of the Government, and ask why they do not find out what the accommodation was in a particular neighbourhood and then make new provision, but no one takes exception to the Government's finding out what accommodation exists in certain towns. In my own district, for example, which is suffering from a lack of houses, no one takes any exception to the
  2166
  Government's finding out whether there are lodgings available for munition workers. The gravamen of the objection to this Bill is the principle of compulsion that is introduced. We object to the idea of compelling small householders, women whose husbands or brothers may be fighting, single women, and so on, by the fiat of a local committee, to have munition workers forced upon them whether they wish it or not.
  Mr. WING: That is safeguarded.
  Mr. MASON: May I remind the hon. Member what these safeguards are? The only redress which any defenceless woman may have if she objects to a certain worker billeted upon her is to apply to her local committee. Conceive of the situation—some terrible scene taking place in this poor woman's house; perhaps she is living with daughters or sisters and has a spare room, and someone a forcibly billeted upon her; she has no redress except going to the local committee. Some reference has been made to soldiers being billeted, but the answer to that is that a soldier is subject to discipline, whereas the worker is not subject to anyone. The local committee might, in such a case as I have mentioned, give a decision that a particular worker was undesirable and must be removed elsewhere.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: To somebody else's house.
  Mr. MASON: Such a case can be multiplied tenfold. Conceive of it going on in Coventry, in Sheffield, right through Scotland, and the great munition areas. There is a provision in this precious Bill that the expenses of the local committees are to be met by the Treasury. It is a fiasco of a Bill! Let me draw the attention of the House to Clause 6. Whoever drew up this Clause evidently was anxious to create expense and perhaps litigation. There are half a dozen Sub-sections which provide for cases of dispute, which may lead to expense, and which have to be settled by a local committee. If anyone either falsely or otherwise introduce to billets or suggests to the local committee that there are billets available, or in any way acts in an injurious manner, that person is subject to a fine of £100. All these cases have to come before the local committee. Let me read to the House some

  2167
  of these various Sub-sections. A person guilty of an offence is to be specifically fined.
  Mr. WING: That is to protect that poor woman of whom you have just spoken.
  Mr. MASON: This has nothing to do with the poor woman. If the hon. Member will get the Bill he can find out to what this particular Section refers. What I am speaking of refers to Clause 6, where, if anyone "personates or falsely represents himself to be a person authorised to demand any billet or to be billeted under this Act," he shall be guilty of an offence. These are the people who may, without proper authority, act as agents for billets. This has nothing to do with the poor woman. This is an entirely different case. This is another Section to which I am drawing the attention of the House to show the absurdity of this Bill. I had already passed away from the defenceless woman, whom I hope I have convinced the hon. Member is really defenceless. The only redress she has is to apply to the local committee. I am now referring to Clause 6. I have already quoted the first paragraph (a). What does the second paragraph (b) provide? If any person—
  "(b) receives, demands, or agrees for any money or reward whatsoever to excuse or relieve any person from being billeted in a list as liable, or from his liability to billets, under this Act, or from any part of such liability,"
  he shall be liable to imprisonment or fine, or both. What does paragraph (c) provide? If any person—
  "(c) gives or agrees to give any money or reward to any person to excuse or relieve him from being entered in a list as liable, or from his liability to billets under this Act, or any part of such liability,"
  he shall be liable. What does paragraph (d) provide? If any person—
  "(d) gives or agrees to give any person billeted upon him in pursuance of this Act any money or reward in lieu of receiving such person or furnishing such accommodation as is required by this Act,"
  he shall be liable; and so with paragraph (e). If any person—
  "(e) for the purpose of avoiding any liability under this Act, gives to the local committee or an executive
  2168
  officer any false information with respect to any matter with respect to which he is required to furnish information under this Act,"
  he shall be liable. All these people are apparently to be tried by the local committee, and the expenses of the local committee are to be provided in the way my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh pointed out. If I may be allowed to say so, my hon. Friend made a most brilliant contribution in initiating the discussion on this Bill. He pointed out that in Clause 8 the expenses of these local committees are to come from the Treasury. These, then, that I have outlined are the provisions for almost every conceivable offence that any village or town may indulge in. If any man does anything contrary to the Act in introducing to billets or otherwise offends against the Act he may be punished. The committee may develop into a sort of local Star Chamber. The hon. Member (Mr. Wing) laughs. It is no laughing matter. I have not risen to create amusement for hon. Members. I speak in all seriousness. It is not a laughing matter. We are dealing with the taxpayers' money. The hon. Member apparently thinks we have an unlimited purse. We are creating committees who are to engage in this fiasco, and this billeting is to be done in the most expensive manner possible. Not only so, but you will create dislocation It is not a question of billeting or finding out the accommodation. It is quite right for the Government to desire to find accommodation for the workers, but let them set about it in the proper manner.
  Mr. HOGGE: They have the National Register.
  Mr. MASON: As the hon. Member for Blackburn pointed out, there are many other ways than this of finding out the required information. We wish them to find it out. But what we do not desire them to do is to compel women and other people who do not wish their houses to be turned into lodging-houses to have them so used. We wish for no compulsion in this matter. Let us have it done by option, by an organisation for finding out the possibilities of every town, so as to ascertain the measures to be taken. This country has not shown itself behind in patriotism. There was no difficulty in finding billets for soldiers. Why should there be for munition workers? The case of a, soldier is different, because

  2169
  he is under a commanding officer, and, therefore, liable to discipline. The hon. and gallant Gentleman, who is a soldier of distinction, will know that. The soldier feels under discipline when he is in a billet. The civil members of the community are not under commanding officers. The numberless cases which are to come continuously before the local committee will mean that it will have to sit permanently. Hon. Members will agree that if you forcibly make people take lodgers there are more likely to be cases of dispute and claims for compensation than if the matter were adjusted voluntarily. Therefore the time of the local committee will largely be occupied in settling these questions, questions of compensation, of complaint, and of redress.
  Some reference has been made to overcrowding. Here, again, I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Snowden), who referred to the probability of overcrowding which will ensue from this Bill. I know in my own Constituency that they require some 5,000 houses. There is not accommodation for all. If you are going to allow the local committee, anxious no doubt to get people housed at any cost—here is a house to spare, and there another house—put a couple of lodgers into them I—if I say you are going to allow the local committee to do that by force, we are bound to have overcrowding. Overcrowding is a question of wages. A number of the workers in my own Constituency are now, I believe, going out into the surrounding districts. If the workers are properly paid they will be able to go out into the surrounding districts. It is better they should live outside the city than crowd into narrow streets, bringing about congested areas, disease, and inefficiency as a result of their overcrowding. This Bill goes the wrong way about the cure—for we all desire a cure. It may be suggested to me: What remedy have you to offer? I think the hon. Member for Blackburn made two admirable suggestions. Some ridicule and scorn was poured upon them because, it was said, they will mean extra expense. Of course, the housing of the people does mean expense. The workers can pay for it. They can recoup a district for the capital outlay. It is not unre-munerative expense altogether. Suppose you put up an hotel or hostel? You will be getting rent for them. If you put up
  2170
  huts or other accommodation in a town you will get some compensation and some payment for the work.
  I fail to see that, because we oppose this Bill, we necessarily oppose finding accommodation. We desire to find accommodation for these workers. I think, as has been put very admirably by many speakers, that if you introduce the element of compulsion you accentuate the evil and create other evils, injustice, and unrest, and we are very desirous not to create unrest in this country. We are anxious to have the country united. I hope this Bill will not be persisted in. Many speakers have very persuasively appealed to the Government to reconsider, not from any wish on our part to thwart them or prevent them from providing accommodation, but that they may reconsider the position, and take counsel of many Members who represent these munition areas as to the best method of meeting the difficulty. We are anxious to find a way out, and we appeal to them to withdraw their Bill for the time being and reconsider the position, so that some other method may be found. We are anxious to support and facilitate the finding of accommodation, but we believe this Bill will have the very opposite effect—that it will create unrest, that it will create discontent, which is disadvantageous to the cause in which we are all interested, and that it will lead to abuse, to probably an increase of crime, and to injustice.
  Mr. CURRIE: It is, of course, very easy to cavil at a Bill of this kind, especially when you have a feeling of natural hostility towards this and every Government. I do not suggest that some of the difficulties with which we have been threatened to-night will not be found to have some measure of foundation; at the same time, I wish to say that, as a member of the Home Office Committee which was charged with the duty of making, if possible, arrangements for the substitution of women's labour for that of men, and of finding accommodation for women who were sent to various towns in connection with war work, I am convinced that a Bill of this kind is really required. It is all very well to say the work can be done by voluntary effort. A great deal has been accomplished through voluntary effort, but at the same time a great deal has been left unaccomplished. I can tell the House that in connection with one of

  2171
  the Yorkshire towns we were surprised at the difficulty we found in securing accommodation for women whose work and presence were most urgently required, and we sent down someone to Yorkshire and found out that in this town there were between 700 and 800 unoccupied houses. On pressing inquiries a little further wo found that about 200 of those houses had been condemned, and I dare say they were put out of court on that account, but between 500 and 600 empty houses were standing there, and even if it be true that you cannot send women in a hurry to live in unoccupied houses, the accommodation is there, and other people can live in the empty houses; but the fact of the matter is that in this town 500 houses, representing 2,000 or 3,000 vacant rooms, could be used very easily, and I do not see any other way except a Bill of this kind to make such houses available.
  Mr. HOGGE: You do not require compulsion for that.
  10.0 p.m.
  Mr. CURRIE: We found repeatedly that the great difficulty was to arrange for the transference of workers, simply because, although there were vacant houses and spare rooms, there was no way of getting workers into them. Voluntary effort has been found only partially successful. It seems to me ridiculous that a position like the present should be allowed to continue when the work of these women is so badly required. The hon. Member for Coventry seems to regard it, so I gather, as rather a hardship that in a house of that kind, where there may be a spare room—that is, an unoccupied room—it should be forcibly occupied. I do not agree with him. I think it extremely reasonable that a room of that kind should be occupied, and I do not know how else it can be occupied except by a Bill of this kind. The hon. Member says that this Bill will stir up discontent. I can assure him, having been through a good many inquiries, including one at Coventry, that this Bill, instead of stirring up additional discontent, will probably do a good deal to avoid still further discontent, and allay the discontent that exists at present. I confess I think a good deal of opposition to this Bill has emanated from people who are not so cordial about the prosecution of the War as they might be. For that reason I think it is very unworthy opposition.
  Mr. JOWETT: The hon. Member who has just spoken notwithstanding his extensive experience, has used a very curious argument with regard to the 500 or 600 empty houses to which he referred, because surely it is clear that the Government could, if they chose, provide under the Defence of the Realm Act for any difficulty in getting the use of those houses. The hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Wing) was good enough to suggest that if the Government had come down and said that they wanted to provide for some hostels, those who were opposing this Bill would then have opposed hostels and advocated billets. It is rather an uncharitable suggestion, and. so far as I am concerned, I utterly re pudiate it.
  Mr. WING: I did not say that. I said that hon. Members used arguments which were contradictory—first for economy, and then for expenditure.
  Mr. JOWETT: I am in the recollection of the House. The hon. Member went on to suggest that local committees would provide sufficient security against any injustice or unnecessary inconvenience in the case of persons who had workers billited upon them. Is it not clear that those committees would mainly consider whether there existed empty rooms, and would much notice be taken of other representations? But what I wish specially to point out to the House in regard to this Bill is this fact: it is notorious that there is a shortage of housing accommodation in this country already, and that there is not a large town from Land's End to John O'Groat's which is not largely overcrowded. For the last two and a half or nearly three years building operations have been practically suspended.
  Therefore, it follows that this Bill cannot seriously provide any large amount of additional accommodation, because of the fact that there is already overcrowding. If there is already overcrowding, then, of course, it cannot affect its purpose, and some other means ought to have been proposed by the Government in order to provide the necessary accommodation required. My hon. Friends suggest, and I think the suggestion is a good one, that instead of proposing to force householders to take lodgers there should be arrangements made for additional accommodation, because, of course, additional accommodation is required. It may be said

  2173
  that additional accommodation cannot be easily provided, but we see here and there in London itself how rapidly structures can be run up, structures which are not in any way, so far as one can see, lacking in stability or comfort, and which could be put up for this purpose just as well as for any other purpose. There are also country houses which could be requisitioned, and hotels, and if there are not sufficient buildings available, then recourse could be had to the rapid building of temporary structures that could be made comfortable in every respect, and a real addition to the housing accommodation thus provided. We all agree, of course, that notwithstanding the fact that there is general overcrowding, there are exceptional instances here and there where there is a spare room available. But I want to suggest that in most cases it would be improper to force a lodger on these householders who had a spare room. If Ministers themselves were concerned, they would not agree to have a lodger forced into the house, and most of them, bear in mind, have staffs of servants who are able to stand between them and any lodgers. But imagine the position—and this is just the kind of provision in exceptional cases that is now available—of a young married woman of the artisan class whose husband has been taken, after one or two years of married life, away to the Army, and she is asked to take lodgers. I do not think anybody who looks at the question fairly and squarely will be able to say that though there is accommodation there a lodger should be forced into the presence of that household.
  Mr. CURRIE: A woman?
  Mr. JOWETT: Even a woman. Surely there is some sanctity of the household. I know it is said that soldiers are billeted, but that argument has been effectively met by the statement that soldiers are under discipline and that complaints can be laid against them to the officers who are responsible for those soldiers. It is not so with free workers, and it is a most unsuitable and, to my mind, a most unfair thing to force strangers into the household in those circumstances. This Bill is a wicked and monstrous thing, and it seems to me that the same spirit which sent the Gadarene swine
  2174
  down to destruction has prompted the Government to bring such an iniquitous measure as this before the House.
  Sir J. AINSWORTH: I think we shall all agree that the Government would never have brought in this Bill if they had not required additional labour in munition factories and other works of that kind for the carrying on the War. We must all agree that other considerations must fall into the background wherever the Government tell us directly that they want extra work and mean to employ additional labour for the production of munitions. I am sure I do not need to remind any hon. Member here, as we see it in the paper every morning, of the enormous demand for shells of every description. Is any hon. Member going to venture to get up and say for one moment that he is going to raise his finger against or grudge the money for work that has to be done to provide our soldiers and sailors with these materials? Let us imagine—we cannot imagine but let us try to imagine—what we should feel like if we were in the trenches and do not we feel that the very utmost we can do is very little as compared with the work that is being done for us by our soldiers and sailors at the present moment? We all know those who make up our defences, our own sons, our brothers, members of our own families, those whom we do think of and ought to think of more than anyone else in the world, and how can we hesitate for one moment to provide the Government who are responsible for them, with these things which are wanted. They say they are wanted, and it is our business to provide them, and I am sure everyone in this House feels that there is nothing in the world whatsoever in our minds or in our thoughts which shall stand for a moment between our soldiers and those who are defending us with their lives and providing them with whatever they want. Let us put that on the one side and realise that the Government are quite right, if they feel the necessity, in coming and telling us that they want certain additional powers for finding proper accommodation for labour. We all know that you cannot employ additional labour without arranging to provide that labour with proper housing accommodation, with sanitary arrangements, food, wages, and, of course, everything they want. That is the object, I understand, of the Government Bill.
  Mr. HOGGE: No, no; nothing to do with it.
  Sir J. AINSWORTH: The hon. Gentleman interrupts me, but I am sure he knows that the Government do not come here to ask for something for themselves but for something for the Army; and if it is something wanted for the Army it is our business to supply it. Whether this is the best method is a matter with which I will deal in a minute; but that we have to do that must be manifest to everybody here. I happen to know something as to two or three of the Army works where labour of that kind is largely carried on. Of course, work has been going on now in the United Kingdom on these lines for more than two years. We all know that when a soldier is sent to be lodged in another man's house he is under the supervision of his own officers and non-commissioned officers, and therefore every security is given for the conduct of these men and the safety and comfort of the people with whom they are lodged. All we ask the Government to do, and that is what I gather from the speakers who have found some fault with the arrangements under the present Bill and probably with some reason asked for, is to provide the same safeguards to the householder on whom the workmen is compulsorily lodged as the War Office provides for the civilian on whom the soldier is compulsorily lodged.
  Why cannot the Government meet this case? I really hope that before we go further with this Bill they will be able to tell us which Clauses in the Bill protect the safety and comfort of the civilians with whom these workers are to be lodged. Who are the local committees to be composed of, and what are they to do? With regard to overcrowding, want of lodgings and the need for sanitation we are all agreed that these things must act disastrously on the health and morality of the population. We are ready to provide for all the wants of the Army, and it is the duty of the Government to tell us what are the needs of the Army. We all believe that health and morality must be carefully guarded, but why should new committees be formed? Is there no authority in the local places where this billeting is to take place, and where the huts are to be erected? Is there no local authority there already looking after overcrowding, sanitation, the health of the people, and all matters of that kind? Of course there is. I do not find anything
  2176
  in this Bill detailing what the duties of the local committee are to be, whether they will come under the control of the existing local committees which have been provided for many years to look after these things. With every desire to agree with the Government and let them have everything they want until the War is over it is perfectly clear to me, as it must be more or less to other hon. Members who are opposing this Bill, that all these points have been overlooked by the Government. Some of us have complained more than once that the Government is not treating the House of Commons with as much attention as it might do. Whether that is so or not it is not for me to say, but if the Government want to get this Bill at once, as they ought to if they are to look after the interests of the country, they should have no hesitation about it, and lose no time at all if they want these extra men immediately. They should tell us at once how they mean to deal with these men in regard to sanitary, moral, and other considerations of that kind, and they should tell us what the local committees are going to do.
  If hon. Members knew how these places where this extra work is being done are being carried on in the meantime, they would know that these matters are attended to by institutions which have sprung up, and that everybody is willing to help. I could suggest where they might find the extra help that they want. How about National Service? Why do not the Ministry of Munitions with the help of the National Service people set to work to see that the workers are properly housed. There are excellent committees, on which all sorts of people have been appointed, helping to carry out this work, and for the Government merely to ask for power to turn casual labourers into private houses and to put them wherever they choose is really not common sense or at all on all fours with morality, health, proper housing, and proper sanitary treatment as we have been taught to understand and do now understand better than we did fifty years ago. I am reminded of the saying of a great statesman now passed away,"Sanitas, sanitas, omnia sanitns." I want the Government to take that for their motto, and if they want to plant down this extra labour here and everywhere let them take care that they do it in accordance with the principle of one of the most leading statesmen this country has ever produced. I sincerely

  2177
  hope that the Government will get their Bill, but they should give a, full explanation and interpretation and a plain indication that they are going to treat these people in the only way that it ought to be done.
  Mr. PONSONBY: The Government can hardly claim that there has been any great enthusiasm evinced for this Bill this evening, and I feel sure that had other Members known the contents of it more fully there would have been a very much larger volume of opinions expressed in opposition to its provisions. These small Bills are introduced in a way that lead one to suppose that they are entirely inoffensive, but when one examines them he is sure to find that there is some fresh infringement of individual liberty or an increase to the army of officials, which every day is becoming more numerous. We find both these elements in this Bill; in fact, when you look into the Bill, you find that really it is a Bill for the compulsion of unwilling householders to receive lodgers. There is no question of billeting in the ordinary way. If there is sufficient accommodation in any place and willingness on the part of the inhabitants to receive the workers, there is no need for any Bill, but it is in instances where there is unwillingness on the part of householders to receive these workers that a Bill of this kind becomes necessary. Therefore, it is compulsion of the unwilling householder. That is an extremely objectionable feature. I agree with the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire (Mr. J. M. Henderson) that probably for the first time in any assembly a Bill has been introduced for the billeting of civilians. The difference between the billeting of civilians and of soldiers has been accentuated by several speakers, and it must be emphasised because there is a sharp distinction between the two.
  I cannot quite understand why temporary dwellings and hostels cannot be erected. We have seen the fabulous speed with which these dwellings can be erected in London. Every park and pond is filled with them. They look very substantial and comfortable. The Civil Service is being billeted in this manner, and I cannot see why, in the districts where there is a special pressure through a large population of this sort being imported, accommodation cannot be provided in this way. I would remind the Government that in
  2178
  the case of Rosyth, in which a large body of workers was introduced into a district where it was found there was not sufficient provision for housing them, a hut village was erected, I admit, after some pressure on the Government. That proved an expedient which to some extent relieved the pressure for the moment. The Government have always made this error in not looking forward to the pressure that is likely to occur through a population being sent to any special area and have not provided accommodation for the workers. To resort to an expedient of this sort by compelling the workers to lodge in billets where they are unwilling guests is asking for trouble. I should have thought that the Ministry of Munitions was the last Government Department that desired to ask for trouble in these times. They have to deal with very difficult problems, and they are setting about one of their problems now in a way which does not appear to a large body of opinion in this House to be the wisest way of settling it. It is from no desire to impede the work of the Ministry of Munitions that criticism has been brought against this Bill. On the contrary, what we are after is, first, the protection of individual liberty, and, secondly, to try to persuade the Ministry to adopt measures in these particular cases which will not produce friction, but which will ease the situation, give comfortable and sanitary accommodation to the workers, and, if possible, prevent any inconvenience to the inhabitants of the locality.
  Just one last word about these local committees. The tribunals up and down the country were not the most popular bodies, but they will be popular compared with these local committees. I pity people who have to serve on them. I do not quite know how they are going to be constituted, and what exactly their powers will be, but it is pretty certain they will have a very difficult time when they are forced to come down upon certain householders and insist on their accommodating civilian workers. It will need a fresh increase in the army of officials. From all points of view, in regarding this Bill generally on Second Reading, it is objectionable, and I feel sure that if the Government could reconsider in some way the necessity of pressing the Bill upon the House they would meet the views of a far larger number of Members than have been able to speak this evening.
  Mr. OUTHWAITE: I should join in the whole-hearted condemnation of this Bill if I only saw it in the light that my hon. Friend does, that it could be manipulated by the Ministry of Munitions. But I understand it is not a Bill for the purpose of any Government Department, and perhaps my opposition would be limited, or even withdrawn, if I could get an assurance on one or two points outside the operations of the Bill under the Munitions Act. I understand, for instance, that one of the great needs of the near future is to draft great numbers of workers into country districts for the purpose of greater production from the soil, which is a matter of urgent national importance. We all know the terrible housing conditions in the country districts. In no district are cottages available. Is it likely that when these people are sent down into a country district the Board of Agriculture will proceed to compel the rich people living in halls and castles, who alone have housing accommodation, to find it in their dwellings? Can we have an assurance that not only will they be compelled to provide the essential housing accommodation, but to "provide such billets as they may be required to provide under the Act, to furnish such attendance and meals or food for the persons billeted on them"? That is to say, will the proprietor of the country mansion be compelled to set to work to provide food and attendance for the agricultural labourer who may be sent
  down into the country district? If that is in the mind of the Government, if one could have an assurance that in country districts committees would be set up which would compel the people with this excellent housing accommodation to accept the workers who will be drafted from the towns and cities on to the land, if I thought such action would be taken, to a certain extent my opposition to this Bill would be modified; but until one has such an assurance I can only see in the Bill a measure which will compel only one section of the community, which is already making the chief sacrifice, to make this further sacrifice, for it is a great sacrifice to break the sanctity of the home, which is greater amongst poor than amongst rich, who have very often many houses, and will inflict on them not only the hardship of having to surrender some of the very limited accommodation which they at present have, but also compel them to provide service for these people when already they have too much work to perform I am afraid this is a Bill which will only be operated in one direction, and not where probably it could be operated with the very greatest service—that is, in the country districts.
  Bill read a. second time.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House."—[Mr. Hope.]
  The House divided: Ayes, 76; Noes, 31.

  Division No. 32.]

  AYES.

  [10.36 p.m.

  Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher

  Goldstone, Frank

  Pratt, J. W.

  Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

  Greenwood, Sir G. G. (Peterborough)

  Pryce-Jones, Colonel E.

  Ainsworth, Sir John Stirling

  Greig, Colonel James William

  Raffan, Peter Wilson

  Archdale, Lieut. Edward M.

  Hanson, Charles Augustin

  Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

  Baldwin, Stanley

  Harris, Percy A. (Leicester, S.)

  Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough)

  Barnett, Capt. R. W.

  Hodge, Rt. Hon. John

  Rees, G. C. (Carnarvonshire, Arfon)

  Bathurst, Capt. Charles (Wilts, Wilton)

  Holmes, Daniel Turner

  Roberts, George H. (Norwich)

  Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth)

  Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

  Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs)

  Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish.

  Hughes, Spencer Leigh

  Robinson, Sidney

  Brace, Rt. Hon. William

  Illingworth, Rt. Hon. Albert H.

  Rowlands, James

  Bridgeman William Clive

  Johnston, Christopher N.

  Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby)

  Bryce, J. Annan

  Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East)

  Samuels, Arthur W.

  Carnegie, Lieut.-Col. D. G.

  Jones, W. Kennedy (Hornsey)

  Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton)

  Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W.

  Jones, William S. Glyn-(Stepney)

  Shortt, Edward

  Coats, Sir Stuart A. (Wimbledon)

  Kellaway, Frederick George

  Terrell, Henry (Gloucester)

  Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.

  Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

  Walker, Colonel William Hall

  Craig, Colonel James (Down, E.)

  Layland-Barrett, Sir F.

  Williams, Col. Sir Robert (Dorset, W.)

  Currie, George W.

  Levy, Sir Maurice

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Dairymple, Hon. H. H.

  Lewis, Rt. Hon. John Herbert

  Winfrey, Sir Richard

  Davies, David (Montgomery Co.)

  Locker-Lampson, G. (Salisbury)

  Wing, Thomas Edward

  Duke, Rt. Hon. Henry Edward

  Morison, Thomas B. (Inverness)

  Worthington Evans, Major Sir L.

  Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson

  Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

  Younger, Sir George

  Fletcher, John Samuel

  Neville, Reginald J. N.

  France, Gerald Ashburner

  Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Galbraith, Samuel

  Parker, James (Halifax)

  Lord Edmund Talbot and Mr-

  Gibbs, Col. George Abraham

  Pennefather, De Fonblanque

  Beck

  Gilbert, J. D.

  Perkins, Walter Frank

  NOES.

  Anderson, W. C.

  Kilbride, Denis

  Pringle, William M. R.

  Arnold, Sydney

  Lambert, Richard (Walts, Cricklade)

  Reddy, Michael

  Chancellor, Henry George

  Lundon, Thomas

  Roch, Walter F. (Pembrake)

  Devlin, Joseph

  McGhee, Richard

  Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter (Dewsbury)

  Dickinson, Rt. Hon. Willoughby H.

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Scanlan, Thomas

  Donovan, John Thomas

  Mason, David M. (Coventry)

  Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)

  Ffrench, Peter

  Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)

  Snowden, Philip

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Molloy, Michael

  Whitty, Patrick Joseph

  Hazleton, Richard

  Nolan, Joseph

  Holt, Richard Durning

  O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

  Jowett, Frederick William

  Outhwaite, R. L.

  Hogge and Mr. Ponsonby.

  Keating, Matthew

  Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned"—[Sir E. Cornwall]—put, and agreed to.

  Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole. House for To-morrow.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE (PART I. AMENDMENT) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.—[Progress 18th April.]
  [Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

  CLAUSE 1.—(Amendment of 5 Geo. 5, c. 29, s. 1 (1).)
  (1) For Sub-section (1) of Section one of the National Insurance (Part I. Amendment) Act, 1916, the following Sub-section shall be substituted:
  "(1) Where, in pursuance of any Order in Council relating to pensions of officers or seamen and marines, or of any Royal Warrant relating to pennons of officers or soldiers, disabled in consequence of the present War, there has been granted, whether before or altar the passing of this Act, to any person to whom Section forty-six of the National Insurance Act, 1911, applied at the time of his leaving naval or military service, a pension in respect of disablement in the highest degree, the rate of any sickness or disablement benefit to which that person may be entitled in respect of his insurance under the National Insurance Act, 1911, shall, throughout the period in respect of which that pension, or a pension of a greater amount granted in lieu thereof, is payable, be reduced by five shillings a week, notwithstanding anything in the said Act to the contrary:
  "Provided that a person to whom such a pension has been granted shall not be subject, or shall cease to be subject, to such reduction in the rate of benefit—

  "(i) as respects sickness benefit, if he proves that since leaving naval or military service he has been employed within the meaning of the
  2182
  National Insurance Act, 1911, during twenty-six weeks, whether consecutive or not, and that twenty-six weekly contributions have been paid in respect of him; and

  "(ii.) as respects disablement benefit, if he proves that since leaving naval or military service he has been so employed during one hundred and four weeks, whether consecutive or not, and that one hundred and four weekly contributions have been paid in respect of him.

  "For the purpose of this Sub-section—

  "(a) an allowance in lieu of pension to a person undergoing a special course of medical treatment or undergoing treatment in an institution or receiving training in a technical institution or otherwise; and

  "(b) a pension in respect of total disablement suffered in consequence of the present war, granted before the first day of April, nineteen hundred and seventeen,

  shall be treated as if such allowance or pension were a pension in respect of disablement in the highest degree."
  (2) Where benefit at the unreduced rate has been paid for any period between the first day of April, nineteen hundred and seventeen, and the passing of this Act to a person to whom a pension in respect of disablement in the highest degree has been granted since the first-mentioned date, then the amount of the difference between benefit at the unreduced rate and at the reduced rate for such period shall be treated as an advance, and Sub-section (2) of Section one of the National Insurance (Part I. Amendment) Act, 1915, shall apply to the recovery thereof.
  Question again proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
  Mr. DEVLIN: I beg to move, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."

  2183
  When this Bill was before the House the other night, a discussion arose owing to Members of the House being unable to interpret what the measure was about. We protested on that occasion against the absence of the Law Officers of the Crown, who should have been here to help the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill to steer it through the Committee. I regret that, notwithstanding that remonstrance and entirely defensible protest, we have again to-night a repetition of the absence of the Law Officers. We have the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General for England and the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General for Ireland, but, unfortunately, they are not in the House. Nor have we any Cabinet Minister present to offer some explanation; and I would like to know where these Gentlemen are. Why are they not here to simplify the proposals of the Bill and give us that essential enlightenment that would enable non-legal minds to thoroughly analyse the provisions put forward by the Government? In my view, it is unbecoming on the part of the Law Officers to be absent on this occasion, and I think it a gross insult to the House of Commons. They possibly think that they are preparing their functions in a manner that commends them to this House, since they are following the example of their chiefs in the Cabinet. To me, at all events, as a private Member, it is a monstrous condition of affairs that important Bills of a far-reaching character are introduced in the House of Commons, sometimes without explanation, and certainly without guidance from those in responsible positions. Perhaps it would be a most useful lesson, not only to members of the Cabinet, but also to highly-paid legal officers, who hold their positions to advise those of us who have not the necessary legal knowledge, if we reported Progress. It might impress them with some sense of what their duties actually are. The absence of the Law Officers is not only reprehensible, but it follows the far more reprehensible proceeding of the continued absence of Cabinet Ministers. This is not the first nor the sixth time that a protest has been offered from various parts of the House. Although we have a large army of paid Under-Secretaries and a Parliamentary Secretariat, who form, in fact, a sixth of the Members of this House, yet while private Members have to be here night
  2184
  after night in discharge of their duties and obligations to their constituents, those officials are conspicuous by their absence. Though I do not say that their presence would conspicuously adorn the House. I think we ought to protest against their absence, which is not only a gross insult to the House of Commons, but it takes place, not on a private Member's Bill, in which they take no interest, but on a Government Bill which comes on at ten or eleven at night, and we have not even those paid officials here to help us in deliberations which are essential not only for economic progress, but for the due prosecution of the seat. I am very sorry the Bill on which I raise this protest is a measure proposed by the hon. Baronet. [An Hon. MEMBER: "He is not a Baronet!"] I hope he soon will be a Baronet.
  Sir EDWIN CORNWALL (Comptroller of the Household): I would rather have the Bill.
  Mr. DEVLIN: I hope the hon. Gentleman will not only get the baronetcy, but the Bill. I can assure him, if he brings sufficient influence to bear on the legal advisers of the Government to do their duty to the House, that the result of his colossal interest to guide this Bill through the House will, I hope, be largely recompensed, not only by a baronetcy, but that he will be able soon to become even a larger Minister in a Government which is more notorious for bustle than for business. I am eminently in favour of business—
  The CHAIRMAN: I think the hon. Member is going into rather wide considerations. He is only entitled to deal with the question of the necessity of the presence of some persons for the consideration of the Bill or of Clause 1.
  Mr. DEVLIN: I am not aware whether you were in the Chair when this Bill was taken on the last occasion at ten minutes to eleven o'clock. We then protested when a legal question was raised that there was no one here to answer. I ventured on that occasion to make a protest against the continuance of the discussion on this Bill until we could have legal guidance. That protest must have appeared, with all its impressiveness, in-the OFFICIAL REPORT. I take it that the Law Officers occupy some of their time in reading the OFFICIAL REPOKT, and if

  2185
  they did so they would have found out that such a protest was made. They knew this Bill was coming on to-night, and they are not here to assist the House in performing its duites with regard to an intricate measure which requires legal advice to enable us to come to a conclusion on it. In pursuance of the protest then made, and until those Gentlemen are here to discharge the functions for which they are highly paid, I beg to move—
  The CHAIRMAN: I assume there was on the last occasion some legal point raised. As to that I must confess myself ignorant. The Question is that I do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again.
  Sir E. CORNWALL: May I appeal to the House? I can understand an hon. Member raising an objection sometimes because a legal Minister is not present, but they are not necessary on this small Bill. Although the hon. Gentleman raised an objection on the last occasion because the Law Officers were not present, ho did not raise any legal objection on the last occasion, and I do not think he does so now. It is only a question of machinery here. There may be, and no doubt are, Bills on which the presence of the Law Officers is necessary for explanation, but there is no legal point of any special character in this Bill. This is a Bill to enable 2,000 approved societies in the United Kingdom to bring their machinery into line with the new Pensions Warrant which the Pensions Minister brought in, and which became operative on 1st April. It would be a serious inconvenience to the approved societies of the four countries if this Bill were delayed. I can only appeal to hon. Members to let the Bill go through. Time does not permit me to explain any of the points.
  Mr. LUNDON: Why not?
  Sir E. CORNWALL: I explained on Second Reading and shortly when I moved this Clause. Really there is no legal difficulty at all in the matter, and the only question before the House is that Clause 1 stand part, save for the Motion to report Progress. Beyond the fact of bringing the arrangements into conformity with the Royal Pensions Warrants there is nothing in the Clause. There is no legal difficulty about it whatever, and anybody who reads the Clause can see exactly what it means. I hope my hon. Friend, now that he has
  2186
  made his protest, will withdraw his Motion to report Progress and let us have this Bill to-night, not for my sake, but for the sake of the organisations which have to carry out this important work.
  Mr. DEVLIN: If the hon. and gallant Member for East Down (Colonel Craig) will promise to convey my protest to the legal members of the Government, I shall be very glad to withdraw.
  Motion to report Progress, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  CLAUSE 2.—(Provision as to Benefits of Men Entitled to Gratuities.)
  Where under any such Order or Warrant as aforesaid a gratuity or temporary allowance of not less than thirty pounds, any portion of which is in respect of temporary total disablement has on or after the first day of April, nineteen hundred and seventeen, been granted in place of a pension to any person to whom Section forty-six of the National Insurance Act, 1911, applied at the time of his leaving naval or military service, he shall not from the date of the award or the date of the passing of this Act, whichever may be the later be entitled in respect of his insurance under the National Insurance Act, 1911, to any sickness or disablement benefit until be proves that he has since leaving naval or military service been employed within the meaning of the National Insurance Act, 1911, during twenty-six weeks, whether consecutive or not, and that twenty-six weekly contributions have been paid in respect of him:
  Provided that if such person at any time after the grant of the temporary allow-ance or gratuity to him becomes entitled to a pension under any such Order or Warrant, this Section shall cease to apply to him.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
  Mr. HOGGE: I want my hon. Friend to get his Bill, because I promised that if they would not take the Munitions Bill to-night I would let him have it, but at the same time I would point out that we got no reply to the discussion on the last Bill, although the Minister was on the Bench. I am not satisfied with Clause 2. It says that when a man gets a gratuity of £30 instead of a pension under the Royal Warrant he will not be entitled to

  2187
  insurance benefit. We have no guarantee when or where a man will get the £30, and therefore we have no guarantee when or where he will get his insurance benefit, and I am reluctant that the hon. Gentleman should get this Clause without some explanation.
  Sir E. CORNWALL: I can assure my hon. Friend that it is in accordance with Clause 7 of the Pensions Warrant, which says, "Where it is considered in the interests of the soldier," etc. I can assure my hon. Friend that the soldier will get this money to which he is entitled under his insurance contribution. He will not be deprived of a single penny. If there were any question of a man not getting his money I could understand the objection, but there is no question of him not getting the money; it is only a question of the method of his getting it.
  Mr. HOGGE: I will keep my bargain, but I do not believe it.
  Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  CLAUSES 3 (Provision as to Arrears,) 4 (Power to Grant out of the Navy and Army Insurance Fund Benefits to Persons not at Present Qualified to Receive them,) and 5 (Short Title, Interpretation, and Construction,) ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Bill reported, without amendment.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
  Mr. HOGGE: I understood when I made the arrangement with my hon. Friend that we would give him the Committee and Report stages only, and I appeal to him not to take the Third Reading now.
  Sir E. CORNWALL: I appreciate the point made by the hon. Member, and I will agree not to proceed with the Third Reading now.
  Debate to be resumed To-morrow.

  SOCIETIES (SUSPENSION OF MEETINGS) BILL.
  Read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Tomorrow.—[Mr. J. Hope.]

  BILLETING OF CIVILIANS (SALARIES AND EXPENSES.)
  Committee to consider of authorising the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of salaries and remuneration and other expenses payable under any Act of the present Session to make provision for the Billeting of Persons engaged in work of National importance, for the purposes of the present War. (King's Recommendation signified), Tomorrow.—[Lord E. Talbot.]
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

MILITARY SERVICE.

  CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS, PRINCETOWN.
  Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 12th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE:I rise to call attention to a matter which, I think, the majority of hon. Members will consider is fast becoming a public scandal. I refer to the privileged position of so-called conscientious objectors at Princetown and elsewhere. The feeling is running so high at Princetown and neighbourhood that the Mayor of Plymouth has summoned a public protest meeting for Wednesday. Perhaps the House is not aware that at the present time there are at Princetown 856 of these men. They are employed at the Princetown centre. What exactly the work is that is done there no doubt the hon. Gentleman who replies for the Government will be able to say. For myself, I do not know what progress has been made at this work centre. I do not know whether all the 85G are engaged upon farm work. If that be the case, their duties must be very light indeed. Anyone who knows farming at Princetown will know that to employ 856 men upon that is a rather large order. I am told—I do not know whether my information is correct—that these men are doing very little work indeed; in fact, that they are work-shy. Who are these conscientious objectors? Most of them are men who have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for military offences. They are sent, not to military prisons, but to civil prisons.

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  Then, after being there a couple of months, they are released and they are put to do what is called work of national importance. We are told that there is a Committee arranging what work they have to do and that regularises it, but what the Committee is the House of Commons has not yet been informed. We do not know about the regulations which have been laid down or the rules under which these men work. I should like the hon. Member in his reply to give us some information about this Committee. Then we are told that this Committee did not consider it right to deprive all these men of their liberty, or of all their liberty. That seems to be a doubtful matter. I really do not see why these men, who have been released from terms of imprisonment, should find fault at having a certain amount of their liberty taken from them. Whether, in fact, they ought not to be deprived of their liberty except what is necessary for exercise and for such recreation as may be necessary for their health?
  Those men, I believe, select their own officers. That seems to me to be a mistake. You can hardly expect men who select their own officers to obey those officers, nor can you expect those officers to get the best work out of their men. I believe that if late at work they are fined a penny, but to most of these men who are very well off that is not much. Then. I understand, that from Saturday to Monday morning they are practically free for all purposes, and can go away to amuse themselves. I believe, too, they keep motor cycles. I do not know whether they receive petrol, and what their allowance is. Why should they have motor cycles? Then they walk about in the roads in large numbers. Why should they be allowed to go about in large numbers? I understood that three or more people congregating together was against the law, but these people seem to be specially privileged to walk about in any number, and possibly to terrify the inhabitants. I do not know about that, but I do know that the women of Princetown are very much incensed against these men, and feel very much their walking about in this style. They are provided with every possible article of clothing necessary for their work, and are given every facility that can possibly be provided to enable them to do farm work. They work in overcoats so as not
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  to get cold, they wear woollen gloves to prevent their hands getting red, and they are given food which is as good as, if not better than, what is now given to the soldiers at the front. They crowd out the shops, and they purchase the best of everything the town can provide. Their diet-sheet shows a singularly liberal diet. We have already had some statements as to diet. I brought forward a diet sheet, but I was told I was misinformed. To-day I saw in the "Western Morning News" the statement of a lady who had gone to Princetown, and who gives a diet sheet much the same as I gave a fortnight ago. Then we are told these men are required to have gas-rings on which to cook their suppers.
  This is the worst case of all. While hard-worked female typists are requested to use as little of the railways as possible, and even then are called upon to pay 30 per cent. excess on ordinary fares, these shirkers to the number of 240 were allowed to go on leave at Easter, and in 166 of these cases fares were paid, in some eases as far as Scotland. The fare there and back is £5. Does the hon. Member mean to say the Government is prepared to give free passes worth £5 to 166 of these conscientious objectors twice a year, and yet the hon. Member told the House they were able to obtain these free passes twice a year? Theirs, of course, is a kind of punishment. They arc; not sent to Princetown as a treat to enjoy themselves, but to continue the punishment which has been inflicted upon them by courts-martial, and by men who know exactly the offences they have committed. How long have these men been at Princetown? Because the hon. Member tells us that formerly one day's leave a month was given in addition to non-working days. Now four days in two months are given. Why? Public holidays are thrown in. Why? Yet you have munition workers appealed to by the Government to work on Bank holidays, while these shirkers at Princetown are given the Bank holidays in addition to free railway passes. The whole thing is monstrous. The men in the dockyard do not get holidays on ordinary Bank holidays, nor do they always get their wages paid when they do take holidays. Contrast the position of these men and that of the soldiers and sailors. There are sailors who have never had a day's holiday for five or six years.

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  Here are men, soldiers who have been at the front for two-and-a-half years, who have never had a day's holiday during the War; and yet these men who have only been in Princetown for a few weeks are given the whole of Easter and their fares paid. It is absolutely scandalous. Then we are told that leave depends on their good conduct and industry, and the exigencies of the work. As regards the conduct, I think the hon. Gentleman has some information which has been sent from the spot. An example will be found in the case I cited the other day, where the men walked out of church when the National Anthem was sung. I think that is dis-giaceful. Then you hear them saying that they will do no work, and the hon. Gentleman knows that is perfectly true. The
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  state of mind of these men is shown by their demanding that the buttons on the tunics of the warders should be changed, because they have crowns on them. That shows their state of mind. Then you have these loathsome leaflets, and do not know whether they are circulated freely, but this one was found in Princetown. I do not want to read it, but it was picked up by the widow of a Ser-geant-Major in the Surreys, who had behaved well in the War, and what must she have thought on reading it? It says: "Your King and country need you." Then it proceeds to pour contempt on the King, and to pour contempt on the country, telling the men they ought not to fight Germans—
  Notice taken that forty Members were not present: House counted and, forty Members not being present, the House was adjourned at Fifteen minutes after Eleven o'clock.