HC Deb 16 March 1917 vol 91 cc1492-512

Order for Third Reading read.

Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."

Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD

Without wishing to delay the passing of this Bill I should like to make a few observations by way of winding up the Debates we have had, and I propose to suggest one or two points of a general character which, although critical, will also I hope be helpful. As the administration of the National Service Department from St. Ermin's Hotel goes on I think the country and those who are watching it get more and more apprehensive lest the system itself should break down in such a way that compulsion becomes inevitable. It is on that particular point I wish to say a few words. We must admit that there is a problem of National Service before us now, a problem which has been created very largely by our civil needs. These needs are coming up in this House day after day. There is hardly a Debate that takes place in which we do not hear either some serious criticism or some attempted jokes on the relations between the Board of Agriculture, the War Office, the Ministry of Food, and so on. To my mind, the difficulty of the problem is to be found in the fact that up till now in the matter of recruiting for National Service the War Office has been supreme. It has been able to take what it likes, and as many as it likes, from whatever profession or trade it cares to take them, and the result has been that while our Army has mounted up in the most satisfactory way, the production of essentials, food and other things, has begun to go down.

Until now, in the prolonged War which is becoming, in official opinion, a war of attrition, we have been paying too much— of the House will allow me to use language which I hope may not be misunderstood—we have been paying too much attention to the military side of the War and too little attention to the economic and industrial side. If we could have finished the War in six months it would have been all right. But the War is dragging on, and we are discovering that the industrial army and the problem of production come up shoulder to shoulder with the military problem, and we have to face and solve both if we are going to reap success. Mr. Neville Chamberlain and his Department has been produced for the purpose of solving the problem. The very first point presented to the Director-General of National Service should have been the problem of the Army itself. He should have considered how far the Army had been badly recruited, and how far that bad recruitment can be readjusted by taking back men into civil occupations who have been taken from them and put into the Army. Instead of having a great pool of registered men now, and of registered women later on -instead of having a pool of registered people, three-fourths of whom will never be able to be made available for national service, his first step should have been to ascertain their nature, and from that he could have built up a system of National Service, every stage and step of which could have been so arranged as to give no cause for fear that instead of helping to organise his Department it was really going to hamper it. That Is my first point, and I regret that the Bill to which we are asked to give a Third Reading to-day was not amended in the manner suggested from these benches by giving the Director-General power to control all other Departments which themselves have power to take men from industries and put them into other forms of National Service.

There is another point of very considerable importance, and, although it may not be very popular, I hope the Director-General will pay attention to it. There is at the present moment a body of men under the Home Office scheme—conscientious objectors, who have gone through the tribunals, and I would suggest that the Director-General, if he wants labour, has it there ready to his hand. The work of these men, their ability, their physical and mental power, are at the moment going begging. If any hon. Member will take the trouble to go and see these men at the work they are doing, to examine their capacity, and to see if the sort of national work which is given to them enables their efficiency to be used at its maximum, I think he will come away with a feeling of disgust at the attempt made by the Home Office to put these men to a proper occupation. The Director-General ought to have the power to at once take the whole of these men, whose efficiency and ability are beyond doubt, and he could put them to occupations which they would be glad to accept, and in which they would be of real national service.

You want to go on building up from detail to detail, laying the foundation and building up stage by stage and storey by storey upon the foundation, and by that method you would get a scheme of National Service where there is no groping or moping about, where everything that is done is known and is definite, and is of such a character that its consequences can be readily calculated, so that very few mistakes will be made. That is the proper method of National Service. Instead of that the other method was adopted, and this Bill gives powers to carry it on. We have this Register. I wish to protest against the way in which this Register is being compiled. Mr. Neville Chamberlain has told us, and we had it repeated here last night, that everybody is expected to register. I do not think that it becomes any Member of this House to throw him- self directly athwart a decision to which the Director-General of National Service has come after full consideration, but it seems to me that that decision is so contrary to common sense that I would venture to put in a plea against it. Why should everybody register? It is like hunting for a needle in a haystack. First of all, you make the haystack. You know that in that haystack there is a needle somewhere, and then you hunt for it. If you had a lot of inefficient and needless people to do the hunting, I would not object at all; but you are creating a huge Government Department. You take a big hotel and you staff it. That is a waste of public money, a waste of energy, and a waste of good men and good women, who ought to be doing other things. That is not all. Then you throw your tentacles from John O'Groats to Land's End and from the North Sea to the Atlantic, you increase the work of your Labour Exchanges, you create new duties, you take more men away from National Service in order to attend to them, you create new tribunals, and so forth, all for the purpose of making something that will act as a sieve through which needless hay will go, and you hope by some miraculous process to track the needle. The system is an absurd one.

The hon. and gallant Member (Major Hamilton), in a very interesting speech yesterday—his enthusiasm and devotion to his Department strikes us all, and we are always very glad to see it in the speeches be delivers here in defence of his Department—referred to the case of Lord Rhondda. We know what Lord Rhondda has done. That eloquent and not at all exaggerated description of Lord Rhondda's work which the hon. and gallant Member gave us yesterday was known to us all; but where we could not follow the hon. and gallant Member was that all this was to be supplemented by Lord Rhondda writing his name upon a slip of paper in order that we should not fail to understand the sacrifices which Lord Rhondda had made for the nation in its hour of need. Everyone knows that Lord Rhondda laid his business aside, went to America, came back, started his business again, accepted the appeal made to him by the present Prime Minister, laid his business aside once more, went to the Local Government Board, where he is still doing work, and yet in order to show us his patriotism and a good example, he has to register. I do not think we need that. We have got more appreciation of the realities of life than to require that sort of thing to make us aware of what Lord Rhondda has done. In order to show that, this ticket has to go through four or five different processes. It has not only to do that, but it has to be transported from one part of the country to another. That means clerks, transport, book-keeping, paper and house room. This-tremendous haystack you are building up is not the kind of thing that is done as a by-product of the time of lazy people. In order to keep it going and make it worth anything at all, in order to get the needle out of the hay, you must have a tremendous organisation of rent, labour, ability, time, and all the paraphernalia of correspondence and transport. Then when you get all that, the chances are that you miss the needle in the end. To vary the simile, you then put your round peg in a square hole and excuse yourself for doing so on the ground that the task was so great that it was practically impossible.

However, this is the Third Reading of the Bill. We have discussed its details tried to improve it in every way we could, and moved Amendments, some of which were accepted, as, for instance, that in regard to the Advisory Committee, which I think I started, perhaps in a different form, although the idea was the same. I hope this scheme will succeed and will produce the result that is wanted, but I do not believe that the method that is being pursued will make it succeed. I feel that this system of registering all will defeat the purpose. It would be far better if the Director-General would try to retrace his steps and, instead of scheduling—of course, he did not do it, but it was for his purposes that it was done—lists of industries that are essential or non-essential or primary or secondary, or whatever adjective you like to apply, if he would begin and discuss the actual definite difficulties that have arisen, meet them, and then go on and on, he would do better. He might have a little time to solve the agricultural difficulty straight away. That is the pressing one. Having done that. he could go on to build up a system of National Service and in that way it would be a success. If he pursues his present methods, before many weeks are over we shall be told that the scheme is a failure and, although there are hundreds of thousands of people enrolled, yet among them the effective percentage is so small that something else will have to be done. They will come here and say, "We gave the voluntary system a chance," when, as a matter of fact, they are not giving it a chance. They will say, "Having given it a chance, we must ask for compulsion." When they get compulsion, the muddle will be worse than ever, and the threat of the National Service organisation will be more serious under the compulsory system than it will be under the voluntary system. I hope that, although my speech is of a critical character, it will be helpful to those upon whose shoulders the heavy responsibility of this almost thankless task has been laid.

Mr. CARADOC REES

There are a number of naturalised aliens in this country who, if they were not naturalised, would either be enemies or friendly aliens. Many of those who would be enemy aliens at the outbreak of the War volunteered for military service and were rejected, and I hey hold their rejection forms, and although they are of military age they carry on business throughout the length and breadth of the land. One of the prejudices that I feel and hear about is this, especially since the tribunals have been closing down, with some degree of ruthlessness, the single men's businesses. It is almost more than flesh and blood can stand to know that your business is going to be closed down to-day in order that the profits may go to some alien to-morrow. I want to know what is going to be done in this case. It is bad enough now for men of military age to know that the goodwill of their business is going to be reaped by some alien but if men over military age are asked to volunteer for this scheme and know when they volunteer that aliens under forty are going to reap the profits of their business, how can you expect them to come in? I want to know whether the Home Office is handing over to the Director all the names and addresses of all these people and their occupations, and how you are going to deal with them; and I want to know whether the War Office is handing over to the new Director the names and addresses of all aliens who have volunteered, and what you are going to do with them? There was a great deal of talk of taking trade from the Germans at present and after the War at the time of the Military Service Act, and I am afraid the way we shall work this National Service Act will be to transfer the profits of British traders into the pockets of aliens in this country This is not a question that affects only the East End of London. It is all throughout the United Kingdom, and I have even had letters from Wales, and in the smaller towns it is more difficult to get people to volunteer when they can point to this, that, and the other alien who are prospering and making excess profits. This is a grievance which must be dealt with officially, and some authoritative statement should be made if we expect men to volunteer for National Service.

There is one other point I wish to deal with. We are told that it is no use to volunteer for National Service unless we give the whole of our time. My submission on that is this. It is quite true that the skilled labour of a part-timer is not of any use, but what we are wanted for in this country is not skilled labour. Professional men and shopkeepers could not do skilled labour, but they can do unskilled labour, for unskilled labour you can work by a rota. There is no need for unskilled labour for whole-time men and the men in this country who are asked to volunteer for National Service are trying to solve two questions. They want to help the country on the one hand if they can and they want to save their businesses on the other hand if they can. If men could volunteer for two complete days in the week on rota for unskilled work and devote the other five days to their business there would be far more readiness to come forward than there is at present. Rut a man at present is told "You must give the whole of your time. You must not have regard to your business. You must leave it to us. We know what we can do for you better than you know yourselves." The men feel that these tribunals, these labour bureaus and officials do not know and they want some security. My suggestion is that if men could be enrolled, say, for two days in the week for unskilled labour, leaving the other five days free to carry on their businesses, nearly the whole of the people of the country between forty and sixty would enrol for National Service. But if it is to be put down once and for all that one must hand himself over to the Government completely, I am afraid very few people will come forward, and you will come to this House some weeks from now and say voluntary National Service has been a failure. To say that obstacles to voluntary National Service are being put by the people who are trying to work it would be an insult to the intelligence of the House.

Sir H. CRAIK

Throughout the whole of this Debate I have rather been struck by a wrong note having been touched in the discussions on this Bill. Admittedly this is a great and difficult problem, but I suppose the great majority of us will go through the country and say what we can in favour of the Bill. But has the note of earnestness for the new effort made on behalf of the nation been struck fully in our Debates? I know its proposals are against many of the prejudices or opinions held most sincerely by those of my own political way of thinking. I, as a Conservative, am probably held to be bound to reactionary views. As a University Member I am, of course, a defender of lost causes. I have been astonished now when a great effort is being made, that some of my own party have not spoken with a clearer note in favour of this national effort than they have done. I feel that in this scheme there is much that is running counter to many of our own prejudices. When I have listened to some of the speeches of the hon. Member (Mr. Anderson) I could almost have believed I was listening to some reactionary Tory, or to some quotation from the now defunct and almost forgotten philosopher, Herbert Spencer, in his claims for individual liberty. We are trying a new effort, a new scheme and a new movement. But how can we do it unless we are to organise labour? From the very first my own view has been that military service was not the only thing that ought to be organised, and that every man throughout the country in a time of strain and stress like this should be called upon to do the very best that he could for his country. Is there anything more involved in the principle of the Bill than this?

Surely we should not be given that new work in our political history by raising all sorts of difficulties, carping criticism, possible doubts as to details, accusation that individual liberty is being interfered with and that organisation of the nation on what I admit are more or less socialistic lines is being undertaken. Did we expect that to come from those who have been defenders of these views? Surely there are other things involved in this. Is not the minimum wage a very important achievement? We should not have looked at it some time ago. Those who think as I do upon political questions hesitated about it. If we admit the infringement of those principles which all our life we have adopted, are not hon. Members opposite prepared to go equally far in abandoning their own? It seems to me as if those hon. Members are now out of love with their Socialistic principles, because they find that the application of those Socialistic principles may be useful in a great emergency and for the prosecution of the War. We abandon principles which we have held all our life because we think the abandonment of those principles is demanded in a great emergency and in the interests of the prosecution of the War. I know that many of those principles we have fought against will have come to remain; that the minimum wage, once established, is not likely to fall away: that the organisation of the nation on a fairer basis, and in the common interests of the nation, is likely to last. We are not the least afraid of that. Do any of us think that after this War things will be exactly as they were before? Do we not know that all our principles will be changed, that all our organisation of society very likely will be revolutionised, and cannot we have the boldness to go forward, not merely with carping criticism, with doubtful support, with questioning and hesitating adherence to the principle put forward, but with enthusiasm and earnestness, on behalf of this Bill?

I know difficulties will arise, but surely they are not too hard to be overcome, if we meet the proposals of the Government in a fair and generous spirit, and do the best we can for Mr. Neville Chamberlain in the difficult work he has to carry out. I know there are difficulties and stumbling-blocks which may very likely impede the organisation of National Service, but let us go forward boldly. I hope there will not be an over-increase of that bureaucratic pressure which I dread perhaps more than hon. Members opposite. I hope there will not be a vast increase of officials tumbling over one another. I hope the Director of National Service will take a wide view of what he has to do and that he will keep clearly in his mind two points, namely, first to measure what work there is to do and then to call upon the workers to undertake it. It will not do to put the cart before the horse and first call upon an unduly swollen army of workers, and, when you have got them, then begin to find out the work they have to do. Let him keep those two points clearly in view. Let him take care that first he knows the work, and then he can call for the workers. But is there any danger of that not being done? Have not we an assurance from the Leader of the House that the needs of agriculture will be weighed perhaps before, and, at all events, equally with, the needs of the Army and munitions? Cannot hon. Members who doubt this Bill trust the Leader of the House as to that?

4.0 P.M.

I am ready to support the Bill. I am quite with those who think that a voluntary system is the best in the first instance, but I am quite prepared to say- and anyone who has supported in the past the principle of Socialistic organisation of labour in this country must also, in their heart and in their conscience, be prepared to say—that if voluntary measures do not succeed, you must come to the exercise of Stats authority. If you do, it will be done with the assent of the nation, and the nation will follow you, looking to the great emergency that has arisen, and which it is determined to meet. I think, perhaps, there has been throughout these Debates a little hesitation and doubt, and an attempt to conceal what, in certain eventualities, must come to be the sequel of this Bill-— something like compulsion. I was glad to hear the bold words which, before the Bill was introduced, were spoken by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. Henderson). He recalled his previous pledges, but he distinctly faced —and perhaps faced in that speech more boldly than anyone has faced throughout these Debates—the possibility of compulsion, and declared, with a great deal of boldness resoluteness and the right spirit of statesmanship, that in such a case he was prepared to ask the House to allow him to withdraw his previous pledges and to face, if necessary, compulsion. Whether we have, unhappily or happily, to take to that second step, let us accept this Bill for what it means, not in merely a carping, critical, doubtful spirit, but with the unhesitating determination that each of as, in his own sphere and as far as in him lies will help to make it palatable to our; countrymen, and I believe, if we are ready to trust our countrymen, they are ready to accept the principle of discipline and public service which this Bill will involve.

Mr. DENMAN

With the criticism that the hon. Member for Leicester adduced, I cordially agree, but not with the conclusions. The last speaker seemed to think that the spirit with which this Bill was welcomed was inadequate. My own experience, in conversation with a large number of different persons, is that the spirit is willing but the Bill is weak, and personally, if I could collect together in one Lobby as opponents of this Bill only those-who would accept some simple measure of immediate compulsion for Great Britain, I. should certainly divide against the Third Reading of this Bill. The Bill, and the method of administration, are impossibly weak. This subject of National Service: has a history the House is apt to forget. In June, 1915, nearly two years ago, the Prime Minister said in this House: We have for the moment one plain paramount duty to perform—to bring to the service of the State the willing and organised help of every class in the Kingdom. In introducing the Bill the Minister in charge said that the object of the National Register was to secure a complete general and satisfactory organisation, and on the Second Reading we were told We shall only succeed in the struggle in which we are now engaged by the organisation of all of us and the fullest possible use of all the resources which we, as a nation, possess. Accordingly the National Register Bill was produced. In vain it was pointed out in this House that the Bill, so far from assisting organisation, would almost certainly be a danger to it. We went on for over a year, a year and many months, without any attempt to organise the National Service scheme of the country. Last December the present Prime Minister urged the great importance of the mobilisation of the country. Without this, "he said," we shall not be able to pull through. Three months have elapsed. We were told a few days ago that the result of the National Service scheme up to then was that 125,000 persons had enrolled, one-third of them being men already occupied in work of national importance. We are therefore left with, say, 85,000 men, which is approximately equivalent to the ordinary number of registrations in the Labour Exchanges in the course of one month. We were further told that men had not been transferred to other occupations because the machinery of transfer was not yet ready. General criticism of the measure and the method by which it has been administered I will not press. I only want now to enforce the criticism made by the hon. Member for Leicester. It is sheer folly to go on enrolling essential men. The one serious argument which has been given for that— I will not take seriously the argument of example to other people—is that you create mobility of essential men. When one reflects that one of the chief effects, and indeed one of the chief industrial objects of the Defence of the Realm Regulations was to prevent the mobilisation of essential men, and to secure them in the factories in which they were working, it is really rather comic to be told that we are now to have a device for securing their mobilisation. In fact, if you want to move a man from one factory or another, of course your machinery is the local inspector of the Ministry of Munitions, who knows the staffing arrangements of the different factories, and if they want to set up fresh factories or increase the labour in any existing factory, he knows the only places where supplies can be got. It is quite absurd to go to munitions factories and say, "Enrol, so that there may be mobilisation." In one factory everybody might enrol and in another factory no one might enrol. Clearly as a method of mobilisation it is ridiculous.

There are other persons whom you want to bring in; there has been a vigorous attempt to enrol Civil servants under this scheme. Do you want to move all the officers skilled in colonial affairs for example, and turn them into some business to deal with excess profits? That would dearly be ridiculous. It is not merely a thing that is not intended to produce any result. It is a very serious thing indeed to many agriculturists when they are asked to sign their names to these forms, and when you expect them to understand, after you have taken great pains to persuade them to sign and to undertake service elsewhere, that you are really quite sure that nothing whatever will be the result of your action. The rural mind is not made that way. The Civil servant can -understand the joke, but the rural mind cannot. You are only wasting time and producing unrest among the rural population, which you should seek to keep as steadily in its present position as you possibly can. Anybody who has had to deal with the organisation of large numbers of men knows perfectly well that each particular paper they have got to file at the central office or any office means an additional clerk. To issue these millions of forms that you know you are not going to use is doing the utmost to make your machinery unworkable. Everybody knows what the problem is, and the only real solution of it is very simply put by Mr. Neville Chamberlain, who said: The problem of organising the nation for war resolves itself into the practice of transference from non-essential to essential trades. It follows from that statement that your organisation will start by recognising that the vast mass of labour in this country is engaged in the very best way it can be engaged and that the area of your action is that a limited pool which is engaged in non-essential trades ought to be transferred from them. The procedure follows from that basis. You begin by collecting your non-essential trade, and you compulsorily enrol everybody in that trade. You then consult the trade as to what its real value is, for I very much doubt that all the trades treated as nonessential will, on close examination, be found to be as valueless as they are represented to be. No doubt you could come to an agreement with the trade as to the proportion of labour you can take. You then take that labour, voluntarily if possible, compulsorily if you cannot get it voluntarily. Of course you will have the tribunals to protect workers from bad employers, and also from the wrongful action of fellow workers. It may be asked, "Why is compulsion necessary for that scheme?" I will tell you exactly why. If it is organised properly, you must be able to regard any given trade as a whole. It has been argued with great justice that you do not want to destroy nonessential trades, and that you must, if possible leave a nucleus of the trade, so that it can be rebuilt after the War. If you simply rely upon volunteers from non-essential trades you will never know with sufficient accuracy what is the effect of taking those men is on the number of men remaining in the trade. It is obvious in a manufacturing trade such as jewellery. It is equally obvious if you consider what I believe will be found to be a much more productive source of labour, the distributing occupations. We found by the census that there were some 160,000 grocers in England and Wales. I have no doubt that there are still a large number of grocers who could be replaced and could be taken for more valuable service, but clearly you must take your grocer under some orderly system as you might leave some districts entirely without grocers, and you might take none at all from others. If you could review your grocers as a whole, you would be able to take a fair proportion from each given district. But I think in some ways what is much more important is the fact that you could act with speed, and with order, and without the great waste of time and energy which this voluntary system has already involved and will continue to involve. You are asking a, number of people who ought to be very much better occupied to spend their time going up and down the country enrolling a number of people you know will be of no use to National Service. You are sending out forms broadcast all over the country at a time when you say there is a great shortage of paper, and you want to keep down imports as far as you may. You are going to spend weeks and weeks, if not months, in slowly collecting names of very doubtful value, instead of having been able to begin several months ago to start this thing on an orderly and matured basis.

What stands in the way of compulsion? I know of nothing except the pledges of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. A. Henderson) I think that people, when they hear statesmen giving pledges of that kind, are apt to feel some irritation. The only pledge which any Minister is entitled to give in times like these is a pledge to constantly do what he knows will be the best for the country. When he deliberately ties himself up, and says, "I will not take given action, no matter how important or obvious it is to me, unless after considerable experience (which will take weeks or months) it is proved to me I am right and you are wrong—unless that happens I will not act." Your soldier gets tired of that politician. After all, in this matter of compulsion, we are led to reflect that the right hon. Gentleman assented easily enough to military compulsion. He has agreed that men may be compelled to go and fight in France, and the man who is so compelled does not quite understand why he should not agree that a man should be compelled to transfer from one occupation to another in this country. I do not know whether civilians really always understand the strain or the sort of life to which they compel people to go to in France. In the course of every month there are a number of persons who have not succeeded in maintaining the standard for a soldier, who have not turned up in the trenches with the rest of their unit, and who have been found, weeks after perhaps, wandering about somewhere behind the lines, or maybe it is a soldier whose comrades have gone over the parapet and who has not gone with them, but has hid away somewhere; and every month there are a few men of that kind who are court-martialled and shot at dawn, and they are not people who are by nature cowards; very often they are people who have simply given way through the prolonged strain of the life of the trenches. Now the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. A. Henderson) freely compels people to face that life, and yet, because apparently he is afraid of certain trade unions, he will not compel men to transfer from one occupation to another. Your soldier in France docs not understand that attitude, and I do not think any argument which the right hon. Gentleman can produce will make him understand it.

We are told, of course, that you cannot compel a man to transfer labour, because you are then compelling him to work for the profit of an individual. In the first place, I think there is an answer that would apply to a great number of cases, namely, that when you are transferring from non-essential to essential industries you are very often transferring into controlled establishments in which the individual profit does not appreciably apply; but, in any case, I deny the whole theory that a man will decline to work at a particular job where he is decently paid and where he knows he is doing work of value to the State, merely because, incidentally, he happens to be benefiting a fellow-Englishman. Of course, the right hon. Member for Barnard Castle speaks with an authority about trade unions that it would be an impertinence in me to deny, but I am quite sure his theory, however well it may apply to trade union ideals and practice, does not apply at all to the ordinary human being. In France men used frequently to go and work for farmers who had to get in their crops or who had to thresh them. They were only too glad to do the work. They knew the work was of value, and, of course, it was of great advantage to the individual farmer that it should be done, but that fact did not make them think it was a disgrace that they should do it, and I am perfectly certain that the vast mass of normal Englishmen whom you transfer on compulsion from one employment to another will readily do the new employment, even though there may be a few shillings profit in it to another person. The afternoon is late, and there are many other points I should have liked to deal with, but I have submitted, what I am sure the great mass of soldiers in France also feel, that there is no case for this slip-shod and really impossible scheme of National Service which you are now attempting to work. You must do the thing properly in the complete and compulsory way at the earliest possible moment. It has already been delayed two years, and if the Government is to maintain amongst the soldiers a reputation for appreciating the urgency of things and for promptness in getting on with the work the sooner it makes the system compulsory the better.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher)

Before we take the Third Heading of the Bill, perhaps it will be as well that I should reply to a few of the criticisms which have been put forward, and more especially that I should acknowledge the speech from the hon. Member for Leicester. It was not only intended to be helpful, but it was helpful. He said, and said rightly, that whilst the Army required, in order to finish this War successfully and quickly, some hundreds of thousands more fit men to fight at the front, that the industrial side of this question had also become more than ever prominent, and that we were all feeling the necessity of having men of physique. I will not say men necessarily of military age, but fit men of good physique, accustomed to hard work, to take the places of those whom we may hope to obtain from protected industries in order that they may go to the front and do a portion of the fighting. We all know that when we take men from these protected industries, we want to replace them with men of muscle and brain who will be able to do the work in our shipyards, mines, transports, munitions work, and fields of that kind. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester said that he had three criticisms to make. The first was that the Army should have returned more men to industrial life. Well, perhaps the Army was not at the first alive to the necessity of returning men who were perhaps more suited to industries than they were for the Army, and they perhaps did not return them as quickly as they might. But every week that goes by the Army is becoming more and more alive to the fact; and I know from constant conversation with those who are responsible for our Army, that men are being returned now every week to the plough, the shipyards, and; the mines; and the disabled soldiers are being trained day by day for munitions work. This criticism was well worth making on the part of the hon. Member for Leicester, but it was a criticism which had already been anticipated. To the extent that the criticism was well-founded, it will undoubtedly be more and more attended to by those who are responsible.

The hon. Member for Leicester said, "Why do you not make more use of conscientious objectors?" I am thankful to-say that so far as numbers are concerned there are only 3,520 of these. The composition of the conscientious objector is such that he pays far more attention to the exercising of his mind than to the exercising of his body. That constitutes him such that while I will not say he is softer in mind, he is softer in body; and I do not think you could expect very much help from that class in any of this extremely hard work that has to be done either in the coal mines, shipyards, or munitions work. The third criticism was one which was not confined to the hon. Member for Leicester. It is said, "Why are you asking everybody to enrol; are you not clogging your machine; why do you not address yourselves much more pertinently, cogently, and sensibly to what you actually do want?" I do not altogether find fault with that criticism. After all, however, we appointed a Director-General of National Service, and we left it to him to find the scheme. No doubt his endeavour has been to find a scheme which appeals, not only to certain classes or sections of the communities, but to all. Such a scheme is very difficult to frame. I think that my hon. Friend the Director for National Service will meet the criticism that has been levelled at his scheme to-day, and will probably say to himself,. While I run my scheme, it seems to me that perhaps it would be as well if I tried to go in more for inners and bullseyes than for outers. I want to get men rapidly to replace the men who are coming out of these protected industries, and out of, I will not say non-essential industries, but less essential industries, and I had better say plainly what industries I want; see where those industries are carried on. Then look on the other side, and see where I am likely to get these men, and by all possible means persuade them, by giving them very good terms, for they are worth it, and by telling them they will not, perhaps, have to leave their homes if the industry is fairly close to their own home. So, by applying his big brain and energy more directly and in a mere concentrated form, actually getting, say, 200,000 or 300,000 men, and 200,000 or 300,000 men whom we hope will be attracted to the Army, who will, in the ease of necessity, give up the occupations in which they are now engaged, if men of physical training and capacity—it is no good having any other men—can be found to take their place. I believe that we want men much more of muscle and brawn than we do men of brain, and I cannot help thinking that there will be a very great deal of disappointment amongst professional men, because, although some of them undoubtedly will be wanted, it is an undoubted fact that, so far as retired Civil servants and retired schoolmasters and men, of that class are concerned, although their patriotism is splendid, and their desire to help the nation cannot be exceeded they are not possessed of those particular gifts and those particular qualities which are needed at the present time.

The hon. Member for Carnarvon (Mr. Caradoc Rees) asked what we are going to do in regard to the enemy aliens who were rejected from the Army in the early years of the War. I have to say to him that the oversight of this has not been neglected by the Director-General of National Service. Already they have been approached, and I am told that in nearly every case they are willing to enrol for voluntary service, and inquiries are being made as to what they are at present engaged in. Endeavour will be made to induce them to give up their employment wherever that employment is in less essential industries and to transfer themselves to industries which may be primarily essential at the present time. One other criticism was made to the effect that compulsion is at the bottom of this scheme, and that compulsion will become inevitable. The hon. Member for Glasgow and Aberdeen University (Sir H. Craik) said he was not at all afraid to face the possibility of compulsion. Neither am I. Neither is anybody afraid, provided always that we prove to the people first of all that we have tried a good voluntary system. Let us try a good voluntary system first. I do not want compulsion if we can help it. We must get men, and I believe we shall get the men; I do not say exactly by this scheme, but by this scheme altered in some important particulars. At all events we should give this a fair trial before we adopt compulsion. This scheme may not be the most perfect scheme, but it is a scheme well thought out, which takes stock of the mind and muscle of the nation and does its best to employ the mind and muscle of the nation for the proper prosecution of this War.

Mr. ANDERSON

I do not intend speaking for more than a few minutes because not only has this Bill to foe got through, but we are hoping that some statement will be made by the Leader of the House on another matter before we adjourn. A great deal that I might have wished to say has been said already with far greater force and ability by the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. The criticisms we have made again and again are the points he has made in regard to getting this done, not with the largest amount of disturbance but with the smallest possible amount. When the hon. and learned Member for the Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities (Sir H. Craik) spoke, he appeared to think I was guilty of some inconsistency because, being a Socialist, he said I ought to shut my eyes and open my mouth and take whatever comes in the way of State action. If he had studied Socialism as long as I have he would know that that is an impossible position to take up, because there may be all the difference in the world between wide and foolish State action. There may be all the difference in the world between good and bad State action.

We are told that we should make enthusiastic platform speeches on this question, but that is not our business. It is our business to examine the details of the scheme brought forward by the Government, find out where they are weak and try to make them strong. I do not oppose the principle of National Service, and I did not vote against the Second Heading of this Bill. I do not even propose to vote against the Third Reading. We have tried in Committee to make the Bill better and stronger, and although it still falls short of what it ought to be from my point of view, I do not believe anybody can look at the present economic position of the country without concluding that we ought to do something from the point of view of food supplies and other necessities. It is most important, especially from the point of view of those who believe in wise State action, that we should examine the details, so that State action will not be discredited by unwise methods of procedure.

With regard to the speech of the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Denman), I would only say that I quite concede that I do not see much difference in principle between military compulsion and industrial compulsion, except that the principle of private profit does come into industrial compulsion in a way that does not enter into military compulsion. But apart from that, the question of expediency will still arise, and it will still have to be debated as to whether this measure is going to give you the result you wish and whether it might not defeat the object you have in view. Those points will have to be debated in the House itself. I do not propose to go into that matter more fully at the present time. I am sorry we are not going to have a larger measure of Parliamentary control over it, but no doubt we shall have someone representing the Department in this House to whom questions may be put. I have tried to make my own position clear in regard to this measure, and I have examined it critically. I think some of the details are weak, but if National Service is really the highest form of service I want it to be directed and guided into proper channels.

Sir C. WARNER

I think it is wise that we should express our opinion even though we do everything we can, not only in regard to this measure, but in regard to every measure the Government brings forward to help to carry on the War. When the hon. Member for Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities said that some of us lacked enthusiasm he forgot that the scheme is not the scheme which has been so far carried out, and if it had been the original scheme we should all have been enthusiastically in favour of the Bill. Unfortunately, the scheme has gone the wrong way, and it has been a case exactly as the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. R. Macdonald) said, "of hiding a needle in a haystack to get it out afterwards." I want to put one point with regard to the return of men from the Army. It is true that they are returning as substitutes for somebody else, but they are not returning to their own homes. That is a most impor- tant point, because the labourer, who is in a strange country, is only half the use that he would be in his own country. It is quite well known that when the labourers in the Eastern Counties struck and went up to Yorkshire they could not earn a living and had to come back starving. It is equally true, if you took a labourer from Cornwall and put him in the Eastern Counties, he would be perfectly useless, and if you took a labourer from the Eastern Counties and put him in Yorkshire or in Scotland he would be of very little use. You have also the difficulty of housing them, and I want to plead, when the Army send back men for agricultural purposes, that they should send them back to their own districts where they can do the most efficient work. That applies to other trades. Great care should be taken, moreover, to find the right substitutes. I believe, for instance, that there are 500 classes of engineers, and it is no use sending one class to replace another. If the Government will only take sufficient care and carry out the scheme as the right hon. Gentleman proposed to-day, we shall get great good out of the Bill.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third Time, and passed.

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