Commons Sitting of 27 March 1917

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Provisional Order Bills (no Standing Orders applicable),—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, referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders are applicable, namely:
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill.
Marriages Provisional Order Bill.
Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time To-morrow.

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN WALES (ROYAL COMMISSION).
Copy presented of Minutes of Evidence (October, 1916—November, 1916) to the First Report of the Commissioners, with Appendices and Index [by Command]; to He upon the Table.
JUVENILE EDUCATION (DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE).
Copy presented of Final Report of the Departmental Committee on Juvenile Education in relation to employment after the War. Vol. I. [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS (ORDNANCE FACTORIES).
Copy presented of Annual Accounts of the. Ordnance Factories for the year 1915–16, with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 55.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.
    PRISONERS OF WAR.

      BRITISH IN TURKEY.
      Mr. PETOasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether parcels for prisoners of war in Turkey are now-stopped; if so, whether he can state the reason or reasons for this; whether the interned crews of the merchant ships "Assiout" and "City of Khios" are included; and whether he is taking any steps in the matter?
      Mr. JAMES HOPE (Lord of the Treasury): Notice has been received from the Swiss Post Office that the transmission through Austria-Hungary of parcels for prisoners of war in Turkey has been stopped until further notice. His Majesty's Government are not aware of the reasons for this stoppage, which affects the prisoners mentioned by the hon. Member as well as all others, and they have requested that the United States Ambassador at Vienna may enter a strong protest against it.

      GERMANS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
      Major HUNTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the account of the way German prisoners in certain quarries shirk doing anything like a fair amount of work or refuse to work altogether, and jeer at British workmen who have to do their work; and can he take steps to give the British commandant power to punish these prisoners, especially in view of the way our men are underfed and compelled to work hard in Germany?
      Mr. HOPE: I am informed by the military authorities that in November, 1916, a certain number of German prisoners of war refused to work in a quarry unless they received higher pay and larger rations. Disciplinary action was taken under Royal Warrant, with the result that the prisoners returned to work under normal conditions.
      Mr. G. FABER: Are the German prisoners working satisfactorily now; and, if not, are there any means of compelling them to do so?
      Mr. HOPE: That is rather a general question. My information is that the German prisoners are working satisfactorily. II they are combatants—that is to say, military prisoners—there are means of forcing them to work, but if they are civilian prisoners their work is voluntary.
      Mr. FABER: Are compulsory means being taken when the occasion arises?
      Mr. HOPE: So far as I know, this and one other are the only cases in which the need has amen, and in those cases the necessary remedy was applied.

      PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY.
      General IVOR PHILIPPSasked the hon. Member for Sheffield (Central Division) what steps are being taken to set up a Committee of Members of this House to inquire into the organisation and methods of the Central Prisoners of War Committee; what will be the organisation of such Committee; and when will it be appointed?
      Mr. HOPE: Steps have already been taken to set up an informal Committee of Members of both Houses to inquire into this subject. I have undertaken to bring certain representations in favour of a more formal inquiry to the attention of the Leader of the House, to whom I would suggest that my hon. and gallant Friend should address a question on this matter on Thursday.
      Sir J. AINSWORTH: Can the hon. Gentleman say how soon he expects to be able to give some further information as to the treatment of the prisoners and what can be done for them?
      Mr. HOPE: I am sorry that I do not quite catch the purpose of my hon. Friend's question.
      General IVOR PHILIPPS: When does the hon. Gentleman expect to be able to give the list of the members?
      Mr. HOPE: That entirely depends upon whether those first asked accept the invitation.

      GREECE (BLOCKADE).
      Mr. KINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has official information showing that owing to food shortage there have been deaths by starvation in Greece; and whether he can make any statement about the blockade of Greek ports?
      The MINISTER of BLOCKADE (Lord R. Cecil): There were reports of a few deaths from want during the month of January, but I have no official confirmation of such reports. Steps have meanwhile been taken to introduce, under strict supervision, a limited quantity of foodstuffs into Greece, but the blockade itself will not be raised until the demands of the Allies formulated in December and January last have been satisfactorily executed.
      Mr. KING: May we take it that any real danger of starvation to the very poor is practically eliminated?
      Lord R. CECIL: I do not know that my hon. Friend can draw any conclusions except those I have actually stated.
      Colonel Sir C. SEELY: Might I ask if the Allies are getting any nearer to seeing that the food in Greece is fairly divided between the Court party and the poor?

    MILITARY SERVICE.

      MOTOR TRANSPORT CORPS.
      Sir HERBERT ROBERTSasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether men who enlisted in the Motor Transport, Army Service Corps, and other transport services, in 191–4 upon certain guaranteed conditions have been recently placed in the same position, as regards pay, as those who joined the Service after the 10th November, 1015; and whether, in view of the fact that these men joined the Motor Transport Corps on the distinct understanding that the same rate of pay would be continued to them, he can give an assurance that this condition will be fulfilled?
      The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): Inquiries are being made into the cases details of which have been furnished by my hon. Friend, and I will inform him of the result as soon as these inquiries are completed.

      AGRICULTURAL WORKERS.
      Mr. PETOasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether it has been definitely decided to take no more men for the present from agriculture; whether this applies only to men not passed fit for active service and, if so, what steps have been taken to make known the decision

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      of the Army Council to the local tribunals; whether his attention has been called to the case of H. J. Pepler, farm bailiff, with the sole management of a farm of 241 acres, who was refused exemption at the Pewsey Tribunal on the 14th instant; and whether he will take steps to let the farmers throughout the country know what their decision is, and put an immediate end to the present state of uncertainty and indecision, which is causing hindrance to food production in the country?
      The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson): Inquiries are being made into the case of Mr. Pepler, and my hon. Friend will be informed of the result It has not been decided that no more men are to be recruited from agriculture, but ample measures have been taken to protect the interests of agriculture consistently with military necessities.
      Mr. PETO: Has the hon. Gentleman in recollection the definite statement which he made that "recruiting was stopped at 10,200, and we are leaving the rest of the men for agriculture"?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I am afraid that my hon. Friend must have understood my statement wrongly. I was referring to the 60,000 men then in the employment of agriculture who were available from the tribunals for the Army. The War Cabinet decided not to take those 60,000, but to take 30,000. Ultimately we only took 10.200.
      Mr. G. LAMBERT: May I ask whether the policy of the War Cabinet that the production of food is more important at the present time than men for the Army has been conveyed to the military tribunals?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: As I have pointed out, and as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has pointed out. the War Office is doing everything possible to leave as many men as possible for agriculture.
      Sir J. SPEAR: Is it proposed to rescind the promise not to take any more B 1 and C 1 men from agriculture?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: No. I understand it is not. I have already said in this House, and my right hon. Friend has said in another place, that we do not at present propose to take B 1 and C 1 men from agriculture.
      Mr. WATT: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the tribunals in Perthshire are daily sending men into the Army?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I have no doubt that they are. Why should they not?
      Mr. PRINGLE: But is it not the opinion of the Government that it is more important to keep these men for food production than to send them into the Army?
      Mr. CECIL HARMSWORTHasked the President of the Board of Agriculture if he has received a copy of the resolution passed at a recent meeting of the County War Agricultural Committee for Bedfordshire directing his attention to the waste of time entailed by the attendance of farmers and their men before the tribunals, and urging that no more men, even general service men, should be called from the land during the next two months; and if he has been able to take any action in the matter?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir R. Winfrey): It is regretted that the Department have no trace of the receipt of the resolution, but it would not, in any ease, be possible to relieve farmers and their men from the attendances required of them at tribunals, as such; attendances are necessary under the Regulations for the proper hearing of cases.
      Mr. C. HARMSWORTH: Will the hon. Gentleman say whether his Department is in agreement with the committee in urging that no further men should be withdrawn from the land for the next two-months?
      Sir RYLAND ADKINS: Is it not a fact that not only the Board of Agriculture, but the War Office and the Government generally have agreed that no more men ought to be withdrawn from agriculture, save in exceptional cases, during the next two months?
      Mr. SPEAKER: That is the same question that was asked about ten minutes ago.

      HOME SERVICE (LABOUR BATTALIONS).
      Sir H. ROBERTSasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the fact that a number of men in Class C I have recently been sent overseas; whether there is any official sanction for such action; and

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      whether he can make a statement as to the position of the men who have been sent to France under these circumstances?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I would refer my hon. Friend to the statement I made in a Debate in the House on the 21st instant; these men are used for duty with Infantry labour companies.

      CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
      Sir STEPHEN COLLINSasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether E. A. Prevost, a conscientious objector, was arrested on the 14th October last, court-martialled on the 25th October, sent to Wormwood Scrubs Prison, trans ferred to Wandsworth, and while there brought before the Central Tribunal; that in response to the question whether he was willing to undertake work of national importance he replied in the affirmative, but has not yet been given work of national importance; on what grounds this has not been granted, or whether the man has been deemed not genuine; and, it so, for what reason?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): My hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. The case of Mr. Prevost, who is aged twenty-five, has been fully considered, and, in view of the report made upon it by the Central Tribunal, the man was not offered work under the Home Office Committee. The Central Tribunal are not asked to state their reasons in these cases, but I learn that the answers given by the man were unsatisfactory. He had not availed himself of the right of applying to a local tribunal.
      Mr. KINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the case of Joseph MacQuaid, of Barvernachon, Whaup Hill, Wigtownshire, arrested as a conscientious objector on the 24th August, 1916, court-martialled, imprisoned in Carlton Gaol, and now working on the road at Ballachulish; whether Joseph MacQuaid previously worked on his father's dairy farm, where fifty Ayrshire milch cows were kept, but that on this farm of 304 acres the milk production had been abandoned as a result of the son's imprisonment; that Joseph MacQuaid is of excellent character, and that the agent at Ballachulish is ready to recommend him; and whether he will arrange for this man being returned to work which will increase the food production in Scotland?
      The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Brace): My hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. I am aware of the facts of MacQuaid's case. The agent at the Road Board Camp at Ballachulisn, where he is working, reports that his conduct is exemplary. He and his brother are joint tenants of a farm, but the Committee on the Employment of Conscientious Objectors are precluded from sending him home to work on it.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Is this an example of scientific organisation; that a Committee should be prevented from using a man in the best possible way in the interests of the country?
      Mr. EUGENE WASON: May I ask the hon. Member for North Somerset what connection he has with Scotland or Wigtownshire?
      Mr. KING: Is it in order for the right hon. Gentleman to ask questions of me? If so, may I inform him that I have taken very good care to establish the facts, and they have all been admitted from the Front Bench?
      Mr. KINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether Cameron, Ferguson, and Robert Ramsay were engaged on a farm of 260 acres at High Drummore, Wigtownshire, where they had about 140 pigs and eighty cows; that these men are conscientious objectors against military service and have been since April, 1916, in barracks doing nothing, in prison doing their time, or under the Home Office scheme doing work for which they are unsuited; whether Cameron and Ferguson Ramsay are now at Burwarton, Salop, and that Robert Ramsay was recently at the Wakefield Work Centre; whether he can state the cost to the taxpayers of these three men since April, 1916; and whether, in view of the reduced food production on their farm due to their enforced absence, he will now save further public expense by returning these men to civil life?
      Mr. BRACE: My hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. Wilson Ramsay, Ferguson Ramsay, and Robert Ramsay, sons of a farmer of High Drummore, are conscientious objectors employed under the Home Office scheme. No papers can be traced concerning Cameron Ramsay, and I presume that Wilson Ramsay is the man to whom it is intended to refer. He and his brother

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      Ferguson have been employed at the Road Board Camp at Dyce at Warwick Work Centre, and at the Home-Grown Timber Committee's Camp near Newport, Salop. Robert has been employed at Wakefield Work Centre, and also at the Home-grown Timber Committee's Camp at Wigtown, where his conduct did not give satisfaction. I cannot say what these three men have cost the taxpayers since April, 1916. All three have been sentenced by courts-martial for military offences, and the Committee on the Employment of Conscientious Objectors are precluded from returning them to their homes.

      ATTESTED MEN (CALLING-UP NOTICES).
      Sir WILLIAM BYLESasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether, in view of his promise that attested men who had not received a call-ing-up notice before 1st September, 1916. should not be liable to arrest until the Courts had decided a test case as to their liability for military service he will now arrange that all such men shall receive a calling-up notice from the recruiting officer before any proceeding is taken to bring them before the Courts as defaulters?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: Attested men rejected subsequently to attestation, who have not been sent a calling-up notice pending the decision of (he High Court on their liability for service, will be sent a calling-up notice in the ordinary way. It is not, however, proposed to send a further calling-up notice to men who have already been sent a calling-up notice, but whose notice was suspended pending the decision of the High Court. These men have already been called up for service, and they will be informed by the recruiting officer, that it is their duty to report for service in accordance with their calling-up notice.

      ROYAL OVERSEAS OFFICERS' CLUB.
      Mr. GILBERTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to a series of meetings arranged to be held at the Royal Overseas Officers' Club, Pall Mall, tickets for which are to be obtained from the secretary of the Imperial Mission of the Tariff Reform League; whether this club is under the control in any way of the
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      War Office; and, if so, whether it is allowed to have meetings called by a political association in a club which is entirely used by British overseas officers?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: This club is controlled through a committee by the General Officer Commanding London District. The lectures were arranged before the club was taken over, and the General Officer Commanding saw no reason to order their discontinuance as they did not appear to him to be in any way of a political nature. The meetings arranged are those at which the Prime Ministers from overseas are asked to speak on problems of the Empire. On the last occasion the Prime Minister of New Zealand was the principal speaker, and on the 30th the principal speaker is the Right Hon. Sir Edward Morris, Prime Minister of Newfoundland. The reason why the tickets were, obtainable from the secretary of the Imperial Mission of the Tariff Reform League was that it was this body which had arranged for those meetings, but in future the subjects of all meetings will be submitted to the General Officer Commanding London District, and tickets will be obtainable from the committee which under his direction administers the club.
      Mr. OUTHWAITE: Is this the same league which just before the War was taking parties of British workers to Germany to convert them to Prussianism, and was the commanding officer aware of these pro-German activities of this league?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I cannot add anything to my answer.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Does my hon. Friend really believe that this committee has no political objects?

      NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
      Mr. DUNCAN MILLARasked the Minister of Pensions whether he will be prepared to consider in the light of the experience which he may gain during the first three months operation of the new Royal Warrant the setting up of some-form of appeal machinery in all cases where there may be grounds for difference of opinion as to whether the condition of health of a man who has been discharged from the Army as unfit was aggravated while serving in the Army?
      The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Mr. Barnes): I shall certainly keep my mind open for the adoption of any course which experience may prove to be necessary for a fair interpretation of the Warrant which has now been approved by the House of Commons. I must, however, ask my hon. Friend to wait and see whether any new machinery is necessary. I cannot at present entertain any proposal to set up additional machinery having regard to the inevitable pressure due to the initial operation of the new Royal Warrants and Orders in Council.
      Mr. MILLAR: Will the right hon. Gentleman specially have in view the type of case suggested in my question, in order to provide real machinery to deal with these cases of hardship?
      Mr. BARNES: Certainly I will.
      Mr. HOGGEasked the Minister of Pensions whether he can give the scale of gratuity for men whose disability is alleged not to be attributable to or aggravated by service?
      Mr. BARNES: As any scale which may be adopted will be subject to wide variations at my discretion, so as to ensure justice being done to the special circumstances of individual cases, I think it inadvisable to make such an announcement us the hon. Member suggests.
      Mr. HOGGE: Then it is not the case, as my right hon. Friend has already announced, that there is a scale?
      Mr. BARNES: I never said there was a scale.
      Mr. HOGGE: Yes, you did.
      Mr. BARNES: No, I did not.
      Mr. HOGGEasked the Secretary to the Local Government Board whether dependants of soldiers refused increased grants by local war pensions committees have any appeal against the decision as in the case of dependants to the paymaster: and, if not, why an appeal is not allowed?
      Mr. BARNES: Under No. 3 of Part II. of the Statutory Committee's Regulations a supplementary separation or other allowance or grant may be refused or varied at the discretion of the local committee. No special machinery for appeals from the decisions of the local committee has hitherto been found necessary, but it
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      is always open to applicants to communicate with the Statutory Committee with regard to these cases.
      Mr. HOGGE: Will the right hon. Gentleman try to get an appeal for these people in the same way as the soldier's dependant has an appeal in the matter of separation allowance?
      Mr. BARNES: There is no analogy at all. The appeal is to the paymaster, because there is a dispute between the pensions committee and the pensions officer. There is no dispute in the other case.
      Mr. HOGGE: Is not the dispute here between people who are asking for money and do not get it?
      Mr. BARNES: In that case they can appeal to the superior authority.

    FOOD SUPPLIES.

      INCREASED LAND CULTIVATION.
      Mr. TIMOTHY DAVIESasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he can from reports to hand say what is the increased amount of cultivated land for the present season; what amount of land has been acquired by the War Agricultural Committee for cultivation directly by them; what amount of grass land is being ploughed up; and in how-many cases have the War Agricultural Committee served notices on owners and tenants to improve the cultivation, and the area of land comprised in such notices?
      Sir R. WINFREY: The War Agricultural Executive Committees have not yet been asked to make returns of their work, as it would impede their progress at the present time when progress is so necessary, but a return will be asked for when the pressure of sowing operations is relaxed. No detailed figures are, therefore, available in answer to my hon. Friend's question. Satisfactory work is however, being done in most counties and in connection with the first part of the question I may mention that in nine counties of which we have some preliminary figures, an increase of over 87,000 acres in the amount of Cultivated land may be expected. With regard to the second part, the Board are aware of an acreage of about 5.500 acres taken over by Executive Committees; but this is quite incomplete. With regard to the last part of the question the Board know of notices being served in one

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      county on sixteen holdings having a total acreage of about 1,000 acres, in another of notices in respect of 1,500 acres, and in a third of notices in respect of five holdings. But even complete particulars under this head would be no guide as to the result of the Executive Committees' work, since, in many cases which they have taken up, the owners and tenants have voluntarily agreed to their suggestions without it being necessary subsequently to serve any notice.

      TREE PLANTING (SOMERSET).
      Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he has received a complaint from the Parish Council of Glutton, Somerset, that at Greyfield four gardens have been planted with trees, necessitating their former tenants walking nearly two miles to allotments on which an alternative food supply is to be raised; whether he has powers to prohibit the use of working men's gardens being taken for other purposes than food production; and what action will betaken?
      Sir R. WINFREY: The Department received a complaint from the Glutton Parish Council on the 22nd of this month. It will be investigated by the Somerset War Agricultural Committee, who have power to deal with the matter under the Cultivation of Lands Orders, in the interests of food production. Such committees have power to prescribe the use to which garden ground should be put.

      OATS (PRICES).
      Mr. E. WASONasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he is now in a position to say whether, since the price fixed by the Board of Agriculture for oats grown in 1917 have now become a minimum price and the price contracted with the Director of Tillage for oats grown in freshly-broken up grass lands will also be a minimum: and whether the latter will be entitled to claim the difference between the two prices originally fixed in addition to the Gazette price?
      Mr. FORSTER: I am afraid I cannot say more at the moment than that the matter is still under consideration.
      Mr. WASON: Seeing that this difference is very high—it is as much as 2s. 9d.—between the price fixed by his Department and that fixed by the Director of Tillage,
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      will not the hon. Gentleman give us some definite answer, because we have been-pressed as to what is going to take place?
      Mr. FORSTER: I will give my right hon. Friend and the House an answer as soon as I can. My right hon. Friend will remember that to reconsider this question involves the alteration of the terms of contracts. That really cannot be done before the matter has been submitted to and considered by the Treasury.

      SWINE INDUSTRY.
      Mr. FIELDasked the Secretary to the Local Government Board whether, in view of the encouragement offered for developing the swine industry of the United Kingdom, some alteration in the existing measures dealing with the sale and movement of pigs will be immediately initiated, inasmuch as at present administered these are prejudicial to the efforts of traders and feeders, as the returns of seizures and condemnations made since the beginning of the War prove; and whether, having regard to the difficulties thus indicated, he will give official sanction to local authorities to modify their by-laws?
      Sir R. WINFREY: The only restrictions on the movement and sale of live pigs are those which are prescribed by Orders under the Diseases of Animals Acts, administered by the Board of Agriculture. The general modification of these restrictions is a matter which the Board have under consideration, though they have at present nothing to add to the last part of the answer given to a question on the subject by my hon. Friend on the 19th of this month.

      CONDEMNED MEAT.
      Mr. FIELDasked the Secretary to the Local Government Board whether, in view of the prices current for all classes of meat, steps will be taken to utilise a considerable proportion of the meat condemned as unsound; whether he is aware that in London alone the weight of meat so condemned averages 2,800,000 lbs. per annum, and also that on the Continent the practice of sterilising such meat has been in operation for many years with the most satisfactory results: and whether, in view of this fact, he will consider the advisability of introducing a similar system in the United Kingdom?
      Mr. HAYES FISHER: The greater part of the meat which is condemned in this

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      country on account of unsoundness could not be rendered fit for human consumption by means of sterilisation or otherwise. Probably not more than some 5 to 7 per cent. could be so utilised. I am already inquiring into the possibility of taking further measures in regard to this meat.
      Mr. FABER: What is done with condemned meat?
      Mr. HAYES FISHER: It is destroyed.

      BACON (IRISH PRICUS).
      Mr. GINNELLasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether the Department brought under the notice of the Food Controller before he issued his Order reducing the price of Irish bacon the necessary consequential reduction of the price of Irish pigs; whether this reduction already amounts to (is per hundredweight, or an average of 10s. per pig; and, in view of the effect of this tax upon Irish farmers and cottagers in regard to the increased production of this article of human food, whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD CONTROL (Captain Bathurst): I have been asked to reply. It is a fact that the reduction in the price of bacon involved a reduction in the price of Irish pigs to the extent indicated. Prior to the intervention of the Food Controller the prices of pig meat were forced to a high and speculative level. It is considered that the bacon prices now authorised will not involve hardship or the risk of any decrease-in production.
      Mr. GINNELL: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that the reduction of 10s in the price of pigs inflicts a hardship on the Irish farmers?
      Captain BATHURST: No, Sir. A similar reduction has been made in the price of English pigs, and there was a corresponding rise in the price of both at the beginning of the year, which was not in the public interest.

      TRADE RESTRICTIONS (COMPENSATION).
      Mr. FRANCEasked the Prime Minister if it is the intention of the Government to compensate those responsible for the sale of articles of food which are non-intoxicating and do not interfere
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      with the efficiency of the nation, such as apples, bananas, milk chocolate, biscuits, etc., in view of the fact that the import or manufacture of these articles is prohibited or restricted?
      Captain BATHURST: I have been asked to reply. The answer to this question is in the negative.
      Mr. FRANCE: Can the hon. Gentleman say if the same treatment is to be accorded to the liquor trade as to the food trades in this respect?
      Captain BATHURST: I am not in a position to anticipate, but I should like to take this opportunity of saying that we recognise the patriotic readiness of those trades which have been or are likely to be affected by restrictive measures to make the sacrifices which are demanded of them in the public interest.
      Mr. FRANCE: Can the hon. Gentleman say if the food trades are to have this opportunity of showing patriotism, those engaged in the liquor trade are to be paid for their patriotism?
      Captain BATHURST: I have no reason to anticipate that distinctions are going to be made.
      HON. MEMBERS: They are!
      Captain BATHURST: At any rate, I am not in a position to say anything more at present. I only know that in the case of foodstuffs, to which the question of the hon. Member is directed, there has been a patriotic self-sacrifice which we are ready to recognise.
      Sir S. COLLINS: Is that a patriotism which stands out distinct from the general patriotism of the tradespeople throughout the country?
      Captain BATHURST: No; certainly not!

      AGRICULTURAL POLICY.
      Mr. W. YOUNGasked the Prime Minister whether he can say when it is proposed to introduce the legislation necessary to give effect to the Government's new agricultural policy?
      The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): The Bill is at present being considered by the Cabinet, and it will be introduced shortly, which will enable hon. Members to see it in print, but it is not now intended to take the Second Reading before Easter.
      Mr. G. LAMBERT: Will the Bill be introduced?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: Yes.
      Mr. WATT: Will the Bill refer to Scotland?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: I understand so.

      TILLAGE (IRELAND).
      Mr. DORISasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he can state whether Mr. Walter Joyce refused to sell to the Congested Districts Board his congested estate at Breaghy, Castlebar, county Mayo, on which there is an untenanted grazing farm of 200 acres that would enable the Board to enlarge the uneconomic holdings of the tenants; has Mr. Joyce complied with the Tillage Regulations with respect to this untenanted land; and if not, will he say what steps the Department of Agriculture has taken against Mr. Joyce for non-compliance with these Regulations, and to have a tenth of the farm tilled or let for tillage?
      The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Duke): The Congested Districts Board communicated with Mr. Joyce's solicitor in reference to a sale to the Board of the estate at Breaghy referred to, and were informed that the owner was unwilling to negotiate except on a cash basis. The voluntary purchase of estates under the Irish Land Act, 1909, can only be accomplished by a payment of Land Stock, and the Board took no further action in the matter, as they were not then in a position to acquire the estate compulsorily. I am informed that there are over 200 acres of untenanted land on the property, and that Mr. Joyce is arranging to comply with the compulsory Tillage Regulations. He has estates in the counties of Clare, Galway, and Mayo, and he is at liberty to carry out the total cultivation for which he is liable on any one or two of these estates.
      Mr. DORIS: Are not these poor people to get the benefit of an Act which was passed for their relief eight years ago?
      Mr. DUKE: The conditions in the Act must be complied with before it is applied. The statement in my answer shows that in the present case it has not been possible to comply with them.
      Mr. DORIS: What is to prevent the Congested Districts Board acquiring this
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      land compulsorily, and distributing these 200 acres among these poor people who want them so badly?
      Mr. DUKE: As I have pointed out, compulsory acquisition requires payment in cash. The Act provides for the voluntary acquisition of estates by Land Stock,' and as the present stock is depreciated owners are naturally not disposed to exchange their land for stock.
      Mr. DUNDAS WHITE: In cases like this, where there is unused land in Ireland, is it not possible to proceed under the Defence of the Realm Act?
      Mr. DUKE: My hon. friend makes a mistake in supposing that this land is unused because it is untenanted. Untenanted is a term of law which applies to land in Ireland, and merely implies that. there are not attaching to the land the legal rights which arise from a tenancy in Ireland.
      Mr. WHITE: I have not made the mistake which the right hon. Gentleman supposes. What I want to know is—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"]

      MILITARY HOSPITAL, SOUTHWARK.
      Mr. GILBERTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War why the medical officer who is in charge of the military hospital supplied by the Southwark Board of Guardians has had his remuneration reduced from £663 7s. 6d. per annum, paid since 1915, to the amount of £584 for the present year; whether the duties of the officer are exactly the same as formerly and, if so, why the War Office should draw any distinction between military hospitals supplied by Poor Law authorities and those supplied to the War Office; and whether the medical officer's responsibilities and duties are the same in both cases?
      Mr. FORSTER: I am having inquiry made.

      OFFICERS (CLOTHING AND EQUIPMENT).
      Colonel YATEasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether arrangements can be made for officers stationed at home to obtain on payment articles of clothing and equipment from

      197
      the Ordnance Department in the same way that officers overseas are allowed to draw them?
      Mr. FORSTER: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the answer given on 2nd November to the hon. Member for the College Division of Glasgow.
      Colonel YATE: Will the hon. Gentleman say what that answer was?
      Mr. FORSTER: Yes, it was that as regards the necessary articles of equipment officers are enabled to buy from the Ordnance Stores. I am afraid there are no present facilities for enabling them to buy uniforms.
      Colonel YATE: Will the hon. Gentleman try to give those facilities, which would be of great advantage to officers?
      Mr. FORSTER: I have discussed the matter with the Director of Ordnance Stores, and I am afraid it would mean a very heavy expenditure of money in providing the necessary depots.
      Colonel YATE: If they can do it abroad why cannot they do it at home?
      Mr. FORSTER: The conditions at home and abroad are quite different. I would remind my hon. and gallant Friend that the opportunities given to officers to purchase uniforms abroad are limited to cases where there is emergency.

      STEAMSHIPS (MESSRS. MACLAY AND MINTYRE).
      Mr. JOWETTasked the President of the Board of Trade how many steamers were owned or managed by Messrs. Maclay and M'Intyre, of Glasgow, in July. 1914; how many were owned or managed by this firm on 1st March, 1917; and how many steamers managed by this firm were under requisition at Blue Book rates on 31st December, 1916?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. George Roberts): The number of steamers owned or managed by this firm in July, 1914, was forty-eight, and on 1st March, 1917, twenty-four. The number on requisition at Blue Book rates on 31st December, 1916, was nineteen.

      MINISTRY OF SHIPPING.
      Major HUNTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether
      198
      he is aware that there is a Mrs. Wright, a German woman who was divorced from her husband, an Englishman, and who now keeps a boarding-house at Eastbourne; that a daughter of hers, Clara Elise Wright, is now employed in the Censor's Department of the Shipping Controller; that she has relations fighting against us in the German army at the present time; and whether he will have this woman's appointment cancelled?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of SHIPPING CONTROL (Sir Leo Chiozza Money): My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. My hon. and gallant Friend has been misinformed. No person of this name is employed at the Ministry of Shipping.

      GOVERNMENT STANDARD SHIPS.
      Sir WALTER RUNCIMANasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Controller whether, in the specification for what is called the new standardised cargo vessel, bronze propellers are being prescribed, although bronze and its constituent metals are scarce and expensive, and the cost of a bronze propeller is nearly £2,000 more than a steel or cast-iron propeller; whether the advantage in speed from the use of bronze is a mere fraction of a knot; whether, in case of accident, these bronze propellers can be easily replaced; and whether the Shipping Controller was advised by specialists in tramp shipbuilding to prescribe for these bronze propellers or by specialists in liner building?
      Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: Bronze propellers were not prescribed in the original specification for the first type of standard vessels, but, after the vessels had been commenced, conditions occurred in connection with the submarine menace which made it necessary to adopt bronze propellers as part of an arrangement to make sure of a certain speed. Cast-iron propellers are specified for the spare propellers for these ships and also for the propellers of the later types of standard ships. In these matters the Shipping Controller was advised by specialists in tramp shipbuilding.
      Sir W. RUNCIMAN: Will my hon. Friend give me the names of the specialists?
      Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: If my right hon. Friend will look at the names of the Advisory Committee, he will see the names of Mr. Marr, Mr. Henderson, and other experts.
      Sir W. RUNCIMAN: Were any ordinary cargo boat owners consulted in the matter?
      Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: Yes, my right hon. Friend will find they were consulted.
      Mr. WATT: Do these bronze propellers increase the speed, and, if so, to what extent?
      Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: The increase in speed is about a quarter of a knot, and, although that does not seem much, we are faced with circumstances where we think it necessary to get every possible increase of speed. If on trial of these vessels the bronze propeller is found to be an unnecessary luxury it will be dispensed with.
      Sir W. RUNCIMANasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Controller whether any of the shipbuilders are undertaking to complete a new standardised vessel in four months from the laying of the keel-plates, a rate maintained for years past in tramp-shipbuilding yards on the Wear and Tyne?
      Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: No, Sir. Shipbuilders are not undertaking, under present conditions as regards labour and materials, to build the new standard ships in four months from the laying of the keel. If such an undertaking were ever given for such a steamer as the largest type of standard vessel, the conditions prevailing must have been very different from those which obtain at the present time.
      Sir W. RUNCIMAN: How many keel plates are now laid down?
      Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: I am sure my right hon. Friend will agree with me on reflection that it is not desirable to enter on minute details of this kind. I should like to add this: My right hon. Friend the Shipping Controller will be very glad to have the advice of my right hon. Friend in this matter if he will be good enough to give it privately.
      Sir W. RUNCIMANasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Controller whether what is called the new standardised cargo vessel is to be fitted
      200
      with Howden's forced draught and correspondingly smaller boilers instead of rather larger boilers and natural draught; and whether this was adopted on the-advice of builders of liners or on the-advice of builders of tramps?
      Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: Yes, Sir; the standard cargo vessels are being fitted with forced draught to meet the present needs. This is in accordance with the advice of builders of tramp steamers.
      Sir W. RUNCIMANasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Controller whether the advisory committee of shipbuilders advising the Shipping Controller on standardised cargovessels consists, with one exception, of builders of the liner type rather than what is called the cargo tramp- type; and whether Mr. Marr, the only member of the committee with experience of tramp building, has through illness been unable to attend all the committee meetings and the standardised type has therefore been arrived at by gentlemen with experience of the more expensive liner rather than the more economical cargo vessel?
      Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: The Shipbuilding Advisory Committee to the Shipping Controller is representative of shipbuilding and marine engineering. Mr. Marr is not the only member of the Committee with experience of tramp shipbuilding, and during his enforced absence from meetings of the Committee through illness, he was represented by his co-director in the same business. It is not the fact that the types of standard ships have been arrived at by gentlemen with experience of the liner rather than the tramp steamer. Besides the members of the Committee, specialists in designing and building the types adopted were consulted as well as various shipowners.
      Mr. PRINGLEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Controller how many steamers belonging to or under Government control have been placed under the management or direction of Messrs. Furness, Withy and Company from August. 1914, to 15th March, 1917 and will he state what are the terras, it any, of their remuneration for management and what commissions if any, they have received during this period for chartering?
      Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: Durin the period August, 1914, to 15th March

      201
      1917, many neutral vessels have been time chartered by Messrs. Furness, Withy and Company, Limited, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, and of these a number have been placed under the management or direction of Messrs. Furness, Withy without remuneration to them. No commissions have been paid by the Government to Messrs. Furness, Withy for chartering or other services, and the commissions received by the company from the foreign owners have been credited by them to His Majesty's Government. I am glad that this question has been asked, as it enables me to tender thanks to Messrs Furness, Withy and Company, Limited, for their ungrudging and invaluable services.
      Mr. PRINGLEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Controller how many steamers have been purchased by or through Messrs. Furness, Withy, and Company for or on behalf of the Government from foreign owners since 4th August, 1914, to 15th March, 1917; and will he state the total amount of brokerages or commissions received by Messrs Furness, Withy, and Company during this period, either from the owners of these steamers or from the Government?
      Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: Certain steamships have been purchased by Messrs. Furness, Withy, and Company, Limited, on behalf of His Majesty's Government from foreigners, during the period 4th August, 1914, to 14th March, 1917. No commission has been paid by the Government to Messrs. Furness, Withy for their services, and where the company have received a commission from the foreign owners or builders it has been repaid by them to the Government in reduction of the purchase price of the Vessels. It is not considered advisable at the present time to state the exact number of ships which have been purchased through Messrs. Furness. With and Company on behalf of His Majesty's Government.
      Mr. WATT: Can the hon. Gentleman say if Messrs. Furness, Withy, and Company have been given a licence to purchase vessels—a licence given to no other person?
      Sir L. CHIOZZA MONEY: No; the hon. Member is entirely misinformed. When Messrs. Furness, Withy, and Company purchase vessels they do so under the direct instructions of the Shipping
      202
      Controller. Another firm, I may add, have done more purchasing for us than Messrs. Furness, Withy have been employed to do.

      FOOD AND COAL (MUNICIPAL DISTRIBUTION).
      Mr. JACOBSENasked the Secretary of the Local Government Board whether if any municipality, county council, urban district council, or parish council is willing to undertake the distribution of certain necessaries of life such as food and coal, he will permit and facilitate such action?
      Mr. HAYES FISHER: Local authorities have at present no statutory functions of the kind referred to in the quesion, but if the Government decided that the intervention of the local authorities was desirable my Noble Friend would be happy to afford any assistance in his power.
      Mr. PRINGLE: In any case where local authorities desire to take action at present they would not be allowed to do so, as it would be outside the law?
      Mr. HAYES FISHER: They must take the consequences of their action.

      INLAND WATER THAN SPORT.
      Mr. PETOasked the Secretary to the Board of Trade whether any steps are being taken to put into effect the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Railway and Canal Traffic with a view to providing increased inland water transport facilities; and whether his Department have considered the importance of preparing for works of national importance, such as the improvement of canals, in order to provide useful employment to men as discharged from the Army pending their absorption in the trades and industries of the country?
      Mr. ROBERTS: As the hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware, the Board of Trade have taken possession for the time being of a large number of the more important canals in England. The control of these canals has been entrusted by the Board of Trade to the Canal Control Committee, who are considering the question how the canals can be used to the best advantage possible in the national interests. The question of the improvement of canals on demobilisation will not be lost sight of.

      SHOPS (EARLIER CLOSING ORDER).
      Mr. GILBERTasked the Home Secretary if the Government propose to extend the present Early Closing Order at its expiration; and whether he proposes to vary the closing hours or to make them exactly as at present?
      Mr. BRACE: A decision on this question has not yet been arrived at.

      AMERICAN CITIZENS (POLITICAL OFFENCES).
      Mr. GINNELLasked the Home Secretary what the rule is governing permission to American citizens who are convicts in this country for alleged political offences to communicate with the American Ambassador here; whether Dermod (Jeremiah) Lynch, in this position at Dartmoor last October, was refused this permission; if so, what the reason was for the refusal; and whether American citizens now political convicts at Lewes will be allowed to communicate with the American Ambassador here and with the American Government in the event of the Ambassador neglecting them?
      Mr. BRACE: The rule is that alien prisoners while awaiting trial may communicate freely with the Ambassador or Minister of the country to which they belong, but after conviction they are not allowed to write to any Foreign Minister or other public authority, but must address their representations to the Secretary of State. Lynch after his conviction applied to write to the American Ambassador, and was refused in accordance with the rule. The reply to the last paragraph of the question is in the negative.
      Mr. GINNELL: Will the written statement of this man be transmitted to the Ambassador if handed to the prison authorities?
      Mr. BRACE: This man, like all other prisoners, will be bound by prison regulations.
      Mr. GINNELL: Do the Regulations allow Lib statement to be transmitted to the American Ambassador when handed to the prison authorities?
      Mr. BRACE: Will the hon. Member please put down another question?

      DEPORTATIONS (IRELAND).
      Mr. GINNELLasked the Home Secretary what the intention of the Government is regarding the places in which and the conditions under which the men deported from Ireland without charge or trial are to be compelled to reside and the arrangements for their maintenance and the maintenance of their dependent families in Ireland deprived of their breadwinners?
      Mr. BRACE: As to the first part of the question. I can only refer the hon. Member to the answer given to him on the 21st instant by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for War. As to the latter part, the maintenance of these men's dependants is a matter for the consideration of the Irish Government.
      Mr. GINNELL: Why are newspapers addressed to these men not allowed to-reach them?
      Mr. BRACE: I could not say.
      Mr. GINNELLasked whether the arrest and deportation of Mr. J. J. O'Kelly, without charge or trial, was-because he is a member of the supreme council and of the executive of the Irish Nation League, which was founded to prevent the partition of Ireland, which reserves to itself power to withdraw Irish representation from Westminster, and which insists upon Ireland's right to representation as a distinct nation in the forthcoming international peace conference; and are all these objects held to be illegal?
      Mr. DUKE: I can add nothing to the answers I have made to the numerous questions asked by the hon. Member on this subject.
      Mr. GINNELL: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the question. What I want to know is whether the matter on the Paper is the cause of the arrest and deportation of this man without trial?
      Mr. DUKE: The answer which I have given repeatedly is that it was not. The hon. Member might as well ask me whether the colour of his hair was the cause.
      Mr. GINNELL: As nothing I have put on the Paper is the cause will the right hon. Gentleman say what was the cause of his arrest and deportation without trial?
      Mr. DUKE: The matter has been debated, and I have nothing to add to what I then said.
      Mr. GINNELL: Is this man not to get any trial?

      OAK BARK.
      Mr. G. LAMBERTasked the Minister of Munitions if instructions will be issued to timber fellers and merchants that oak bark should this season be stripped, thus utilising the home-grown article and minimising the use of foreign imported material for tanning purposes?
      Mr. FORSTER: The importance of collecting oak bark is fully realised, and collection will be made as far as conditions permit.

      MERCANTILE TONNAGE (LOSSES BY SUBMARINES AND MINES).
      Mr. G. LAMBERTasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, having regard to the necessity of impressing on the country the necessity for economy in the use of oversea supplies, he will reconsider his decision and publish the total amount of mercantile tonnage week by week destroyed by hostile submarine or mine?
      The SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): My right hon. Friend, of course, entirely endorses the view that it is imperative that everybody should recognise the vital necessity for economy in the use of oversea supplies. He gave close personal attention, in association with his naval advisers, to my right hon. Friend's present suggestion when it was first made. He is afraid that he cannot add anything to the answer which he then gave to my right hon. Friend.
      Mr. LAMBERT: Is it not a fact that the tonnage losses from submarines have been greater in the last month than ever before, and can the right hon. Gentleman say whether this is brought out in the Admiralty Returns?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: The right hon. Gentleman is familiar with the Returns. He gets week by week the number of ships of 1,600 tons and over lost by submarines, and the number below that, also fishing vessels. Last Saturday we added the losses caused by the German commerce raider "Moewe."
      Mr. LAMBERT: Does not the Return convey a misleading impression by comparing, in the first place, the sailings and arrivals of all British, foreign and Allied shipping, whereas it only gives the losses of British shipping?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: That is so; but the right hon. Gentleman will remember the terms of the answer he received on the 21st March. The form is published after consultation and agreement with the Allies, and it is adopted by the Allies. My right hon. Friend went on to say that he was satisfied there were cogent naval reasons against publishing the tonnage figures and thereby giving the enemy correct information of considerable military value. For that reason it is not given.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Is it not a fact that the present Board of Admiralty is giving less information than the "Hide-the-truth" Government?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: The present Board of Admiralty, as the First Lord said, is giving all the losses.
      Mr. PRINGLE: Less than the "Hide-the-truth" Government.

      WET CANTEENS (CANADIAN CAMPS).
      Mr. TIMOTHY DAVIESasked the Prime Minister if his attention has been drawn to the inquest held as to the cause of death of Private John Farrell Mitchell, twenty, a young Canadian, who was in training in a camp near Godalming, whose death was due to alcoholic poisoning; whether he is aware that hundreds of young men coming from dry areas in the Dominions and subjected to the temptation of drink in the canteens and surrounding public-houses have succumbed to it and their services been lost to the Army; is he aware of the feeling in the Dominions, against the practice of allowing these temptations to exist; and whether he will consider the advisability of the prohibition of the sale of intoxicants inside or outside near such camps?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. Inquiries are being made in this particular case, and my hon. Friend will be informed of the result. As regards the latter part of the question, I understand that wet canteens were first introduced

      207
      in the Canadian camps in this country at the request of the Canadian military authorities.

      HOUSING OF WORKING CLASSES.
      Mr. PETOasked the Prime Minister whether the present Government regard the provision of better housing for the working classes, both in town and country, as the most pressing of post-war problems; and what steps the Government are taking to work out the problem, so that employment and homes may be provided for men as they are discharged from the Army?
      Mr. HAYES FISHER: The Prime Minister has asked me to answer this question. My Noble Friend holds strongly the view that the provision of better housing accommodation is the most pressing problem that this Department will have to deal with after the War. The matter is now engaging his serious attention

      PRISON SYSTEM.
      Mr. EDMUND HARVEYasked the Prime Minister whether he will take the opportunity presented by the emptiness of most of the prisons to institute a reform of the prison system; and whether he will appoint either a Royal Commission or Departmental Committee to deal with the question?
      Mr. BRACE: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. I do not think that the present time would be suitable for the discussion of a reform of the prison system.

      PETROL SUPPLY (MOTOR CARS).
      Mr. PATRICK MEEHANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the fact that motor-car owners will be deprived of their petrol supply in the near future, any provision will be made to secure a refund of a part of the insurance premiums paid by owners of motor cars on their cars from the insurance companies covering the period from the cutting off the petrol to the date on which the policies become renewable?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: The matter will be one to be settled between the motor-car owner and the insurance company.

      GERMAN BANKS (LIQUIDATION).
      Colonel GRETTONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether any decision has been reached on the recommendations in the Bankers' Report on the liquidation of the German banks; and, if so, will he state what that decision is?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: The Government have most carefully considered the report of Mr. Vassar Smith and Mr. Walter Leaf with regard to the progress made towards bringing the operations of these banks to a conclusion, and have noted the opinion expressed by these gentlemen that it would not be in the public interest for Sir William Plender to relinquish his office as controller. The Government fully concur in this view, and would much regret any change in present arrangements which would deprive them of his knowledge and experience.

      WAGES (IRELAND).
      Mr. GINNELLasked what action it is intended to take, and when, with reference to the increase of wages rendered necessary in Ireland by the increased cost of living; and, if any tribunal is to be set up for fixing the wages of workers, whether it will comprise a direct representative of workers?
      Mr. DUKE: As I stated in answer to the hon. Member for the Ossory Division of Queen's County last week, a Central Wages Board is being formed, and local wages boards or committees for the various agricultural districts will be established. There will be direct representation of the workers. The arrangements are in a forward state, and I expect them to be completed in time to admit of the fixing of minimum wages for agricultural labourers as soon as the necessary legislative sanction has been given.
      Mr. LYNCH: Will this take into account other classes of workers, such as those who work on the railways which have been taken over by the Government? Would the right hon. Gentleman also say when the Regulations will be put in force?
      Mr. DUKE: The railwaymen are not comprised in a scheme which relates to the compulsory steps which are being taken with regard to tillage and the minimum wage which is to be paid to those engaged in that work. The Regulations

      209
      are to be put into force immediately the necessary legislative sanction has been obtained.

      NATIONAL SCHOOL TEACHERS (IRELAND).
      Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he can say when, by whom, and with what Irish educational approval the new rule has been made depriving of the war bonus teachers who while undergoing a course of training, are paying, substitutes; whether he is aware that, owing to increased cost of outfit and living, enforcement of this rule would force some of the best teachers to leave the training colleges and abandon the teaching profession; what is the estimate of the amount required to give a separate war bonus to the substitutes without withdrawing theirs from the teachers; and whether, in all the circumstances, of economy on education in Ireland, he will obtain this from the Treasury?
      Mr. DUKE: This question was answered last Tuesday. In case it has escaped the attention of the hon. Member I will send him a copy of it.

      DRAFTS FOR FRANCE.
      Mr. W. YOUNGasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether considerable and often large drafts of men en route for France, coming, in many cases, from long distances, are compelled, for reasons known to the military authorities, to break their journey at Blairgowrie; whether he is aware that hitherto no adequate provision has been made for feeding the men during their stay at the place mentioned; whether their pay is stopped for the time being, and consequently they have no money to buy food; whether the military authorities allege that men going long distances should be provided with rations, but whether, in fact, this is not done; and will he take steps to fix the responsibility for the neglect, and to ensure that it is not repeated?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I am having inquiries made at once.

      HOLLAND AND DENMARK (IMPORTS).
      Mr. PETOasked the Minister of Blockade (1) whether he can give the gross total tonnage of all fodder and animal feeding stuffs, including maize, from all sources imported into Holland and Denmark respectively, for the years 1913, 1914, 1915 and 1916, and the exports to Great Britain from these countries of meat, pig products of all sorts, poultry, eggs, cheese and butter for the same years; and (2) whether he can give the import of butter, eggs and bacon from Denmark into Great Britain for the three months ending February, 1917, 1916, 1915 and 1914, and whether he has any figures or has been able to form any estimate of the imports for the same period of these articles into Germany from Denmark?
      Lord ROBERT CECIL: I will answer these two questions together. The figures for the gross imports of corn and fodder of all kinds, including maize, into Holland during 1913 to 1916 are as follows:—

      tons.

      1913

      …

      …

      …

      6,326,000

      1914

      …

      …

      …

      3,951,000

      1915

      …

      …

      …

      2,561,000

      1916

      …

      …

      …

      2,163,000

      But it should be noted that a proportion of the imports into Holland in normal years were in transit to other countries, mainly to Germany. The imports of corn and fodder, including maize, into Denmark during 1913 to 1916 are as follows:

      tons.

      1913

      …

      …

      …

      1,705,000

      1914

      …

      …

      …

      1,232,000

      1915

      …

      …

      …

      1,795,000

      1916

      …

      …

      …

      1,289,000

      With regard to imports from Denmark and Holland to this country, certain figures have been published by the Board of Trade to which I beg leave to refer my hon. Friend. I have, however, reason to believe that the total exports from Denmark and Holland to all countries of some of the commodities mentioned have greatly decreased, so that those figures will not be any guide to the amount that is being exported into Germany. I am sorry that I am not able to give in public any further detailed information on these points.

      Fishing Permits (Ireland).
      Mr. GINNELLasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) on what grounds the Department withholds its recommendation for a permit for fishing from Mr. Maurice O'Connell, Renard Road, Cahirciveen, and thus deprive him of his means of living by lawful industry with his boat "St. Fiacra"; and whether the necessary document will be issued for the season now opening?
      Mr. DUKE: I answered this question to the hon. Member on the 19th instant. I can add nothing to the answer I then gave.

      Insurance Contributions (Teachers in Ireland).
      Mr. GINNELLasked why the prescribed proportion of the contributions paid under the National Health Insurance Act in Ireland in respect of teachers who have ceased to be insured owing to becoming members of the Teachers' Pension Fund has not yet been transferred to that fund in accordance with law and promise; and whether it will now be transferred with rights as from the date the transfer became due?
      Sir EDWIN CORNWALL (Controller of the Household): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. It is intended to make the transfer in the near future, and meantime no interests are adversely affected.

      NEW MEMBER SWORN.
      John Bertrand Watson, Esquire, for the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees.
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BILLS PRESENTED.
  Mr. SWIFT MacNEILL: Perhaps, with your kindness, Sir, you will allow me to draw attention to what I conceive to be a very gross perversion of the spirit of the Rules of this House, although it may conform to the letter. If you look at the Notice Paper to-day, you will see notice of the presentation of three Bills by Ministers. The effect of the presentation of a Bill is this, that the Bill comes before the House without its contents being in the slightest degree known, and that it has the sanction of a First Reading. The third Bill to which I wish to call attention is that for the extension of the life of the present Parliament. Anything more important, or more vital to constitutional interests at the present time than such a Bill as that, it is difficult to imagine. It is one which should be taken in accordance with the spirit of the Parliamentary Rule, with adequate discussion and adequate notice. This, I take it, is the third occasion on which Parliament has passed a Bill to prolong its life. The first occasion on which a Bill was proposed was on the 9th September, 1915. On that occasion it was at least proposed under the Ten Minutes' Rule, and the Home Secretary of that day, who, unlike the Home Secretary of the present day, was a Cabinet Minister, proposed it. The second occasion was on the 14th August of last year, and it was then proposed by the Prime Minister himself. Now we have got this third occasion on which the Bill is proposed for First Reading without discussion. I take the liberty of directing attention to the circumstances under which this Rule was passed by the House of Commons on the 17th February, 1902. It was passed under the most solemn pledge that it would never be used for anything even of secondary importance, and Mr. Grant Lawson, who proposed it on behalf of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, then the First Lord of the Treasury, said it was not proposed to take away the stage of the First Reading of any Bill of any importance. Is this Bill of no importance, a Bill for prolonging the life of Parliament? Mr. Bryce (now Viscount Bryce) and Sir William Harcourt and my hon. Friend beside me (Mr. Dillon) were very restive about this Bill. Mr. Bryce asked whether it was possible
  224
  that a first-class Bill could be introduced under the Rule, and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs got up and made this solemn promise. He said:
  "It is evident that important Bills ought to be introduced with all the oil paraphernalia: that others ought to be introduced under the Ten Minutes' Rule, and that much smaller and less important BILLS Ought to come under this Rule."
  Is this, the third Bill which is to be presented to prolong the life of this Parliament, a smaller and loss important Bill? This undertaking Mr. Bryce (as he then was) accepted. This is an important matter to which I call public attention, and I scarcely think in the circumstances that this Bill, though it may come within the Rule itself, is put down in conformity with the spirit of the Rule. You have, Sir, great experience of the procedure of this House, and I would ask you as the guardian of the rights and privileges of the House and the protector of its procedure, to give an opinion against what I call a series of outrages upon it. I ask your ruling, Sir, and I ask your opinion as to whether it is right that such a Bill on such an occasion should be introduced into this House in such a way?
  Mr. DILLON: Will you allow me, Sir, to say a word on this subject, because on the occasion of this new Rule in 1912 the moment the Rule was passed I was the first man in the House to take exception to it, and I did so on the ground that if once introduced into the procedure of this House, Ministers would, after some time, and having become accustomed to the new procedure, introduce important Bills under this Rule. Whereupon the Prime Minister, I think it was the Prime Minister himself—at any rate he was responsible for the conduct of Parliament—gave me the most absolute assurance that no such thing would ever be done, and he ridiculed the idea that any Minister would ever introduce a Bill of such importance as this one under the Rule. But these proceedings show what we have come to. Surely no Minister will get up on that bench now and say that a Bill for the third time prolonging the life of this Parliament is not a first-class and most important Bill! I say it is a very serious example, a very bad example, in the conduct of the business of this House, after a solemn undertaking given on the part of Ministers, or on the part of Leaders of the House, on the faith of which the new Rules were introduced, and which has been broken in this way.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I have nothing to do with the circumstances under which the Rule was passed. The Rule is quite distinct—
  "A Member may if he thinks it, introduce a Bill without an Order of the House for the first introduction."
  I have no power to stop the introduction, even if I wished to do so. I am bound to carry out the Rules of the House, and I would remind hon. Members that under this very Rule the Home Rule Bill, the Welsh Disestablishment Bill, and the Plural Voting Bill were all introduced on one day.
  NAVAL DISCIPLINE (DELEGATION OF POWERS) BILL,—"to amend the Naval Discipline (Delegation of Powers) Act, 1916, with respect to the officers to whom powers under that Act may be delegated," presented by Dr. MACNAMARA; supported by Sir Edward Carson, Mr. Pretyman, and the Solicitor-General; to be read a second time To-morrow, and to be printed. Bill 21.]
  ARMY (ANNUAL) ACT (1916) AMENDMENT BILL,—"to amend the Schedule to the Army (Annual) Act, 1916,"presented by Mr. FORSTER; supported by Mr. Macpherson; to be read a second time Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 22.]
  PARLIAMENT AND LOCAL ELECTIONS BILL,—"to amend and extend the Parliament and Local Elections Act, 1916,"presented by Sir GEORGE CAVE; supported by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr. Hayes Fisher; to be read a second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 23.]

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Mr. McKENNA: By leave of the House, may I ask whether any change has been made in the business for Thursday, and what is the business to be taken on Friday?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: A change has been made in the business for Thursday. The Government have found it necessary) absolutely necessary, as they think, to introduce a short Bill, giving the right of medical re-examination. Notice of it will be given to-day, and it will be introduced to-morrow. I should like the House, if they think fit, to take it on Thursday.
  On Thursday, I hope that we may also be able to take the Report stage of the
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  War Pensions Bill, which we were discussing yesterday, and, if time permits, some other small Bills.
  On Friday we shall take the Second Reading of the Bill for prolonging the life of Parliament. I should like also to say that I much regret that I cannot to-day say definitely when we hope to adjourn, and for what length of time, but I shall make a statement to-morrow.
  Mr. HOGGE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say that the Bill will not be taken unless it is printed, as amended?
  Mr. McKENNA: Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to take all the stages of the Bill for medical re-examination on Thursday?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not propose to take that course.
  Mr. PEMBERTON BILLING: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how far he intends to proceed with the Orders tonight?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I hope to take the first two Orders, the Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Bill and the Army (Annual) Bill, and if, contrary to my expectations, there be time, we shall proceed with the fourth Order, the Courts (Emergency Powers) Bill.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL.
  Order for Third Reading road.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."

  WAR MEASURES (BLOCKADE).
  Mr. HEWINS: I wish to take the opportunity presented by the Third Reading of this Bill to ask the Government some questions as to the administration of the blockade. As my Noble Friend the Minister for Blockade is aware, there is a certain amount of dissatisfaction in the country about the blockade. Whether that is reasonable or unreasonable we will consider later, but there is no doubt that there is that dissatisfaction. I think it would be a great mistake to suppose that that feeling is in any way the result of Press agitation. I think it is also true to say that there are no personal imputations in the matter at all. There is the widest possible interest in the blockade as one of the main provisions of our War

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  measures, and there is the greatest anxiety to know precisely where we are in the matter. I think, if I may say so, that the statements about starvation conditions in Germany are just a little discounted in responsible quarters. A great majority of the business classes are fairly well in touch with German conditions, and they have opportunities, which sometimes, I think, are not shared by the Government, of knowing what is going on in Germany at the present time, and from the character of their business experience and their acquaintance with the necessities of business organisation they are able to interpret certain signs which those who are not in business would not be able to interpret. I will put it in this way: If you know that since the War began Germany has started various new industries, and if you know that certain great firms have apparently been carrying on business on a large scale during the War, then the business man, who knows that the conduct of that manufacture requires the assemblage of certain raw materials and workers in a certain-state of efficiency, and all other conditions of successful production, will conclude that the great mass of the workers so employed cannot be in a state of semi-starvation. There is, no doubt, a great deal of local distress in Germany amongst the civilian population, but the impression which I have formed, and which I think you will find is pretty general amongst people in England with experience of German affairs, is that amongst those workers, who are carrying on war work and all the classes of the population that Germany may consider necessary for the successful prosecution of the War, you can very easily exaggerate the stories of starvation. The different instances that are described in the Press, and which we get from other centres, are probably in the main correct, but by simply adding together all those numerous instances you do not get a complete picture, or a picture in the proper perspective. I venture to say it is because a great many people in England feel that there is a great deal of force left in Germany yet, then there is some question in their minds as to how far the blockade has been really successful.
  Take the figures about the blockade. I do not, of course, undertake any patronage or responsibility for any figures that appear in the papers. A great many
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  figures have appeared in the papers, and sometimes we do not quite know where they come from. I think the Noble Lord will agree, on the whole, when you have got the figures they do show that a very fair amount of stuff has been going into Germany since the War began, and that not so much has been coming to this country as some people may think we are entitled to receive, and the question at once leaps to the mind: is not our blockade a failure after all? Take the German side of it. I have been at some pains to find out what Germany thinks of our blockade. If I can sum up my impression in a few words, I do not think that there is any disposition amongst Germans to underrate the hardship which our blockade is inflicting on Germany. I think they admit a great deal of hardship in Germany, but they look at it in this way: I gather that they think that they are going to have a great trial of strength on that matter with us in the next few months to see whether we are going to be really successful, and their general feeling is that we are not going to be successful, and that the organisation which is required for really giving effective counter to the organisation which the Germans have built up cannot be built up in the time now available, and that therefore, in the long run, our blockade will be ineffective. If I may take the critical views held in this country and the critical views held in Germany and strike a sort of mean, I think I am not far wrong in saying that the general impression is that our blockade has been an important contributory cause of hardship in Germany, but that it has not yet been so successful as to either satisfy the expectations of the people of England or to entirely justify the fears of Germany. I do not know whether I am stating that too crudely, but that is my impression. It is not that the efficiency of the blockade is altogether denied. There is no question of that at all. MY Noble Friend knows that it is not a personal question. It is a question of getting at the right policy. But there is that feeling very widespread, and it is a feeling that does not exactly arouse enthusiasm. As for people in England, I will not say they have an exaggerated view of the powers of the British Navy. God forbid that I should say such a thing as that, but I do consider that the great mass of the people do think in a rather simple way, and they know that no country ever had exactly such a Navy

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  as we have. They know the great expectations of the Navy in times past, and when they come to the conclusion that the blockade, though it is to a certain extent successful, is not quite so successful as all that and that there are those leakages, and when they see the picture of the Navy on the one hand and the realities of the blockade on the other, their enthusiasm is not exactly killed, but they form a critical attitude with regard to the Government which is not a very good thing for the Government.
  4.0 P.M.
  Therefore, I am anxious on this occasion to give the Government an opportunity of meeting these criticisms as far as possible, and letting us know what the actual case really is. I suppose everybody will admit that the Government has had an exceedingly difficult task. I think I said, in a former speech which I made on the blockade—in fact the speech which just preceded the appointment of my Noble Friend as Minister of Blockade—that I did not think any blockade had ever been perfectly successful, but that I thought our own blockade was probably more successful than any blockade we had had before. I am still inclined to that view, but there are conditions in the problem at the present time which I think have enormously increased the difficulties of the Government. What are we trying to do? We are trying to blockade Germany across neutral countries. It is not a clean cut problem. We are blockading Germany through neutral countries, and it is perfectly obvious that you have only to state the problem in those terms to realise that you at once fall into the midst of colossal difficulties. The whole problem becomes entangled in our war diplomacy generally. My Noble Friend has not got before him simply the question of keeping this or that product out of Germany. There are the diplomatic aspects of this or that product. In fact, as he will remember, on the numerous occasions on which the Unionist Business Committee has been so courteously received by him, we have been told that we cannot do it because there is some understanding or some Foreign Office obligation about this or that article; and generally the whole problem is enmeshed in entanglements arising from what might or might not be expected in regard to the conduct of this or that particular neutral country. That is a very unfortunate state of things, and it cannot be avoided.
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  The difficulties of administering this blockade are enormous; but I have also got to point out that Governments exist to overcome difficulties, and that if they do not overcome the difficulties the difficulties overcome them. That is rather a serious position of affairs, and while you cannot escape the necessity of getting over these difficulties when you are trying to blockade Germany across Scandinavian countries and Holland, I think it points to this, that you may perhaps simplify the problem considerably if you know perfectly well as a country where you are going, what is your precise objective, and what is your policy, and there is a great deal of feeling in the country—I think I am quite right in giving expression to it—that the Government do not precisely know where they are going. There is a great deal of that feeling, that they cannot make up their minds what to do with neutrals and Allies. I am sure it is the feeling of the country that they do not at present know precisely where they stand with regard to the future of our relations with these different countries, and that they are not quite sure whether this country in a short time will not be in a different position from what it is in now. I am only giving expression to that feeling, because it is quite clear that if there is that uncertainty and hesitation on what we may call the fundamental aspects of British policy, it is very likely to affect the daily administration of question? arising from the blockade. I hope I have not overstated that case at all, but I think it is right that I should bring it to the attention of my Noble Friend, because I think it is the basis of some of that feeling, of which he is perfectly well aware—I do not share it myself—that it is not altogether a good thing that the Ministry of Blockade should be identified with the Foreign Office. That is a feeling which it is well to keep in mind, and it is well to meet that objection, because it is a strenuously held opinion in many circles.
  There is another analogous question which arises, and that is the peculiar advantages which the inevitable conditions of our blockade confer upon Germany. There is not a neutral country which is not thoroughly permeated with German intrigue—not a single country. In every branch of national activity the Germans attempt to bring that influence to bear. In fact,

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  one of the most striking experiences of the War, I think everybody will agree, is the way in which the various things we have had to do have brought out quite clearly the enormously widespread activities of Germany in permeating and controlling all kinds of activities in practically every country in the world. If anyone before the War had stated in this House that German influence was of that character and as widespread as I have described, he would have been scoffed at, and no one would have believed it, but wherever you go, north, south, east, or west, it is the same. And it is important to remember that this great War is being as much carried on within neutral countries as it is on the Western front, because of the existence of this machinery of intrigue on the part of Germany. I do not want to labour that point, but it is quite obvious that it must enormously affect the efficiency of our blockade. I will take one specific question. In Holland and the Netherlands, and throughout the Scandinavian countries, and extending to the United States of America, the Germans have a widely ramifying business organisation on purpose to counteract our blockade. When the Ministry of Blockade was formed a year ago it had, as I understand, two objects. The first object was to conduct the blockade in the ordinary way, and the second was that you should build up a business, practical organisation within the countries across which we were blockading to counteract the German efforts to check our blockade. When my Noble Friend replies I should be very glad if, so far as he can—I do not want him to tell any secrets that ought not to be told—he will state what has been done in that direction to checkmate the efforts of Germany, which are exceedingly extensive and very expert, and which they are, as a matter of fact, using to lay the foundations of the permeation of these neutral countries after the War with German influence, just as they did before for the purpose of working out their post-war economic policy.
  I am glad to see my right hon. Friend the First Lord (Sir E. Carson) on the Front Bench, because I would like to ask him whether, if he chooses to make any observations in this Debate, he could deal with the relation of this German organisation to the submarine activity. The German sources of information, which are
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  based upon this business permeation of neutral countries and of our own, at the present time have, I am convinced from inquiries I have made, a most close relation to the submarine activity of the German Empire. After all, you cannot run a submarine campaign unless you have information, and, as far as I can make out, you will find that in this sphere of operations, as in all the others which we have come across during the War, the Germans have a complete grasp of the relations of the different parts of their policy—blockade, economic policy, and submarines. They all work together, and one is meant to throw light upon the other, and all together are made, as far as possible, to co-operate towards the efficiency of Germany in the War. I should like to know very much from my Noble Friend whether he can tell the House what steps have been taken, and when those steps were taken to cope with the German business anti-English blockade, and whether he can give some indication of the degree of success that has been attained. Then there is another question, and it is this. I know many enthusiastic people who genuinely desire the success of the blockade, who think the present methods adopted by the Government are inefficient, and who think you can stop all trade across the neutral countries. As a matter of fact, you cannot, or I do not see how you can, simply because there is a risk of certain articles going through a neutral country into Germany, take that as a basis for stopping the trade of a neutral country. I think there is a good deal in what I believe is the contention of the Government, that it would not do to create the impression that the British Navy in the full zenith of its power was used for that particular purpose, but there are differences and there are degrees.
  The difficulty of dealing with this question of neutral trade and the blockade of Germany led, as the House well knows, to the system of rationing. You cannot arbitrarily stop the trade of all neutral countries, but there is no obligation upon this country to assist neutral countries to trade with Germany, and still less obligation to assist those neutral countries to send more products into Germany since the War began than they did before the War began. I think I may say without exaggeration that in the earlier part of the War the extent to which the neutral countries were

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  supplying Germany with food and materials was an absolute scandal. That is no longer the case, but it was certainly a scandal in the earlier days of the War, and it has been brought within bounds to a very largo extent by the working out of the rationing system. On that subject I want to ask my Noble Friend one or two questions. How is that rationing system organised? By the rationing system we propose to let the neutrals have imports, except, of course, pure war materials and articles genuinely contraband, in accordance with their normal requirements before the War; but these things are constantly shifting, and one of the most remarkable results of the War has been to show the extent to which substitutes can be utilised if one particular article is not available. I do not see myself how you can possibly get a proper rationing system organised unless you have at your command a small body of men with the most intimate knowledge of the needs, trade, and production of the countries that you are rationing, and I should like to know from my Noble Friend whether, as a matter of fact, there is or is not, in connection with the Foreign Office, a body of that kind, and whether, when he is rationing Holland or Denmark or Sweden, or any other country, he draws up one of those rationing lists cm the basis of this expert information about the needs of the situation.
  There is another question which arises in that connection, a question which formed the subject of some heated controversy in the Press, and that is the particular article of feeding stuffs. I do not want to go into figures, but there is a great deal of feeling on that subject which my Noble Friend would do well to meet. There is a widespread feeling that when we want feeding stuffs so badly here in England we should be very slow to enter into any arrangements or to favour any measures which facilitated the importation of feeding stuffs from foreign countries into neutral countries which were afterwards, in another shape or form, going to feed our enemies, and that is unquestionably what does take place at the present time. I believe there is a case for the Government to deal with on that point. I should very much like to know what precisely is the reply as to the strong objection felt over the country at the present time to this apparent encouragement of the importation of foodstuffs which we
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  require going into neutral countries, and then the sending on of the products a further stage to Germany, and in that way helping to prolong the War. I do not wish to prolong my remarks or to bore the House with all these points, but there are just one or two things I would wish to say before I sit down. The whole policy of agreements is exceedingly unpopular. I mean this: You have the neutral countries, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland. You have come to agreements by which you get certain amounts of stuffs here, and they send certain amounts elsewhere. That is a broad description of some of these things which take place. There is a great deal of feeling about that which has been expressed in the newspapers. Here, again, the attitude of the ordinary Englishman in the matter is that he does not like to have any truck with any kind of arrangement which is going directly or indirectly to help by one iota his enemies at the present time.
  The fact that there are these agreements means that it must require an exceedingly complete system of supervision, vigilance, and overlooking if they are not to be abused. This again is accountable for a great deal of the feeling at the present time about the blockade. There is one division of this subject I will mention which has an important bearing on the whole matter of the blockade—I mean the import restrictions. It is commonly said—it is, I think, said in this House—that when you are dealing with neutrals and Allies there are always cropping up matters of the greatest delicacy in the regulation of trade under the blockade. I reply to that that we did not see any great delicacy the other day in the matter of putting on the import restrictions ! I did not gather that there was any delicacy about it. The same Department, I presume, that has to make the arrangements as to blockade administration has to make the arrangements for the import restrictions. They pull in opposite directions. That is extremely awkward. I think it must be attended with very great inconvenience, because it is pretty clear that if you are stopping importation to this country—whether of food or other things docs not matter—it calls for the determination of branches of the trade, and when you are stopping the import into this country you are probably increasing the inducement to other countries to send

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  stuff to Germany. You cannot avoid that. They are pound to find a market for their goods. I want to know whether the Foreign Office does not think the inconveniences arising from this more or less detached way of dealing with these economic questions suggest that you ought to have something like a general economic policy, so that the war operations under your bleckade, import restrictions, and all these matters, should fall into their proper place in the whole system?
  Here you have these questions. My Noble Friend is brought in as Minister of Blockade, and he is mainly, responsible. My right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty is brought in. The shipping organisation is brought in. The Board of Trade is brought in. The Foreign Office generally is brought in, and the War Cabinet is brought in. My Noble Friend will believe me that if is not any personal dissatisfaction, and not any general attitude of criticism or hostility to the Government, but there is a general feeling abroad that the blockade so far has been a side-show of the Foreign Office rather than one of the main branches of our war activity. I suggest to my Noble Friend that perhaps he might be able to assist the House to a more enthusiastic frame of mind if he can hold out some hope or confirm some expectation, that there is co-operative effort and consultative effort between the Ministry of Blockade, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and other branches of the War Service, and that some attempt is really being made to bring about that co-ordinative effort in that direction which we really require. The blockade is one of the most important parts of our war activity, and must not be left alone. We feel—and I feel very strongly indeed—that you will never make any real success of the blockade until the Government makes up its mind quite definitely where it stands in regard to the great economic issues of the War. When it has done that, when it knows where it is going to and what it wants to achieve, then, I think, Governmental activity will assume that efficiency we all desire. At the present time we do not feel quite confident of that efficiency. We feel that there is some ground for the complaints made. We had the highest expectations; on the formation of the present Government. We thought there was going to be
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  a great increase in what we may call co-ordinative efficiency. We do not quite feel, on the evidence that is before us as to the working of the bleckade, that that has yet taken place. If my Noble Friend can remove these feelings of hesitation so that they may give place to enthusiastic support and cheerful anticipations of successful results, nobody, I am sure, will be more delighted than myself.
  Commander BELLAIRS: My hon. Friend has made one of those able and suggestive speeches which the House always expects to hear from him in the course of that speech he made one remark which I think is perfectly true, but which yet did not prevent him—nor yet need prevent any of us—from criticising this blockade, that is, that this has been one of the most successful blockades in history. That is what we expected from a blockade under steam instead of sail. The blockade of the South by the North is allowed by all naval historians to have been the most successful blockade in history up to that. We naturally expected that this blockade would succeed with modern resources holding the two ends of the North Sea. But the main success of a blockade is in relation to its effect in ending the War, and not in arithmetical balances of what goes into Germany and what comes into this country. My hon. Friend feels very strongly the need for more publicity. I agree with him that there is a very anxious, almost an angry, feeling in the country in reference to the blockade. It would, therefore, be well if the Government would give us as much publicity in reference to the blockade as the First Lord of the Admiralty has in reference to the submarine campaign—always having in mind, of course, the interests of the country. We are not helped by the small neutral countries themselves. For some reason or other their attitude amounts almost to an unfriendly attitude. For instance, the moment Denmark began to do an enormous trade with Germany she ceased to publish her export statistics.
  The MINISTER of BLOCKADE (Lord Robert Cecil): All the Scandinavian countries do.
  Commander BELLAIRS: Holland, I believe, publishes her statistics. I am, however, most curious about Denmark. What I state was not a very friendly act on the part of Denmark. Of course, she

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  was within her rights. We trust to the Government to supply the omission so far as possible. Then the Dutch Government's actions were not particularly friendly, for they themselves traded with Germany in regard to certain metals, such as tin and nickel, and also with regard to rice and jute—jute, for instance, which they could only have got from the British Empire. Holland is, at the present moment, refusing to admit our armed merchant ships and those of the United States. The inference one draws from these actions is that the Scandinavian countries, and the Netherlands, fear Germany more than they do this country. That is an undesirable state of affairs, and it must be borne in mind with the trading policy of that country. Certain statistics of the trade of Holland have been published in the "Morning Post" and in the "Daily-Mail." I dare say my Noble Friend will respond to the request of the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Hewins) by giving us the facts in regard to these statistics. I recognise, in regard to Holland, that if you are going in for agreements, the agreement which was negotiated last June has resulted in a substantial reduction of the amount going into Germany, and an increase in the amount coming into this country. What we want—as the ideal, of course—if we can bring it about, is to effect a practical cessation of the trade of these neutrals with Germany. Whether we can do that by some means or other is the whole question.
  In answer to a question the other day my Noble Friend, in addressing the House, said, "Broadly speaking, no overseas supplies now reach Germany through neutral countries, although instances of smuggling and occasional evasions of the naval patrol still occur." The only thing that really matters to the House is the actual trade with Germany. If fertilisers and foodstuffs go into Holland and Denmark, and got out of them into Germany as dead meat, live meat, or as any other form of food, that may be regarded, and is to be regarded by us, from the economic point of view as supplies to Germany through neutral countries. We do not look upon it at all from the Prize Court point of view. If the procedure of the Prize Court is disastrous to the country, and will not get over the difficulties of the case, I am perfectly certain that if my Noble Friend and the Government come to this House for
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  powers they will be given all necessary powers to meet by retaliatory measures which are outside the purview of the Prize Court and altogether exceptional, the unfair, diabolical warfare which Germany is now waging. I recognise very plainly that the start is everything in a war. My Noble Friend took charge of the business as Minister of Blockade long after the start had made its ordered channels deep and broad. He had more or less to follow instead of adopting, perhaps, his own point of view, though I think if he had realised that the War was going on for a long, long time afterwards he might possibly have adopted a different policy. It is also true that an inferior plan may be successful if it is persisted in consistently, whereas other and better plans, if shifted about, would probably fail. I recognise that very, very strongly indeed. What, however, I do feel in regard to the policy of the Government is that there has been no settled plan except that of trusting neutrals. There have been a series of tentative experiments. My hon. Friend declared that the amount of food that went into Germany at the beginning of the War was a scandal. The truth of the matter is that we did not declare a blockade until some seven months after the commencement of the War and all food was free to go direct to Germany until it was made contraband of war.
  To show what tentative experiments were made, it was three and a half months before we stopped the enemy reservists going into Germany, seven months before we declared a blockade and seized goods other than contraband, ten months before we used the most powerful lever we possessed, the coal exports, in order to restrain the action of the Scandinavian countries, and thirteen months before cotton was made contraband. And so it went on. The result is that you had a series of tentative experiments, instead of such a policy as that for which my hon. Friend pleaded when all the considerations were thoroughly thought out. Now we have got a new situation. The most powerful and critical neutral is coming in on the side of the Allies—that is, the United States of America. They have been, largely owing to the German propaganda, of which my hon. Friend spoke, the most critical of all the neutrals, and the most difficult for our Foreign Office to deal with. If they are behind us, one of the greatest difficulties in the path of the Foreign Office is avoided. Then there is, in addition, the

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  new policy of the German Government, creating a new situation—and it is a new situation of which the Government might well take advantage. The German Government have gone in, both by land and sea, for the most devilish forms of warfare, and under all schemes of international law it is agreed that a nation may retaliate by what means there are in its power. But there is a broader consideration than that. If there were only two countries at war, then I say the rights of neutrals are very great, but when you have practically the whole of Europe at war—there are twelve nations in Europe at war, and they embrace all the great nations, and you have only standing outside the three Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland—I say in circumstances like that we are justified in promulgating a new doctrine—a European doctrine—if we think that that new doctrine will help to bring the War to an end. That is the view of the Resolution which I have put upon the Paper.
  The difficulties of the situation in dealing with the Scandinavian countries arise from two of them, Holland and Denmark, having frontiers across which railways pass into Germany. On the other hand, two of the others, Sweden and Norway, can do the whole of their trade by neutral territorial waters into Germany. It must be in order to prevent this trade, enabling Germany to continue the War for month after month, that we must proceed to exceptional measures. There are three ways in which we can deal with the difficulty. You can blockade the North Sea against Germany and the neutral, and then when the standing temptation of Germany to invade Holland or Denmark is removed by the reduction of the huge supplies they have got stored up, you can start your ration scheme on the basis of a subsistence allowance. There is the other method by which the House can pass legislation superseding the Prize Courts, enabling us to detain cargoes of fertilisers and feeding-stuffs for ourselves, and only giving such a quantity as would prevent these countries from killing off their livestock and sending it into Germany. That is the risk. It largely depends on what view you take as to the length of the War as to whether it is worth while. There is the third method, and I think this is probably as important as any. You can, by agreement with the United States, limit all the credits which are given to neutral
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  traders contiguous to Germany. Without credit no nation can trade, and if you limit the credits by your financial organisations in London and New York, you may succeed in bringing the trade largely to an end, or, at any rate, bring the neutral Governments to agree to your point of view.
  The proposals which I have just made are proposals of peaceful persuasion. They are not war proposals we are not taking any such drastic action as we took in 1800 and 1807. In 1860 we broke up the Northern Confederacy by the bombardment of Copenhagen at the time when the Northern Confederacy possessed forty-one efficient battleships. Now these powers with which we have to deal do not possess any navies at all. In 1807 we took still more drastic action in order to seize the Danish fleet. I can remember the day when the Prime Minister of this country made an impressive speech in this House—I think on 1st March, 1915—in which he said we were not going to be bound by any judicial niceties. Ever since then we have been hidebound by judicial niceties. We do not put ships into the Prize Courts-simply because we do not think the Prize Courts will admit them. The Prize Courts have stated, or rather the Appeal Court from the Prize Courts, which the Government have set up for some reason or other—I do not know what reason—
  Lord R. CECIL: It has always existed.
  Commander BELLAIRS: I thought the Government had set it up specially. That Appeal Court decided that they were not bound by Orders in Council. The Orders in Council were not binding on them, but Acts of Parliament were. Well, then, the only solution that I can see is to pass legislation in this House which will enable the Prize Courts to act according to the decision of an Act of Parliament. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs—I wish he were here, because the Minister of Blockade docs not carry all the guns in speaking for foreign affairs—has stated on an occasion—I think in one of his books on philosophy—that the greatest bargains that are ever negotiated are those that are negotiated for the vanity of mankind, because you get something for nothing. I would suggest to the Foreign Office, even in this War, that a greater bargain can be made by negotiating with the appetite of mankind. War sweeps away the vanity which it sharpens

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  and whets the appetite of mankind. The present procedure puts insufficient restraint on the appetite of the neutrals. I would say to the Government this: We want to close the arteries of trade which filter their way through to Germany. In the sixteenth century there was a time when bleeding could only be stopped by a red-hot iron, and there came along a man who said, "Close the arteries." It was a novel idea, and it was a simple idea, like all great ideas. What I would suggest to the Foreign Office is that they are still in the hot-iron stage, and what they have got to do is to try to close these arteries of trade, and so bring the War to a successful conclusion as quickly as possible.
  Mr. PETO: I only desire to add a very little to what the hon. Member for Hereford has put so ably and moderately before the House, and in a tone of asking rather for the reasons which the Minister of Blockade can give for certain things which are undoubtedly agitating commercial opinion in the country very much. In doing that I want to point out, as the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Commander Bellairs) has done, that recently a new factor in this matter of the blockade has undoubtedly come about. A fact that has not yet been touched upon is the declaration by Germany of the extreme submarine action of destroying all vessels, whether neutral or enemy, within certain large zones, comprising most of the European waters. I want just to put this point: By taking that action, surely Germany has interfered with the very basis of those arrangements for the export to this country of a certain proportion of the foodstuffs produced by the northern neutrals in large measure out of the feeding stuffs which are still imported. Germany in effect says this: "We can import our share with our complete organisation in your countries over your land frontier, but we are going to do our very utmost to prevent your sending any foodstuffs, or anything else, into the countries of our enemies overseas, whether in your own ships or in any other vessels." It seems to me impossible to differentiate on any logical grounds between feeding stuffs and foodstuffs. We know a distinction is drawn, and has, I understand, always been drawn between those two things, the food for animals and the food for human beings, in relation to contraband or conditional contraband of war, but of course it is perfectly obvious, and everybody in the House knows perfectly
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  well, that feeding stuffs are only human foodstuffs one degree removed. They have no value except for the production indirectly of human food, and yet, I understand, the Foreign Office have a different system in their rationing arrangements applying to foodstuffs and feeding stuffs.
  The policy with regard to foodstuffs is, I understand—and this I should like the Minister of Blockade to go into when he replies—to allow the import into the northern countries of their home requirements. We have no right and no wish to starve neutral populations, but we have no intention to let them be the channel to convey essential foodstuffs straight into enemy territory. But with regard to feeding stuffs, the policy seems to be somewhat different. The calculation is made—and it was very clearly indicated how important that calculation is in the answer the Noble Lord gave me after questions to day—as to the quantity of foodstuffs which were in transit to the enemy. Those are not allowed to go in because they clearly can be shown to be supplies for the enemy territory, but there does not appear to be any policy of keeping out feeding stuffs, which can be converted, in the ordinary process of the agriculture of the country, into foodstuffs. In dealing with that, we have with Holland an arrangement which the Minister of Blockade indicated to me in answer to a question on 21st December last. He said:
  "The imports of both These commodities 'maize and linseed) are limited to a fixed amount agreed upon with His Majesty's Government. The disposal of a surplua import does not, therefore, arise"—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 21st December, 1916, col. 1579, Vo LXXXVII.]
  I maintain it does arise, and that it is very material, particularly in view of the action of Germany in attempting, so far as she can by her submarine action, to prevent all export of foodstuffs or feeding stuffs to this country. Another point I wish to touch upon, briefly, is the question raised by the hon. Member for Maidstone (Commander Bellairs) in which he referred to the action—I do not think it is intended to be unfriendly—of Holland in respect of armed merchant ships. It seems to me that the Dutch Government are in a very illogical position. The Germans have practically said, "We are going to try and prevent you doing any trade in agricultural produce with anybody but ourselves," and the Dutch Government practically say, "We are the only neutral which has not allowed merchant vessels which come to our country to take the produce of our trade, which

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  we are entitled to sell to whom we may to arm for defence against submarine attack." The First Lord of the Admiralty told me on the 21st December last:
  "So far as I am aware all neutral Powers, without exception, take the same view which is clearly indicated in the prize regulations of the Germans themselves."
  That is the view he set forth that merchant vessels are entitled to defend themselves and their cargoes by every means in their power. Since then the public have been somewhat disquieted to hear that Holland has not come into line with other neutrals, and in the case of the steamer "Melita," she was obliged to throw her guns overboard before she was allowed to come into port and discharge her cargo. It seems to me that Holland cannot on any ground of logic object to a much more stringent limitation of the importation of feeding stuffs when she does not come into line with other neutrals in doing all she can under the general law of nations laid down in this House by the First Lord of the Admiralty, that merchant vessels are entitled to defend themselves against being overhauled or sunk by enemy ships. Undoubtedly, we have made a very great advance in this question of the blockade. I do not think it can be said that we are raising the question now because we think that the Department of the Foreign Office which deals with the blockade is not doing a great deal better now than it was in the early days of the War. I believe that it can be seen from the Dutch official figures and the Board of Trade returns clearly that we are getting a somewhat more reasonable proportion, and perhaps the enemy is getting a somewhat less unfair proportion of the essential foodstuffs produced by the Northern neutrals.
  We see from the figures, particularly in the last quarter of the year, that in regard to various imports into the Northern neutral countries destined ultimately in a large measure for Germany there is not the same freedom of access that there was. The hon. Member for Maidstone pointed out that we are only just beginning, and he took us up to the first thirteen months of the War. I think it will be found from the figures that as recently as six months ago in regard to many essential commodities to Germany to enable her to carry on the War, the exports from Holland, according to the Dutch official figures, were without parallel in the whole
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  course of the War. I will take one case, and it does not matter which essential article I take. I will take the case of cheese. In the quarter July-September, 1916, Holland exported to Germany, according to her own official figures—which must be as well known in Germany and even better than they are known in this country—26,018 tons of cheese. There is no quarter in the whole course of the year during which so much has been exported. The normal exports for the year 1913 were under 4,000 tons a quarter, and yet in 1915, in the three last quarters, the figures were 17,000 tons. 23,000 tons, and 13,000 tons, and for the first three quarters of 1916 the figures are 22,000 tons. 23,000 tons, and the extreme figure, which I have already quoted, of 26,000 tons. Now we are coming to the last quarter, and there is evidence that the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs is beginning to work, because we find that the export of cheese in the last quarter fell to 4,319 tons. or almost exactly the pre-war average export per quarter. That is not anything very great upon which we are able to congratulate ourselves. Germany is getting as much Dutch cheese as she did before the War, but, according to the figures for the last quarter, she is not getting more, and at any rate she is not getting six times as much as she did in the quarter before.
  I do not want to weary the House with other articles, but I can assure hon. Members that they are ail equally remarkable, and they all tell the same tale. I think, however, I must add the corresponding figures of Dutch cheese exported to the United Kingdom, which is one of the great agricultural products and exports. Before the War we used to get rather more Dutch cheese than German We got 19,000 tons in the year 1913, as against Germany's 10,000 tons, and yet we find that in 1915, in the last quarter of the year, all we got was 325 tons. In the January-March quarter of 1916 we got 336 tons, as against 5,000 tons per quarter; during the quarter April-June we got 332 tons; in July-September the right hon. Gentleman began to work, and this country got 1,699 tons, or a little less than half of our pre-war average. During the last quarter of the year the right hon. Gentleman really tried, and he got 4,482 tons, or just a ton or two more than Germany got, and a little within 500 tons less than the average export to this country before the War. But there is nothing so boring as figures. I do not

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  want to go into the other articles, but I can assure, hon Members that if I took bacon or pig products generally, or eggs, it is much the same. It is astonishing the way the export of eggs into Germany has gone up, and diminished to almost nothing into this country until the last few months. But recently the tide seems to have turned, and the system under which we are working our so-called blockade is beginning to operate. I do not, however, think that anything that was ever started in a time of emergency has been so slow coming to any kind of fruition, and has been so gradual in its operation. The hon. Member for Maidstone referred to the fact that it was thirteen months after this War commenced before we made cotton centra-band, and I think it is worth while stating to the House the answer of the then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Viscount Grey of Falloden) to a question in which he was urged in February, 1915, to make cotton contraband. The answer he gave was:
  "The proportion of German cotton imports used in the manufacture of explosives is very small, and the requirements for that purpose could have been supplied from the stocks of cotton goods held in the country at the outbreak of war. The advantage of treating cotton as contraband of war is therefore not apparent, whilst the disadvantage which would result from such ft step is considerable."
  We have travelled a long way since that time. At the time that statement was made the late Lord Kitchener was telling the country that he anticipated a three-years war, while the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was dealing with the matter from the point of view of what quantity of explosives could be manufactured out of the then stocks of cotton held by Germany, which shows that he did not envisage the situation and did not appear to think that the War would last much longer, or else cotton would have been made contraband long before February, 1915, and still longer before it was made contraband in September, 1915. It does not appear to me that in the first eighteen months of this War we made any serious attempt to use our sea power to blockade Germany at all. The Fleet was there in readiness, and the great machinery of British sea power was in being ready to be exercised, and anybody who studies the Board of Trade figures and the exports of other countries in the first eighteen months of the War will see that, broadly speaking, we produced no effect worth talking about on the imports of essentials other than actual contraband of war into Germany.
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  5.0 P.M.
  I quite admit that it is an extremely difficult problem to deal with a blockade when there is a very narrow enemy sea border, and not all of that controlled by the Fleet, and a very large enemy sea border which is fringed with neutral countries with whom you have got to deal. I think, however, there is great force in what the hon. Member for Maidstone said. This War is not a war with a second-rate or a first-rate Power only, because the whole of Europe is engaged with the exception of these Northern neutrals and Spain, and therefore the whole relations between the interests of the belligerents and European civilisation and all the world as a whole, and the importance of the trade interests of the small neutrals that still stand out are affected. I do hope that we shall hear from the Noble Lord when he replies figures which show that a great improvement was made in the last quarter of the year indicative of the fact that by one means or another he is going to do what I am certain the country expects him to do, that is more stringently limit the supply of all these articles which are essential to the carrying on of the War by our enemies than has been done at any previous period of the War. Although he could not give us figures for the month of February, which was the first month the German submarine blockade really operated, we know that these figures must have been extraordinary in their disadvantage to this country, and I hope he will take steps, together with the Admiralty, to see that the basis of our bargains and arrangements with these Northern neutrals have not been upset or are not liable to be upset by the action of the enemy. We frankly recognise the position and we should say to those Northern neutrals, "For two and a half years of this European war we who have the sea power have done our very utmost to protect and keep your trade intact within the fullest interpretation of the legitimate bounds that can be put to it under the stress of war, we have done that at a great disadvantage to ourselves, and we have done it fighting with our hands tied behind our backs, but now at the end of two and a half years it is the enemy who declares to all the world that she is prepared to sink your ships if they go to sea to carry on your legitimate trade. Therefore it is the enemy that prevents us doing for the future what we have done in the past to anything like the same extent that has enabled

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  you to carry on your trade by your citizens in time of war as you have been accustomed to do in times of peace." I do not think they can possibly say that any autocratic action on the part of this country, in interfering with the seaboard of its enemy—and bearing in mind the submarine policy of the enemy-should cause, I will not say, serious differences, of course it will cause differences, but cause any difficulties which could be possibly avoided by any action that may be taken by the right hon. Gentleman's Department or by the Admiralty.
  Lord R. CECIL: I have no complaint to make on this occasion—or, indeed, on any previous occasion—of the tone of the speeches which have been made on this subject. I will endeavour, if the House will allow me to do so, to give a somewhat detailed account of what I have tried to do since I have held this office, because this is the first occasion since I was appointed that I have had an opportunity really of doing so. The hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Hewins) was good enough to say that he thought there were two objects for which the appointment of Minister of Blockade was made—one was to intercept: to improve the interference with or prevention of all trade with our enemy in the blockaded zones; and the other was to co-ordinate the various activities of this country, so as to set up some answer to the German commercial system.
  Mr. HEWINS: As against blockade.
  Lord R. CECIL: Yes, but it does not stop there; it is a very much wider question than the blockade, and I will tell the hon. Member how far I have dealt with it. I want at the outset to say I quite recognise that as a not unfair description of the duties laid upon me. But I venture myself to think that my principal duty is the duty to blockade. When I was appointed rather more than a year ago. I found that, up to that time, no Blockade Ministry had existed at all. There were a number of Departments—I should say, perhaps, a number of Sub departments, belonging to various other Departments of the Government, who worked together more or less in blockading work, but there was no unity and no definite Ministry of any kind. It was, indeed, because of that state of things that a Ministry of Blockade was created. I am not going, at this moment, to dis-
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  cuss whether that was a right or a preventable state of things; the only observation I will make is that I do not believe that anybody in the world—nobody certainly in this country—had the least conception when the War broke out how we should be able to blockade Germany, or in what way any such blockade ought to be organised. That is a matter with which I have nothing to do at the present moment.
  The first thing I did was to secure the closest co-operation in this matter between the Foreign Office, which necessarily must have a good deal to do with this particular kind of blockade, and the Admiralty. I attach enormous importance to these two offices working in the closest co-operation throughout. I do not think I am indiscreet in saying that when I took office there was a certain amount of friction between the two offices. I am glad to say it has entirely disappeared. The first thing I did was to ask the Admiralty whether they could supply me with a naval officer of position who-would be able to advise me as to the feelings and impressions which the Admiralty have of the proceedings of the Foreign Office, and perhaps be able also to convey to the Admiralty how the blockade looked from the Foreign Office point of view. The Admiralty were very kind in meeting my views, and detached for the purpose a very distinguished officer, Admiral Sir Dudley de Chair, who, up to that time, had been in command of the Tenth Cruiser Squadron, the principal blockading squadron in the North Sea. That was an enormous boon to me at the outset of my work. I also asked for the assistance of the Civil Lord (Sir Francis Hopwood), and, by an arrangement which I think has been productive of great good, he remained additional Civil Lord while coming across to advise me in the organisation of the Ministry of Blockade. He was an exceedingly competent adviser, being one of the most experienced and able of our Civil servants; he advised me also from his point of view, and put me in touch with his side of the Admiralty and their point of view. That was the first step.
  The second step was with reference to the War Trade Department. The War Trade Department had been very ably presided over by Lord Emmott, but its position in reference to the blockade was a very difficult one. It is concerned with the licensing for export of all goods that are exported

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  from this country. That has a great bearing on the blockade, but it has a great deal more to do than that. It has to consider whether, from the point of view of the necessities of this country, goods ought to be allowed to go out. Of course it acts under the advice of various Departments in exercising these functions. It has all that to do, besides strictly blockading duties, and, further, it has the duty of seeing that goods exported from this country do not find their way directly or indirectly to the enemy. I worked in complete harmony with Lord Emmott. I do not think we ever had any difficulty in working together. At that time there was under the War Trade Department a Department called the Trade Clearing House, which was, in effect, the Intelligence Department of the War Trade Department. It collected all information which was likely to be useful—particu-lary from the blockade point of view—as to trade all over the world, and it furnished indications as to what importers in neutral countries could be trusted and what importers might not, and information of that kind. Lord Emmott was good enough to allow me to take over that Department. I altered its name to the War Trade Intelligence Department; to some extent I strengthened it, and I believe it will be valuable under its very able director, Mr. Pearson, not only for the blockade, but—and this will particularly interest my hon. Friend—the information accumulated in that Department ought to be of great use, after the War is over, for the kind of reconstruction which the hon. Member for Hereford is, rightly, so anxious about.
  I also—I am sorry to speak so much about myself, but it is almost inevitable—I also took over the Statistical Department of the War Trade Department, because I felt, and still feel, that statistics are the very vital blood of the blockade. It is essential, if you are to know what is going on, to collect statistics: to know exactly what is going into each country, and compare it with previous exports, and so on. I was very fortunate in securing the services of Mr. Harwood, the head of that Department, which has been strengthened and has been of enormous service, as I am sure anyone who knows anything about the actual administration of the work of the blockade will admit. Just before that had been established—and this is clearly a direct answer to my hon. Friend—a Department of the Foreign
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  Office had been taken over by the Blockade Department. It was called the Foreign Trade Department, and the object of that was, in the first place, to carry out the Trading With the Enemy Act, which forbids trading with people who are regarded not strictly as enemies, but are put on the statutory list of people with whom it is improper for British subjects to trade.
  In connection with that I quite agree with my hon. Friend that the investigations which had to be made have shown the enormous extent of the German trade organisation, and the completely different theory which has prevailed in Germany to that which prevails here, namely, that trade and politics must go hand in hand. You establish your commercial house in a foreign country partly with the view of improving the trade of Germany, but partly also to extend its political power. It has been part of the functions of the Foreign Trade Department to find out who are really substantial enemy traders in neutral countries all over the world—not only in the blockaded area, but neutral countries all over the world—and place them on the Statutory List, the effect of which is to make it a criminal offence for British subjects to deal with them, and, at the same time, to see that British trade does not suffer from that alteration. That has been a very delicate and difficult operation. I believe it has on the whole been well carried out, and I believe, too, that the organisation so established will be of the greatest possible service to the Government after the War—and with this perhaps my right hon. Friend (Mr. Runciman) will agree—in connection with any measure of reconstruction that may be undertaken. I can assure my hon. Friend that this question of trade organi-sation is occupying the attention of the Government, and I entirely agree with him it is extremely urgent. I do not think it possible to exaggerate the urgency of it. I feel very very strongly that, in some respects, we ought to be up and doing, even in the middle of a great war, difficult as it is, and I can assure my hon. Friend that, in conjunction with the Board of Trade, we are taking steps now—and it is largely a Board of Trade matter. I am sure hon. Members will be glad to hear we are taking steps to reorganise and improve the Consular service, which will be a very large part of the organisation.

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  Another Department which it became necessary to create in order to assist our blockade operations was what is called the Financial Section of the Blockade. It is a very delicate and difficult subject with which to deal. Most of the operations of this Department are entirely unintelligible to me. It deals with that most difficult of all subjects, foreign exchanges, but, broadly speaking, its object—and I do understand this—is to secure that the London Money Market, which is still the greatest money market in the world, shall not be made use of by enemy traders for their own purposes. That is a thing of very great importance and difficulty; but it is being carried out as well as it can be under Sir Adam Block, who throughout has had the support of the Governor of the Bank of England and other financial authorities of the City of London. That, roughly, and broadly, is the kind of organisation that I have attempted to carry out in connection with that Department.
  I then had to consider what were the first steps that ought to be carried out. There were two things which seemed to me desirable and to which I obtained the assent of the then Cabinet. The first was in connection with the contraband question. I am not going over old history. It seems years since we discussed questions of absolute and conditional contraband but they formed a very heated subject of controversy at that time. I felt, and still feel, that it would be a great mistake to abolish the distinction between absolute and conditional contraband, and the Government of the day entirely agreed. On the other hand, we all felt that, for practical purposes, the distinction had ceased to exist. as the House is perfectly well aware, conditional contraband is contraband which may be stopped only when it is going to the armed forces of the enemy or to the enemy Government. I am not attempting a legal definition, but a popular description of it. Absolute contraband, of course, consists of those kinds of things which may be stopped to whomsoever they are going. What we did was to make a list of all contraband articles, whether absolute or conditional, and to treat that for the purposes of notice as cur contraband list. Some were absolute and some were conditional contraband. Since the German Government had taken over practically the management of all
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  trades, we were entitled, under the Law of Contraband, quite apart, from our Orders in Council, to stop all goods, whether conditional or absolute contraband.
  Then there was the Declaration of London. At that time, in the spring of last year, I do not think the Declaration of London, as it then existed, could be regarded as a serious hindrance to our blockade operations. It had been very largely amended, but for reasons which I then explained, it appeared to me desirable to get rid of it altogether. It had ceased to be a practical instrument; it had been so amended and cut about by various Orders in Council which we had issued. It merely hindered and caused misconception both in this country and in neutral countries as to what exactly we really were doing. I tried to abolish it, and I regretted to find that my views and those of His Majesty's Government were not entirely shared by our Allies. It required perfectly friendly but somewhat prolonged negotiations before we were able to point out that it was really to the advantage of the Allies as a whole that this instrument should be withdrawn. It was withdrawn, as the House no doubt remembers, last summer. Those two matters of machinery seemed to me important, but by far the most important thing was the establishment of the principle of rationing, and that we were gradually able to do so. My hon. Friend opposite asked me how it was organised. There are two kinds of rationing. You may obtain the assistance of some body in a neutral country which represents either a particular trade or the whole body of the trade in that neutral country, and the British Government may say to it, "Here are certain articles. We are quite content that you should import into your country all that you need for the purposes of home consumption, but beyond that we do not think that you ought to import"—of course, I am only speaking of border neutrals—"because it is clear, if you do import more than you require for your home consumption, that there is a great chance, at any rate, that it will go directly or indirectly into enemy countries." If you can obtain the agreement and assistance of such a body, your task, comparatively, is a simple one. It is then the business of that body to see that the ration is fairly distributed in the neutral country, and that those who are entitled to it and

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  really require it get their fair share. As far as we are concerned, all that we have to do is to see that the amount is not exceeded.
  If, however, you do not obtain any agreement, the only way of establishing the principle of rationing is to say, "We will do our best to hinder the importation into a neutral country of any quantity above a certain amount to meet their home requirements." The disadvantage of that is this: Suppose you fix 1,000 tons per month as the ration of a particular article. The first 1,000 tons comes along, and you let it pass. The great proportion of that, in fact, is going through to the enemy, of course without your knowledge. Though our knowledge is very considerable, it is not omniscient as to what goes on. Then comes along another 1,000 tons. You stop that, and then when you get to the Prize Court the complainants are able to prove overwhelmingly that that second 1,000 tons is really for home consumption, and you are put in considerable difficulty. I am perhaps treating this subject with indiscreet frankness, but I have been appealed to to be as frank as I can, and I am. I hope that I shall do no harm. The result is that rationing by agreement is far more effective and works with far less friction and is far better from a blockade point of view than compulsory rationing. I am glad to say that we have established rationing by agreement in most of the neutral countries with which we have had to deal.
  I may perhaps revive one other ghost and refer to the celebrated Danish agreement. That agreement has been a complete success from a blockade point of view. It has been of the greatest possible advantage and has been a great advantage largely because it has given us a body representing the whole trade of Denmark, with which we have been able to arrange these questions of rationing which are really essential to the effective blockade which we are trying to carry out. Then the only other organisation with reference to rationing which perhaps I may mention is that in order to follow the amounts going into a country we have weekly or fortnightly—I think it is fortnightly—returns of all the amounts taken from the manifests of the cargoes which pass through our controls going to these various countries, and we are able to follow week by week and almost day by day in the case of some of the articles exactly how much is going in.
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  There is one other device which I am going to describe to the House and which has really been of great assistance to the blockade. I should like to describe it, because I believe it to be the type of device which ought to be employed in a blockade of this description. About the time I was appointed the Consul-General of the United States came to see me, and he pointed out to me: "You say in your diplomatic representations to the United States that, after all, British goods suffer just as much as American goods from the blockade, and that we are not really injuring American goods and American traders in any way beyond the injury which the British trader suffers. That is not quite right, because the British trader can go to your War Trade Department before he makes any arrangements with regard to the shipping of the goods and he can obtain a licence. When he has got his licence he knows that it is all right, and he can proceed to secure ship's space and make his financial arrangements. He-is able to carry on his trade without fear that it will be stopped at the last minute. That is not the case in the United States. Cannot you do something to supply that want?" We thereupon organised a system of Letters of Assurance, as it is called in the States. It is perfectly voluntary. Nobody need take out letters of assurance unless he wishes to do so, but if he likes to go to our authorities there and make inquiries whether a particular ship is likely to meet with difficulty, he can obtain from those authorities in America letters of assurance, and then the goods, generally speaking, unless something exceptional intervenes, go through without any trouble or difficulty. That device has been of enormous importance in smoothing the difficulties which had before then existed with America, and it has been of equal importance in enabling us to know exactly what is going on in reference to exports from the United States to these neutral countries. It has enabled us, without any unfairness or injustice, to regulate the supplies to these neutral countries.
  Mr. D. MASON: You refer to the British authorities in America?
  Lord R. CECIL: Yes.
  Mr. BUTCHER: How long has the system of letters of assurance been going on?
  Lord R. CECIL: I think the visit of the Consul-General to me took place rather more than a year ago, and I established this system as soon as it could be established. I should think it is about a year ago. It has taken some little time to get it in working order. It is entirely a voluntary system, but now, though I do not say it is universal, it is very largely utilised by traders between the United States and neutral countries. In my judgment, as the result of these measures and other measures, because, of course, they were accompanied by other measures of general tightening-up the various devices which before existed, there has been for some months past a complete cessation of overseas importation into enemy countries. I will give some instances of that in a moment. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Peto) said that we had really done nothing, at any rate up to the summer or the third quarter of 1916, because we had not succeeded in stopping the trade of what I will call, roughly, the home produce of these neighbouring countries. I think he must forget that right through the early stages the question of the home produce of neighbouring neutrals was never raised. The whole question which was then discussed was, "Are you really stopping the overseas trade and the imports into Germany?" That was accomplished completely, or substantially completely—nothing is complete in this world—about June or July of last year.
  Mr. PETO: I am sorry there has been any misunderstanding. I would point out to the Noble Lord that I was dealing exclusively with feeding stuffs.
  Lord R. CECIL: I know that there are certain people out of doors who are not nearly so fair as my hon. Friend. I might easily quote observations as showing the feelings of a highly respected member of the Unionist part on this question. I said I would give a few examples of what has occurred. I do not like giving figures, in spite of the earnest appeal made to me on the subject. I have had some figures prepared. Three or four of them I do not think will do any injury to the State, at any rate, some of them will not. The form in which these figures have been prepared deal with the whole of the neutral countries—that is to say, the three Scandinavian countries and Holland, all in a lump. After all, that is the real test. If you can show that the imports into the
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  whole of these countries have been reduced to something about either just over or just under the pre-war normal figure, you may fairly conclude that there is no considerable direct import into the enemy country.
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: Will the figures be published?
  Lord R. CECIL: I will consult my right hon. Friend about that. I propose to give a certain number of them and I do not think there will be any great objection to publishing them, but I should like to talk it over with my right hon. Friend.
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I do not want to bother the Noble Lord, but if he is going to quote from a document he knows the obvious difficulty. If there are some of these figures which it is unnecessary to give to the House, I do not wish to stand in his way at all or to impede publication.
  Lord R. CECIL: I am very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for reminding me of the Rule. It may be that I had better not quote anything. I should rather like a ruling from you, Sir. Am I allowed to give a certain number of figures, reminding myself, no doubt, by a written or printed document, without quoting the authority of that document, but quoting them on my own authority and as being part of my speech?
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley): The rule of the House is that if a Minister quotes from any document, any hon. Member may claim the placing of the whole of that document on the Table, but to that Rule there is the proviso that Ministers are entitled to claim serious public interest against the publication of a document. For that, of course, the Noble Lord would have to take the responsibility.
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Balfour): May I ask whether quoting figures—not quoting statements, but simply quoting statistics—has ever been held to come under the Rule you have mentioned?
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I do not recollect a case where quoting—that is to say, giving certain figures to the House—has entailed giving other figures to the House. I do not think that that point has ever been raised before, but I do not imagine that the House is likely to press for the publication of figures

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  which would be against the public interest, and even if they did so it would always be open to Ministers to state on their responsibility that there was public interest against the publication.
  Lord R. CECIL: I will give these figures on my own authority, without quoting, then, from any paper. Take corn and grain—corn and flour, corn fodder and oil cake, malt, rice, sago, tapioca, macaroni, beans, peas, and lentils. I will only give the figures in round numbers. The average quarterly import before the War—that is, gross imports—was about 2,150,000 tons. Imports, less all exports, were, roughly speaking, 1,160,000 tons. The total, less imports to enemy countries only, was 1,200,000 tons. In the last quarter, October to December, it was 1,060,000 tons—that is to say, it is less in the last quarter than the pre-war average less all exports, and a good deal less if you take away the enemy exports to the neutral country. I take another instance—I might take almost any of the ordinary articles. Take cocoa, about which a good deal has been said. The import last quarter was 2,634 tons. The gross average imports for the quarter to these neutral countries was 12,000 tons. The net import—that is, import less all exports—was 3,300 tons. There, again, there is considerably less than the pre-war normal. Let me take animal oils and fats, about which a good deal has been said. This last quarter the amount was 18,680 tons. Before the War the gross import was 51,534 tons. The total, less all exports, was 20,000 tons. The total, less exports to enemy countries, was 25,000 tons. There, again, is a very considerable diminution. Vegetable oils and fats now amount to 52,000 tons; before the War, gross, 94,000 tons; total, less all exports, 48,000 tons; total, less exports to all enemy countries, 50,000 tons. On the whole, the House will agree with me that these are very satisfactory figures. I should like to give one more figure, and only one more—that is, in regard to fertilisers. I take this quarter, but I ought to say I do not think it is very fair in this case to take this quarter only, because it is a seasonal trade. There are three main fertilisers—ammonia sulphate, phosphates, and soda-nitrate. In the case of ammonia sulphate, I can only give the figures less exports to enemy countries. They are now 3,136 tons; before the War, 9,384 tons. Phosphates, now 65,000 tons; before the War, 165,000 tons. Soda-nitrate,
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  now 14,000 tons; before the War, 36,000 tons. These are all without exports to enemy countries.
  Mr. SHIRLEY BENN: Are the pre-war cargoes to Rotterdam and Dordrecht transhipments to the Rhine ports excluded?
  Lord R. CECIL: Certainly they would be excluded if they were going on to enemy countries. Either they would not come into the figure at all—I do not know how that may be—either they would not come in as having been imported to Holland at all, or if they did go in they would be taken out as going on to enemy countries. I said that it is not quite fair to take the last quarter, because it is a seasonal trade. I will take the whole year. In the case of ammonia sulphate it is 8,000 tons now, before the War 37,000 tons; phosphates, now 290,000 tons; before the War 663,000 tons; soda-nitrate, now 146,000 tons, and before the War also 146,000 tons. Those figures are also satisfactory as showing that there is no leakage, so far as figures can show it, of any of these articles from these neutral countries to our enemies. I think they are also satisfactory as showing this: We are asked—I am afraid I shall have to deal with that—to diminish both fertilisers and feeding stuffs. I think that my hon. Friend opposite will see that, as a matter of fact, very much less both of fertilisers and of feeding stuffs are now- going through to these neutral countries than were going through before the War. I could give the House more figures, all of which would bear out that contention. I felt when we had succeeded in stopping all imports, apart from questions of smuggling and things of that kind—all overseas imports—we still had not done all that was necessary in order to complete the blockade of Germany. There was the question of the home produce of the border neutrals. That is a much more difficult subject to deal with, as my hon. Friends who have spoken will realise. The foundation of a blockade is the prize; that is the sanction. An ordinary blockade entirely depends upon it. You can only stop ships and goods going to a blockaded port which are and can be condemned in a Prize Court. Where you have to deal with a direct blockade, the matter is perfectly simple. You merely have to ascertain that the ship is going to a blockaded port and put it into a Prize Court, and, if you can prove that fact, the ship is condemned as a matter of course. The House is

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  aware that that is not the problem with which we have to deal here. We have to dealt with an indirect blockade, that is, a blockade through neutral countries. There the position is much more difficult. You can stop and get condemned in a Prize Court any goods which are going into the neutral countries, the ultimate destination of which is the enemy country. That is described in our text books as "continuous voyage," and I believe in the American text books it is described as the "doctrine of ultimate destination." That is the point. We have acted to the full on that doctrine, and have stopped all goods, the ultimate destination of which was Germany or any enemy country.
  Mr. BUTCHER: Whether contraband or not?
  Lord R. CECIL: Both contraband and every other thing. I will not say that you could not find some exception. For instance, I believe you would have found, until quite recently, at any rate, an exception in wines. There were certain international difficulties about dealing with wines which the House will appreciate without my mentioning them. There were one or two similar articles of that kind as to which I do not think we were completely successful, at any rate up till recently. But speaking generally, you can stop all goods, contraband or non-contraband. Many of these neutral countries produce not only agricultural products but copper, wood pulp, and many things which are of value to our enemies from a military point of view. How far is it possible for us to stop the trade in those goods? It is a very difficult question. I have arrived at the conclusion that there is only one way in which you can stop it, and that is by obtaining an agreement with the neutral countries that they will stop it or diminish it. There is no other way of dealing with the thing at all that I can see. You have to bargain with the neutral country in the same way that you make a commercial treaty or any other commercial bargain. The broad principle is this. The neutral country wants certain things from us. We can legitimately deprive the neutral country of certain advantages. In consideration of our not depriving them of these advantages, and granting the goods or other things that the neutral country wants from us, we ask them to restrain their trade with our enemies. I do not
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  want to go into this matter of negotiations, as the House will easily guess, with undue particularity, but there is one instance I can give, and that is the question of the export from Norway to Germany of copper. The position is this. Norway wants a great deal of copper of a particular refined kind for her electric-works which she is establishng in all parts of the country. She has got copper in her own country, but it is in the form of pyrites, and contains a small quantity of copper in a large amount of sulphur ore. We have made an arrangement by which, in return for our providing electrolytic copper—refined copper—Norway will restrict her trade to Germany, and indeed to us, within certain limits. That is the nature of the bargain we made. It has been of great use to us, and I believe it has been of great use to Norway. That is the kind of negotiation which, as it seems to me, is the only way in which you can deal with the situation.
  I come to agricultural produce. Simple agricultural produce is different. My hon. Friend (Mr. Peto) stated that in a very plausible way. He said, after all, you let maize come in. It goes to feed the pig, and the pig goes on to Germany. I have heard people put it in a popular way that the pig is merely maize on four legs. After all, when you arrest a cargo of maize you have to show to your Prize Court that it has an ultimate destination—Germany. What you can show is that it is going to feed pigs, part of which will be eaten in Holland or wherever it may be, part of which will be re-exported to this country, and part of which will go, it may be, to Germany. It is very difficult, indeed to say that any particular part of that cargo of maize has the ultimate destination of Germany, even if you disregard the fact that it is intermedialtely being changed into pig. I can only go on what I am advised I can do. That is one difficulty.
  I want to make a correction at this stage of what appears to be a popular misunderstanding. There is no question of our exporting maize from this country. That has not been done at all. No feeding stuffs have for months past been exported. I will not say there may not have been some tiny parcels of, perhaps, 100 lbs., but substantially no feeding stuffs have for months past. I am informed, been exported from this country to any neutral country. The question is whether we are entitled and how far we are able to stop maize or oil cake which

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  is coming from a neutral country—the United States—and going to a neutral country and passing through our patrols upon the doctrine which I have tried to describe to the House in the present condition of affairs, I do not want to prejudge anything, but I rather doubt whether we could succeed in a Prize Court if we put forward such a doctrine as that. My hon. and gallant Friend (Commander Bellairs) recognises the difficulty we are in, but says the time has come to put aside the Prize Court altogether. We are to proceed upon what he regards as a new European law. He told us in his notice that we are not to allow any supplies to neutral European countries unless there is an entire cessation of their trade with Germany. That would mean, I suppose, that we are to arrest all the cargoes of feeding stuffs and fertilisers unless neutral countries will undertake that they will not export any agricultural produce to Germany at all—of course, from a neutral country. I have some doubt whether that could be easily defended. I should have some little hesitation in repeating the perorations in which we have indulged about the defence of the rights of small countries. The first thing to ascertain is: Would this plan be a success from the blockade point of view? Unless it is going to succeed it would evidently be improper to adopt such an expedient as that. We have heard a great deal about Denmark. We used to get before the War, not the whole but the bulk of the agricultural produce of Denmark, and the Germans got the bulk of the meat, including live stock. The Germans still get the bulk, practically the whole, of the meat of Denmark. As to agricultural produce, Denmark has always continued, unlike some other neutrals, to export to this country a very considerable proportion of her agricultural produce, but under the economic and other pressure of the War our share has undoubtedly gone down. It reached its nadir some time in the early part of 1916. Since then matters have decidedly improved, and we are getting a larger share of Danish produce. I should be delighted to show any Member of the House, or any responsible person in the country, all the figures connected with this or any other matter. That is the fact about Denmark. What is the fact about Holland? Again, taking it very broadly, we used to have something like half the agricultural produce of Holland. Early in.
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  1915 we practically got nothing from Holland at all—I will not say absolutely nothing, but very little. That went on until the middle of 1916, and then, in consequence of negotiations, we have now got, I will not say absolutely, but very nearly to the pre-war position.
  6.0 P.M.
  The question is: Is there anything more we can successfully do—I leave out for the moment the military and political side, but merely on the economic side—to diminish the exports of agricultural produce of these countries to Germany? The matter has been very carefully considered. We had advice, of course, from our representatives in those countries, and in reference to Denmark—I do not think I am saying anything which is a breach of confidence—in order to investigate this and other blockade questions, we recently asked Sir Francis Hop-wood to visit that country and to report to us on the condition which he found there, and whether he thought anything more could be done. It is suggested we are to keep out fertilisers and feeding stuffs. I do not know whether the House fully realises that feeding stuffs represent a very small proportion of the upkeep of the cattle and sheep in these two countries. If we are to cut off the fodder supplies, it is quite obvious that the whole of the surplus production would go straight to our enemies. None of it would come to us. I do not deny that if you cut off the oil cake and maize you would diminish the produce of the herds and crops of those countries, but the question is whether the diminution would be so great that on the balance Germany would lose or gain. She would get the whole of the surplus under the new system. Would the whole surplus be greater or less than the surplus less the share of it which comes to us at present? As far as I can make out the figures. I think it is exceedingly doubtful, putting it at the lowest, on which side the balance of advantage would lie. I quite agree that if, owing to the submarine menace, these countries ceased to export their produce to us altogether very different conditions would arise, but so far they have not ceased to do so, and I see no reason why they should. The submarine menace has not prevented that trade to this country at present, and I do not see why it should prevent it. There is no change in that respect. I am only dealing with the present situation of affairs. There is another aspect that has

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  to be considered. If you cut off the feeding stuffs from these countries the result, of course, would be a rise in the price of fodder. It would become more and more urgent for the farmers in these countries to kill and sell their cattle in the only market which is open to them, and that is the German market, at any rate so far as Denmark is concerned, and you would have, undoubtedly, a large increase of sales to Germany of the surplus stock which it would no longer pay the Danish farmer to keep. That is not a matter of theory, it is a matter of ordinary agricultural economics. We see it actually happen in these countries and in Switzerland, that where there has been for some reason or other a shortage of foodstuffs the immediate result has been an increase, at any rate for the time, of the export of cattle to our enemies. I have put as clearly as I can the purely economic side of this problem, which is one of extreme doubt and extreme difficulty.
  It is extremely doubtful whether the plan recommended by my hon. and gallant Friend (Commander Bellairs) would really have the result he anticipates. That is not the only thing. We have to consider our own food problem. We have to consider the loss we should suffer by cutting off the supply of foodstuffs to these countries. We have to consider—and I speak in very general terms here—the getgraphical and military position in these countries. Any hon. Member can, if he chooses, by consulting an ordinary text book, see what was the military power of Denmark, both on sea and land, before the War. I do not know what she may have done to improve that position since then. If he will try to consider what his position would be as a Danish statesman, faced with a demand of the British Government that Denmark should wholly cut off trade with Germany, I think he would begin to count up rather anxiously the number of soldiers and ships at his command. He would have to consider also the relation between Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries. He would have to consider the general effect of any action against her on other neutral nations. He would have to consider the effect of any such policy as that which my hon. and gallant Friend recommends on the general war aims with which this country entered the War. We have above all to remember this, that we cannot lay down this principle—and to do my hon.
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  and gallant Friend justice he does not lay it down—as applied to Denmark only. You have to consider what would be the effect of attempting to apply such a rule as that to all neutrals alike. If my hon. and gallant Friend will allow me to say so, with the greatest respect, for I have great respect for him, I think that plans of this kind ought not to be put forward, even by an unofficial Member, unless very careful thought has been given to the whole military and political effect which they would have if they were carried out. I am aware that I have not been able to deal with this matter in detail. It is a difficult and delicate subject. I have endeavoured to present to the House the general line and the consideration which we have had to adopt in dealing with it, and to say that what I have said applies equally to Holland.
  Charges are being made against Denmark. It is suggested that Denmark has been guilty of great delinquencies as regards ourselves. I know, for I have been told so, that that has been very much resented in Denmark. I wish to say, speaking for the British Government, that I make no such charge against Denmark at all I remember the Danish agreement and the campaign then set on foot, and I can only say that that agreement has been carried out with admirable fidelity by the Danish parties to it. I believe that it has proved exceedingly useful and I believe it has been well observed by the whole Danish population, with very few exceptions. It has been suggested that even if that be true of the first Danish agreement, there is some other agreement into which Denmark has entered which she has not kept. So far as Denmark is concerned—I am not speaking of Holland—there has been no agreement with respect to agricultural produce. Both sides, we as well as Denmark, are perfectly free in the matter. Discussions have certainly taken place and assurances have certainly been given, and I desire to say, and to say with the utmost emphasis, that in my judgment the Danes, whenever they have given us any assurances, have endeavoured honestly and honourably to fulfil those assurances. For these reasons, so far as Denmark is concerned, I am authorised by His Majesty's Government to say, after full consideration of all the aspects of it, that they do not see any reason to modify their present blockade policy with respect to that country.

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  I stated at the beginning of my observations that the relations between the Foreign Office and the Admiralty in blockade matters were admirable. It may perhaps be useful, in answer to the appeal made by the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Hewing), to say this: I have read in the Press and elsewhere suggestions that it would be far better if the Admiralty took charge of the blockade altogether. I can assure the House that it is not the duty which I have any particular fondness to discharge, but I do not think it would be practicable to transfer the administration of this blockade to the Admiralty, and I will tell the House why.
  The FIRST LORD Of the ADMIRALTY (Sir E. Carson): Hear, hear!
  Lord R. CECIL: I am glad to hear that my right hon. and learned Friend entirely agrees with me in that. The reason is this: Necessarily at every stage the administration of an indirect blockade of this kind involves discussion and negotiations with Foreign Powers. Take any of our devices for distinguishing between enemy and neutral goods. Take the establishment of the Black List of neutral importers whom we suspect of trading with the enemy and of conveying goods to the enemy. The moment any neutral trader finds himself on the Black List he goes to his Government, and that Government makes representations to this Government and says, "Why do you put such and such a firm upon your Black List"? There comes immediately an international question, and it is common knowledge—I am not saying anything indiscreet in reminding the House of it—that one particular matter, the statutory Black List in America, produced an international question of great urgeney and difficulty. Is the Admiralty to deal with all that? Is it to deal with all the negotiations involved in that? Take the question of guarantees. As the House knows, we have arranged a system by which neutral importers give us guarantees that they will not re-export to our enemies. One particular foreign Government—the Swedish Government—made a law by which such guarantees were illegal unless the Government approved of the guarantee. Immediately we asked for the guarantee an international question arose, and negotiations had to take place. That is an international question which had to be discussed between the
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  Swedish Government and ourselves. Take the question of rations. That was the same thing, as I tried to explain to the House earlier. If you are going to have an effective and smooth working of the system of rationing it must be done by agreement. You must have negotiations, and it may involve international questions. The same thing applies in regard to other agreements—shipping agreements, copper agreements, and other agreements.
  All these things involve negotiations. They may produce international complications, and these complications may involve a great deal more than the actual dispute. You may have, and have had, an international dispute, as we had in regard to the statutory Black List in America arising out of our blockade arrangements, and which proved to be a serious international question between the two countries. That may happen at any time. You cannot separate them. All your international relations with any particular country are affected, and must be affected, by negotiations which you necessarily have to carry on in order to carry out a blockade of this description. If you were to transfer that to the Admiralty the result would be you would convert the Admiralty into the Foreign Office. That would be the only result. I do not know what my right hon. and learned Friend thinks of the matter, but personally I think that would be an extremely silly thing to do, not because I have any particular admiration for the Foreign Office, though I have an immense admiration for it, contrary to certain people who do not know as much about it as I do—and I have an immense admiration for the officials of the Foreign Office, who are an admirable body of men. Quite apart from that, are you going to put upon the officials of the Admiralty, whom I know from my personal intercourse with them do not know which way to turn with the work that they have to do already, an enormous addition of work which in no way concerns the Navy or the Fleet, but which concerns strictly negotiations with foreign Powers, interviews with foreign Ministers, dispatches to our Ministers abroad, and so on? That is an absolutely impossible solution, and I am convinced that whether the Minister of Blockade is doing this work well or badly, it can only be done in close co-operation with the Foreign Office, and no other method

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  of organisation is possible, or would work with anything like success in the carrying out of these difficult operations.
  I have tried to make as briefly as I can some survey of the general work I have tried to do since I occupied this position. I am painfully aware that the survey has been necessarily very incomplete. The mass of detail which has to be considered in connection with this matter is very great, and if I were to attempt to give the House a full and complete picture of everything that is necessary, not by myself, but by the whole Ministry, I should tax the patience of the House far more than I have any right to do. I have tried to indicate the general lines that we have pursued. As to the result, my hon. Friend said with perfect truth that nothing is more difficult than to know what is going on in an enemy country. I entirely agree with him that we shall be well advised not to pay too much attention to any reports that reach us from that country. I have never pretended, in public or in this House, hat we can achieve miracles by the blockade but I do think that it would be deceiving the House and the country if I did nor say that, in my judgment, there is now in Germany, as a consequence of the blockade, a very great shortage of food, and a very considerable shortage of a number of other things, such as wool, cotton, leather, lubricants and other necessaries, and although I do not wish to attach too much importance to them, I cannot disregard and cannot disbelieve the repeated and well-authenticated stories of food riots and things of that kind as indicating, at any rate, profound discontent by the population of Germany with the conditions which prevail there. Whether the War will be brought to an end by the blockade is a totally different matter. I never pretended that I thought that we ought to count on any such result, but I do believe that, when we come to fight the final battle, what we have been able to do by the blockade will count greatly in achieving our success in that battle. I believe that the War—I have said so over and over again—can only be won upon the battlefield. We have no right to expect any other termination but victory in the field. But I think that what can be done by the blockade—which I have endeavoured to do, and, I think, with some success—is to give some small assistance—we do not
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  hope to do more than that—to those who are fighting our battles in France and elsewhere.
  I do not know whether the House will allow me to say in conclusion a few words about my own personal position. I would not trouble the House except that, not in this House, but elsewhere, I have been assailed by personal attacks I think of rather more than usual venom. I wish to say that I did not ask for the position of Minister of Blockade. It was offered to me. I was asked to take it by the late Government, because they thought that I could be of assistance to my country by taking it. When the present Government was formed the present Prime Minister was kind enough to ask me to go on in my present position. I told him—I do not think that he will mind my repeating it to the House—that from the purely personal point of view, and for purely personal reasons, with which I need not trouble the House. I would rather support the Government as a private Member. He was good enough, none the less, to press me to accept the office, and it was in consequence of his doing so that I thought that in time of war one is not entitled to regard one's own personal inclinations in the matter. I do not very much mind what is said about myself, but I do confess that I resent and resent rather bitterly the attacks which have been made on the personal character of those who are employed in the Foreign Office. I desire to convey to the House my own profound sense of the devotion and ability with which I have been served in that Office. The position of a Civil servant is not a very glorious one. He is not a very highly paid official. He often could get a very much larger salary if he chose to devote his talents, which are generally considerable, to commerce or something of that kind, and I do think that it is a little hard that these men, many of whom have been anxious to enlist and serve in the Army and have been ordered, and properly ordered, by their chiefs to remain, on the ground that they are doing more useful public service in their office, should be assailed and abused as though they were traitors to their country, when I know that not only are they not traitors, but that they are doing their best to serve their country in a way not the most agreeable to themselves and not the most remunerative to themselves, but solely and entirely from a sense of public duty.

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  Speaking for myself, my course is clear. I have tried to carry out the duties which have been entrusted to me by the Government. Some of my hon. Friends, in a friendly way, suggest that there was no definite policy about the blockade. I cannot agree with that. The policy of the blockade has always been the same since I had anything whatever to do with it. It is to put the greatest possible economic pressure upon our enemies consistent with the paramount objects of a military and political character. I do not think that you can make it more definite than that. That is and must be your policy. The methods I have described. I believe that they have been quite consistently pursued. I do not think that there has been any vacillation or uncertainty about their application in carrying them out. Speaking only of myself, I have been fortunate enough to secure the approbation of the late Prime Minister and the late Foreign Secretary, and I am glad to say that I have retained the good opinion of the present Prime Minister and the present Foreign Secretary. In those circumstances, all I need say is this, that so long as I have the approval of my chiefs and the support of this House I shall continue to discharge the duties which have been laid upon me, confident in the fair-mindedness and sense of justice of my fellow-countrymen.
  Mr. J. MASON: The House has just listened to a most interesting and frank speech dealing with a subject which involves a great deal of difficulty and a considerable amount of delicacy, and I trust that my Noble Friend will not think that I am endeavouring to add to the burden which has been put upon him when I say that a certain amount of anxiety which exists throughout the country on the subject of the blockade will not be entirely set at rest by the speech which we have just heard. What we contend is that in the general administration of the blockade—I will not say more than that—the country feels that my Noble Friend is perhaps somewhat light-handed in his methods. Before I come to the principal subject with which I wish to deal I would like to remark that, if I understood the figures correctly, the amount of nitrate of soda now allowed to go to a group of neutral countries is the same as it was before the War.
  Lord R. CECIL: No; that is not so. The amount of nitrate of soda going to these countries is only the same if you except what was exported to the enemy.
  Mr. MASON: All pre-war exports to enemy countries? That of course would involve the supposition that the amount used for agricultural purposes is now the same. Is it not possible that the enormous demand at high prices for nitrate of soda for other than agricultural purposes may cause some of that nitrate of soda to be used for other than agricultural purposes?
  Lord R. CECIL: I do not think that the hon. Member quite followed the figures. The general amount of fertilisers is very much smaller, or rather was last year, than in pre-war times. The amount of nitrate of soda was about the same, taking the whole year together. If you take only the last three months it was only one-third of what had gone in in pre-war times, allowing for enemy export.
  Mr. MASON: Perhaps I will not go into that point. The feeling undoubtedly throughout the country is that agreements should not be made with these countries which allow food to go into Germany. That is a rough and ready way of putting it. It leads to the question how far the rationing of neutral countries can be effectively carried out. We have had considerable explanation as to what has been done in that direction, and I think that, so far as it affects articles which are either consumed in the state in which they are imported or are consumed in the state immediately next to that, that is to say in the case of raw materials which are worked up in these countries, it seems to me that it is possible that the blockade is perhaps being carried out effectively on the system of rationing. But the question of feeding stuffs is more complicated and, of course, the whole question is not a legal one. It is a question of whether or not these feeding stuffs should be allowed to go in to fatten cattle, of which admittedly a very large proportion go to the enemy. The first thing that occurs to me is that if these cattle are, by the cutting off of feeding stuffs, driven to the enemy at once instead of later on, it is better that they should go to theenemy thin rather than fat. But the real test is whether we are getting back to this country in return for these things a sufficient proportion of agricultural produce. My Noble Friend says that in the case of Denmark the cattle admittedly go to

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  Germany, but that the quantity of agricultural products other than cattle which came to this country has not diminished. That does not seem to be corroborated by information which has been placed at my disposal. From the figures which I have it appears that the amounts of articles, like eggs and butter, have very seriously diminished.
  Lord R. CECIL: I did not say that. What I said was that in the total division between us and Germany there has been an improvement in the proportion.
  Mr. MASON: By these figures it looks as if the improvement was not marked. At any rate, February was by far the worst month as regards the importation of these articles into this country. There were, of course, special reasons, I think, at that time, but the question of these feeding stuffs is the one which excites most interest outside this House, and is the one which really wants watching the most closely of all these questions connected with the blockade. It is essential that the country should be satisfied, as far as possible, that the produce resulting from the foodstuffs that we allowed to go into those countries does not to any extent go to the enemy beyond what is absolutely impossible to avoid. The amount of interest taken in the blockade is certainly increasing, and I think that everything should be done to allay the anxiety which undoubtedly to a considerable extent exists.
  Sir E. CARSON: I think it is right, as representing the Navy, that I should say a few words upon this occasion to remove what I conceive to be misapprehensions which, from time to time, arise in the Debates in this House and in the Press. I do not think the country generally understands what exactly is the duty of the Admiralty in relation to blockade, and what is its connection with the Foreign Office and with the Government. I see absurd statements from time to time that "if you will only leave the blockade to the Admiralty all will be right." That only requires a very few minutes consideration to show how absurd the statement is. The policy of the country, whatever it may be, must be the policy not merely of the Foreign Office or of the Navy, but it must be the policy of the Cabinet, and the Cabinet having laid down the policy, the Foreign Office by negotiation, and the Navy by action, have
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  tried to see that policy carried out. Somebody comes and says, "Leave it to the Navy. The blockade will be all right, and nothing will go into Germany." Those who think that do not really see what that means. What they really mean by that is that the Navy will go just as they please, seize every ship of every neutral, bring it into port, and take the goods out of it that were intended for neutral countries, and all will be well. That is really what they imagine. They never imagine for a moment that we are dealing not with one neutral, but with two neutrals—the neutral who is exporting and the neutral who is importing. I would like to know where we would be if this kind of duty had been put upon the Admiralty, that we were simply to get an instruction that nothing was to go to Germany through a neutral country that was imported from another neutral country. The truth of the matter is that those who put forth that absurd doctrine mean that we should go to war with everybody. That is what it really comes to.
  When I undertook my present office I took a great deal of pains about this blockade. I knew that there had been a good deal of criticism in the country with reference to it, and I, at all events, was bound to satisfy myself as to the action that the Admiralty and the Navy had to take. After all, at the present moment the blockade, the so-called blockade, or the stopping, at all events, as best we can. of goods going into Germany, is the chief offensive operation of the Navy at the present moment. I felt it my duty to see all those at the Admiralty who are connected with this offensive operation. There were stories told that they were being impeded by my right hon. Friend here and that there was some unseen hand at the back, and all the rest of it. I went through the whole of these operations with the men at the Admiralty who were acquainted with the facts. As far as I can gather from them, they were perfectly satisfied not only that the policy laid down by the Government was being carried out between the Foreign Office and themselves to the best advantage to this country, but that the policy itself was the only possible policy, having regard to the complications that would ensue if you tried to adopt a more aggressive attitude towards neutrals with whom we are on perfectly friendly terms. So far as I was concerned. I found that in the way in which the matter had been arranged by the Foreign

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  Office the blockade was assisted, and enormously assisted, by the agreement they had entered into, and the arrangement they had made with America, which is, of course, the chief neutral and chief exporting country, by which they had secured in a friendly way that the American Government should be satisfied that a large number of the ships which were sailing for neutral countries in Europe should have their cargoes examined and certificates given before they came into European waters at all.
  Just look at what that means. If it was not for that arrangement, the blockading squadron at the present moment would have to go out and insist upon every single ship coming into port for examination. That would be almost impossible, certainly with the force we have now; but this arrangement, an arrangement which I think has been of the greatest benefit to this country, not merely by lightening the burdens of the Navy, but in preventing friction with America and with the Scandinavian countries, is, I consider, of inestimable advantage in assisting us to carry out the blockade. Do you think that arrangement would be there if the Navy were doing what it is asked to do, to stop every ship and take out every cargo; that arrangement would not have stood for one moment; you would have irritated the neutral exporters and the neutral importers, and they would have said, if they did not treat it as an act of war, "We will give you no facilities, and you may chase the ships and do your best and go through the whole difficulty of bringing every ship into Kirkwall and into the Prize Court." I would like to know what would be the state of the blockade at the present moment if it had been carried out in that way, instead of the way in which it is carried out now. I have discussed this matter with naval experts, including the First Sea Lord, who was for so long with the Grand Fleet, in co-operation with which the blockading squadron works, and he has told me, at all events, for what his opinion is worth, that he knows of no other system save that which has been carried out, by which one could carry on a blockade of Germany, in the circumstances in which we are placed, through neutral countries. I really do not understand what is the alternative. A great many speeches are made about the difficulties of the Admiralty, as to the uneasiness in the
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  country, and as to the need of something definite being determined. We all have the same uneasiness; we all have these difficulties before us; but I have not heard to-day a single suggestion as to how we are to prevent this any further than we have gone.
  Will any hon. Member get up here for instance, to say in this House, "You ought to prevent anything going to Norway which, by any possibility, can go to Germany under any circumstances"? Will anybody get up and say that? What would be the result? Norway would say, "Very well, you shall no longer get from us what is essential for your munitions and other matters of that kind." Will anybody say that this is a course we ought to pursue? No; what the system of blockade that is carried out by my right hon. Friend means is this—and we profess nothing more—not that we are able to prevent food and imports entirely from getting into Germany through neutral countries, but that this is the best system for minimising imports from getting into Germany. My hon. Friend who spoke last about the food cry took as an illustration feeding stuffs that go to the fattening of cattle in neutral countries, and suggested that we ought to do something to prevent the produce of those feeding stuffs from ever going into Germany. I do not know where our rights come in to do that. Will he tell me that we have a right to say to America that she is to have no trade with neutral countries? Does he say that? Of course he cannot. The only way, leaving international law and international rights out of account, of doing this is by saying that what is really going into Denmark, or Holland, or wherever it may be, is really intended to go into Germany. That is what is called the doctrine of continuous voyage. Was there ever a more absurd theory put forward than that the doctrine of continuous voyage was to be treated in this way? You sent foodstuff into Denmark or Holland; it does not go into Germany, but is used to feed pigs, and eventually the pigs when fattened may go into Germany, or may be eaten in Denmark or Holland, and you are to go into Court and say that by the doctrine of continuous voyage that food ought not to be allowed to go into the neutral countries, because it is food which is used to feed the pigs which may or may not go to Germany. On the face of that you might starve the Danes, or the Dutch, or other neutrals. How do you

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  know when bread goes into Norway that the Norwegian who feeds upon it may not join the German army? There is continuous voyage for you?
  No; the truth of the matter is that everybody can see that there must be disappointment if any food goes from neutral countries into Germany. But let it not be imagined that this is the whole case. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Peto) read out a great many figures as regards the amount of cheese that goes to Germany. He said, I forget how many thousands or millions of tons, but at any rate an enormous amount of cheese went to Germany. Does he suggest how we are to stop it? He has not told us, nor can anybody tell us, how we are to stop it. You cannot tell who, through the neutrals, are sending goods into Germany. Certainly we cannot send the Fleet into Denmark to prevent them going over the frontier inland. Therefore, I say that, while these are matters which very naturally give rise to a great deal of heartburning, when people see what the Germans are getting, I do not think that anything is gained by exciting people on that subject and by trying to rouse the idea that we are doing nothing. Nobody, so far as I know, that I have heard in the course of this Debate has been able to suggest any single step which my Noble Friend could have taken which he has not taken. However, I merely rose for one purpose—that is to say that, so far as I know—having frequently consulted on this subject the best expert opinion at the Admiralty—the Department are in thorough agreement and in most harmonious working with my Noble Friend, and we believe that everything that can be done is being done.
  Sir HENRY DALZIEL: I desire in a single word, as one who has raised this question on many occasions, to express my gratitude to my Noble Friend for his clear statement this afternoon. Let me observe that he was speaking this afternoon of the period during which he has had unlimited control. I do not think it is right to hold him responsible for anything that happened before the time that he had that control. I think that the House will have observed this afternoon a most striking admission which I think the Noble Lord made in his speech. He said that when he took it over, about eighteen months after the War began, he found no
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  unity with regard to the blockade and no adequate organisation. That is a very important statement, because it justifies practically all the criticisms which were offered during the first eighteen months of the War. We have only got to look at the statistics now to see that things are very much better than they were at that time. In fact there has been a gradual improvement, although I am very far from saying that matters are quite satisfactory as one would appear to imagine from all that has been said this afternoon. I was glad that my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty intervened in this Debate. There is a great deal to be said from the point of view he put forward, but it is also the case that for the first eighteen months of the War the Admiralty were in a state of despair with regard to the actions of the Foreign Office. Take incidents that happened to anyone's knowledge at the time. They were bringing in day after day ships which were admittedly were carrying cargo to the benefit of the enemy. It is on record that day after day and week after week they brought in those ships. What happened? A telegram was sent to London to the Foreign Office, and in reply, often in the course of a few hours, a telegram came informing them that they ought to let that ship go through, for some explanation, or for some reasons which no doubt were considered satisfactory by the Foreign Office, but which tended to make our sailors absolutely depressed and in despair. It is the fact that for months at a time the officers themselves absolutely refused to take ships into port. They used to send junior officers and midshipmen, who took the ships into the harbour, and, treating the matter jocularly, told the Harbour Master to let the ships away in a few hours to Germany. The whole thing was treated as a farce, though ship after ship, to the knowledge of the officers, carried goods for Germany.
  That went on much too long. That is what we complained of. I am positive it will not go on so long as the present First Lord of the Admiralty is there. But those were the fatal months of the War. Those were the months that might almost have ended the War by the present time. Why it took us about nine months' agitation to induce them to make cotton contraband. There are some who say it does not matter, that that has been done even now, and there is a case to

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  put forward in justification of that, although I think it is not convincing. But this War was nearly lost by the mismanagement with regard to the blockade for the first eighteen months of the War. I will not withdraw a single word I said. I have been brought into close connection with this matter, and I have had communications with my. Noble Friend on the subject, and I have been struck with his readiness to receive complaints and to ask the co-operation and assistance of the most insignificant Members in this House in order to help him in his work. I have been certain he was honest from the start and that he tried to do something to get rid of red-tape. If he has not succeeded, it may possibly be because there have been greater difficulties in the way than some of us supposed. I listened to the statement about Denmark. To some extent his action there is probably in the long run justified, although I maintain my protest against an arrangement for certain specific articles to be sent with our connivance to the enemy. No doubt there may be reasons for that, but my reply is that we have never had all the facts in connection with the matter before us.
  Lord R. CECIL: I do not think anything has gone into Germany under the agreement.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: I am delighted to hear that. That puts quite a different aspect on the matter, more especially as our assertions were not contradicted. The agreement provided for it, and it is very satisfactory to hear that so far as my Noble Friend knows he does not think any goods went to Germany under that agreement. We have not heard with regard to Holland. The Noble Lord is aware that we are not at present getting anything like what we used to receive from Holland.
  Lord R. CECILexpressed dissent.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: I admit that every quarter now shows some increase, and that there has been an extraordinary change. But, so far as my recent figures go, whilst there has been an improvement, I do not think you would call it anything like the amount we were receiving before the War. There are some very striking figures. We have never got to the real facts in regard to the Netherlands Oversea Trust. That Trust has the power of levying heavy fines against any Dutch
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  trader for sending into Germany goods he had received from this country. It is a very curious commentary on the whole situation that although those fines have been very high, I have never been able to get from my Noble Friend the total. He offered to show me privately, but I did not see much advantage in that, because I would not be able to use the exact figures. I think he refused to make public the amount of money collected in fines from Dutch traders for sending goods into Germany. I brought forward a casein which one firm paid £25,000 fine. That is a firm doing a big business in this country and opening factories here with the support of the Government. The facts were, I think, admitted, and current report at the time was that the firm made £75,000 profit out of that transaction. That is only one case, and there have been many cases. I think the House ought to be in the position and I make the suggestion to the Minister so that he may again consider the question, of having the full figures of the amount of fines levied on traders for sending goods received from this country to the enemy country. I think that, if possible, we ought to have the names of the people who have so offended, and that they ought to be put in a black list. I think there is yet a great deal to be done, but I gladly and freely recognise that the Noble Lord has very considerably improved the prevailing state of things.
  Mr. BUTCHER: I am disposed to agree very largely with all that the right hon. Gentleman has said as to the laxity with which our blockade was conducted in the early part of the War. But I confess for the moment that question docs not concern me very deeply. I am far more concerned presently with the way in which the blockade is conducted now. I think the country and the Members of this House will have been reassured very largely upon that point by the speeches which have been delivered to-day by the representatives of the Foreign Office and of the Admiralty. For myself I was extremely glad that the First Lord of the Admiralty took part in this Debate, because if there is any comment that has been made more often than another by the more violent and ignorant controversialists, and their violence is generally in direct proportion to their ignorance, it is this: "Leave it all to the Navy, turn the Foreign Office down, leave it to the

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  men in blue, everything will be all right, and we should have no trouble with neutrals and we should starve Germany." That is really a comment, or complaint which is founded very largely upon ignorance, and I think the speech of the First Lord to-day has shown us that the Navy must act in these matters in co-operation with the Foreign Office, and act upon certain principles of international law, unless we are going to have the neutral world at war with us, and even then, perhaps, we might fail in our object.
  This question of blockade naturally excites a great deal of interest, but I am equally confident that there is a very great deal of misapprehension on the subject, and for this reason. In former times a blockade has been conducted mostly by one belligerent against another, by means of blockading the belligerent ports directly and preventing goods going into the belligerent ports and so carrying out the blockade. That is an operation which is easy enough if you have got sufficient naval power, because all you have got to do is to see that ships do not go into the blockaded ports of the enemy.
  Mr. G. FABER: There were no mines then.
  7.0 P.M.
  Mr. BUTCHER: As my hon. Friend remarks, there were no mines then, and there were no submarines, or anything of that kind in those days. The difficulty in this War is not to blockade the German ports directly, since that we have done ever since the beginning of the War, but to prevent goods going through neutral countries to a German destination. That raises questions which are almost of an entirely novel character, though not wholly, in international law, and also raises questions of the most difficult character as regards neutral rights. I think, on the whole, that the blockade, considering the great difficulties arising from the new international situation and international law, and the new questions raised with regard to neutrals, has been carried out within the last—well, I would hesitate to say what time, but at any rate within the last many months, fairly well on the whole. My right hon. Friend has pointed out the great difficulty we have got to deal with is to prevent neutral countries from sending their own goods into belligerent countries, and there is no way in which that can be done except by
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  means of negotiations. Fortunately we have got some basis on which we can negotiate with neutrals. Neutrals want some goods of ours, and we are able to say to them, "You shall not have those goods which you want unless you will undertake on your part not to send goods to Germany which they want." In that way I believe the arrangements which have been made, though probably not perfect—and it would be quite impossible to expect that they would be—have, on the whole, worked fairly well. I was much interested in the figures given by my right hon. Friend to-day. I was very glad he was able to give them, and was not prevented by the fear of being asked for some other figures. It would have been an extraordinary thing if a Minister, because he gives some figures, is required to give figures which he did not want to give. The figures which he did give show that there has been a very large diminution of goods going into Germany of which they stood in need. There is only one other point I want to touch on, and that is the question of friction with neutrals. It would have been exceedingly easy to carry on this blockade in such a manner as to involve ourselves in the greatest difficulties, if not in war, and I think it is greatly to the credit of the Foreign Office that we have been able to carry out so stringent a blockade without producing an acute international situation, which might have greatly hampered us in the conduct of the War and in the ultimate results which we intend to obtain by this War. I only rose to express my personal conviction that the blockade has of recent times been carried out effectively, a result which we owe practically entirely, as I venture to think, to the present Minister of Blockade and to those who are working with him

  COAL MINES (STATE CONTROL).
  Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: After the very full Debate which we have had on the subject of blockade, I do not propose to pursue this topic, but I would like very briefly to refer to another matter of vital national importance at this moment, and that is the question of the production of coal. The House will remember that we had soma notification, before the House rose for the Christmas vacation, that the Prime Minister intended to introduce a scheme or State control of the mines of this country.

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  That scheme did not come to fruition until the beginning of the month of February, when a Coal Controller was appointed. I understand that the Order which was made appointing him also brought under his control the whole industry of this country as from the 1st day of March. The decision of the Government to appoint a Coal Controller was one of very great importance to the nation, because no one can disguise the fact that upon the sufficient production of coal at the present moment really depends the success of our efforts against the enemy. Much was hoped for from the new appointment, but I am bound to say that hitherto the House has received very little information indeed as to what has been done by the Coal Controller and what his policy is to be. I have on different occasions addressed questions to the Board of Trade on this subject, and I quite recognise that the hon. Gentleman who represents the Board of Trade is in a position of some difficulty in not being able to answer in detail all the questions which have been been put upon this subject, as the policy is no doubt maturing and may not yet have reached its final shape. At the same time, I think it is of great importance that the country should know now what is the general line on which the new Coal Controller is going to proceed, and I am particularly anxious to ascertain whether he has been in consultation with the Home Office Committees which were recently appointed to deal with the question of the organisation of the coal industry.
  I refer particularly to the Committee which was appointed in 1915 to inquire into the conditions prevailing in the coal mining industry due to the War. That Committee has reported on three different occasions, and its Reports make it perfectly clear that measures of an urgent nature are required to be taken to safeguard the production of coal in this country, having regard to the large number of miners who were withdrawn and who have joined the Army, and also owing to the very large reduction in the coal which was actually won during that period. The net reduction of labour was given on 1st September, 1916, as 165,000 men, or 14.8 per cent. of the labour which was utilised at the outbreak of war, and the figures for the actual output of coal, which were also given for 1915, were 253,000,000 tons, of a value of £170,000,000, being a decrease of 12,500,000 tons on the output
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  of 1914. It was deemed necessary to take immediate steps to secure a larger output when it was seen how greatly the number of miners had been reduced, and the Committee which I have already referred to made certain important recommendations. I should like to know from the Board of Trade whether the Coal Controller is engaged in working out those recommendations at the present time. One of the first recommendations was that as miners were considered indispensable they should be barred from military service, that all recruiting should be prohibited amongst miners, and that Home service men should be brought back from the Colours; and they were, in point of fact, brought back to the number of 15,000 or 16,000 in order that they might assist in increasing the output of coal, and an increment of 4,000,000 tons was thereby gained. While on this point I want to ask the hon. Member if he will inform us whether the Coal Controller has ever been consulted in regard to the question of National Service, and how far he has been asked to associate himself with the appeal which is being made to miners at the present time to volunteer for work of national importance? The choice put before miners is somewhat conflicting. On the one hand, they have been told that they are to remain at their own work, and notices were put up at the works that they were to be barred from service in the Army. The notices referred to were as follows:
  "Coal miners have already joined the Army in such large numbers that the supply of coal, which is a vital national necessity, is seriously affected. Miners one and all must remember that upon their efforts the success of the country depends, no less than upon the men who are serving with the forces. Those who offer themselves as recruits will only be accepted on the condition that they go back to work in the mines until they are called upon."
  While these notices were posted, the coal mine tribunals were set up under the Military Service Act exempting miners in respect of the essential work they were performing for the nation. Then we have an appeal made under the National Service Act for these men to undertake work of national importance, which comes on the head of another appeal which is made to-day, and which is being made all over the coal fields, for men of military age to volunteer for service in the Army. The miner is asked in the first place to remain at his work as being essential to the nation; he is asked by the military authorities to volunteer for the Army; he is told by the National Service Director that more men are required for mines, as

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  appeared in the advertisements issued the other day; and yet at the same time he is asked to enrol himself amongst the volunteers for National Service without any definite suggestion being made as to what service he could render better than that he is rendering at the present moment. May I ask whether the Coal Controller himself has been consulted in this matter, and whether he has given any indication as to his views? Would it not be better not to unsettle the miners by making them subject to all these cross appeals, and to tell them that they are doing their work there satisfactorily for the country, and that if any of them are asked to volunteer for any other form of service than that of the Army they will be told specifically the particular work they will be asked for, and that they will be transferred to that work if a sufficient number can be found? We must remember that every miner who is taken away from the coal pits is decreasing the national production, and that there is great need for an increase instead of a decrease.
  I pass from that point to one or two of the other recommendations of the Committee. One dealt with the question of avoidable absenteeism from the mines, which was calculated to diminish the actual output by some 14,000,000 tons. I am glad to say that, so far as the Scottish mine fields are concerned, there has been very little cause for complaint on that subject, although there has been elsewhere, and I should like to know whether the Coal Controller has been working along with the Committee for securing the appointment of local committees to consult with the men and with the employers in order to reduce the absenteeism to the lowest Possible figure. The next point relates to the question of transport, and the Committee reported that transport was one of the most serious difficulties that they had to face at the present time, and that the actual production and distribution of coal was very enormously hampered owing to the want of transport facilities. There, I think, we may look to the Coal Controller, who is a distinguished railway expert, to put this matter right, with his experience as one of the leading railway men in the country. I sincerely hope that he will give us an undertaking that all the wagons, private as well as those belonging to the various railway companies throughout the country, are now being pooled so that there may be a satisfactory system of distribution
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  throught the country, The demand for coal in many districts has not been met, largely owing to the difficulties of distribution, and it might be possible, I would suggest, that some scheme of distribution should be framed which would enable the wagons belonging to the companies in each particular district to be made available for local distribution and thus prevent the serious difficulties which have arisen through want of coal in many districts.
  One other point has been raised by the Committee, and that is the question of internal reorganisation of the mines themselves. A great deal of work could be saved by a proper system of haulage and by a proper system of organisation in the mines, and this is a matter which, I believe, could best be dealt with by the mine owners consulting with the Coal Controller and the Advisory Committee, who, after all, represent the employers and the men themselves. In this way it might be possible to provide either additional machinery in certain pits where the output is greater, and to avoid work in other pits where the output is very small, and the opening up of new coal seams which at the present time are hardly worth working with such shortage of labour. I hope that the Advisory Committee which has been set up will be able to cope with most of these difficulties, along with the Coal Controller, who, I understand, is going to consider very carefully the views that the Committee may put before him on all these questions, and to act upon them wherever possible. The hon. Member was good enough to give me a statement in answer to a question I put to Mm on 22nd March as to the question of distribution of supplies and economy of transport and consumption of coal. I hope he may be able to amplify that statement a little further. We are anxious to secure some guarantee that the transport facilities shall be properly distributed all over the country, and that there shall be some inducement given to economise in the consumption of coal. We ought to teach the country a good deal by bringing home to the people the need at the present moment for economising fuel. The amount of coal which is being wasted continually by people who use it unnecessarily would amount to a very large quantity if everyone tried to save it.
  The question of the financial arrangements is a matter of very great import-

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  ance. Of this we have so far heard nothing from the Front Bench. Surely the financial arrangements which have been made to take over the coal mines must be, if not already completed, at all events in a fair way of completion, and I should like the hon. Member, if he can, to give us an indication as to whether the State is going to have a substantial interest in the profits of the mines, what their interest is to be, to what extent the interests of the coal miners are to be guaranteed, and the figure at which the coal will be taken over? These are matters upon which the country is well entitled to have some information. I am glad to learn that nothing is proposed to be done at the present time in regard to the reduction of miners' wages. It has been agreed with the representatives of the miners that in the event of prices falling in any district no steps shall be taken for a reduction of wages without the representatives of the men being taken into full consultation. I suppose that this will mean that the machinery of the existing Conciliation Boards will be made use of up to a certain point, though it may be necessary for the Coal Controller himself to come in as the final arbitrator and decide questions in which differences may arise. I hope the hon. Gentleman will be able to give us some assurance on that point.
  Before I sit down I should like to refer in a few sentences to another question which is of a somewhat similar character, and of equal importance. That is the question of fuel apart from the question of coal. There is also the question of the alcohol which is required for the production of the munitions of war. I have asked the Minister of Munitions on several occasions to inform the House whether he proposed to use the alcohol which at present is in the bonded warehouses for the purpose of manufacturing explosives, instead of going on with the manufacture of more alcohol for the purpose. The nation has a right to know whether we are still to use grain and food materials for the manufacture of alcohol for munition purposes. I am informed that experts have already indicated their opinion that it is quite possible to make use of the large accumulated stores of 149,000,000 gallons, or at least a portion of it, for the manufacture of explosives. It is a serious thing indeed for the country at the present time if none of this alcohol in bond is to be used, but that we are to go
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  on manufacturing alcohol from grain—this at a time when the country is being rationed! I sincerely hope that the Minister of Munitions, who, I understand, has control of this matter—because the Food Controller has repudiated any responsibility—will see to it that the matter is immediately attended to, and that steps are actually taken to avoid further wastage of food for the manufacture of alcohol.
  In the answer he gave me the other day the hon. Gentleman said, "Under existing circumstances I do not propose to make use of the bonded spirits for munition purposes." I appeal to the hon. Gentleman—though he is not in his place, but probably someone will convey the-appeal to him—that existing circumstances are after all the strongest argument that can possibly be put forward for stopping altogether the use of food materials for the manufacture of alcohol, if such alcohol can be provided from other sources. As to the needs of the nation and the serious shortage of food materials, serious statements have been made by tre Prime Minister, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and other Ministers of the Crown. Unless the Government carry into effect the principles which they are laying down as to the need for economy and themselves be the first to give an example to the nation of that economy by acting as I have suggested—which matter they have in their own hands—it will be a pity. It would be a curious conclusion at which to arrive if, at the end of the War, we were to be told that we still had 140,000,000 gallons of alcohol in bond which might have been used, along with the national resources, to help us to win the War. I trust the Government will show their wisdom and avoid such a lamentable conclusion, and the comment on such a situation, and will at once see to the avoidance of using food and other materials for the purposes I have stated.
  Mr. WING: I desire to associate myself with the remarks of my hon. Friend who has just spoken. I would like specially to emphasise the latter portion of his appeal to the Government in relation, not only to alcohol, but to any other luxury that may be used in order to satisfy appetites merely, and which in no wise are necessary or helpful to the health and well-being of the people. I would wish to ask the hon. Gentleman who represents the Board of Trade as to how really the miner stands under the new conditions

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  brought about by the control of the mines, and in cases where unemployment amongst pitmen exists, as to what offers there are open to the miner? For instance, you find in certain districts of the country—take the county of Durham—some pits that have never lost a shift, and every one of which have worked regularly, whilst you have other cases of collieries working one to three days a week, and that within a radius of two or three miles, it may be, and you have large centres of coal consumption within a radius of anything up to twenty miles. The North is not only a large centre for the extraction of coal from the mines, but it is also a large centre for the consumption of coal. I should like the hon. Gentleman really to assure us that steps will be taken—and that shortly, I hope—to provide a good and sufficient supply to those who are consuming the coal. I have received many complaints, which I shall be very pleased to send to my hon. Friend opposite should he desire to see them, where coal is required, whilst those concerned have offered to see that the wagons were sent back within the day. Certain pits, it would appear, are still unprovided with transit facilities, and the men there are desirous of fulfilling their duties to the State. I would ask the hon. Gentleman who represents the Board of Trade to try to make some arrangement, either for the Minister of Munitions or the Minister for National Service to go down to such districts and offer these men an alternative, say, of other forms of mining, iron-ore mining, or something of that kind. Let it, however, be a firm offer.
  One of the difficulties amongst these men is that they wonder what is going to happen. There is no firm offer. They are asked to put their name down. There is uncertainty. I should like something like this: Suppose you want a hundred men at a certain place, say to the men: "You are wanted there, there is the money, the hutting arrangements are all right, and so are the conditions generally, such men as are wishful to go can have their railway warrants and can go at once." There might be some difficulty in carrying out a scheme of this sort. It may be a great deal easier to propose than to carry out. But there is the position of the miner at present, who really wants to fall into his groove. If he moves he wants to know where he is going. I
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  should like also to ask the hon. Gentleman if in questions of dispute the same conditions exist now under Government control as existed before under ordinary private control? Where exactly does the miner now stand in relation to his job, his money, and the conditions of his employment? Will the hon. Gentleman convey to the War Office my representations as to the great feeling of dissatisfaction in my Constituency as to the young men who, having joined the Colours, within a very few weeks are sent to the front. I have had put to me several cases where young fellows have been called up have been sent to the front, and the announcement of the death has come—all within a matter of three months On the other hand, in various parts of the country, there are men who have been kept at home since they first commenced their Army service. Indeed, some have never been moved from the place to which they were first drafted, or where they are now hutted. As a matter of fact, some time ago I sent the War Office some letters in which some soldiers asked me to ask the War Office to be good enough to remove them away from the place where they were. They bad been so long in that particular camp that when they went into the town they were saluted with cries of, "Good old ragtimers; here again." The parents of some of these young men are willing that they should serve the country, but asked that conditions should not be imposed of this sort.
  There is the matter of leave. Men have been in Egypt, the Dardanelles, and are now in France who have never had leave. I presume other Members will have received similar complaints. There is a general feeling that there should be some means whereby men who have been abroad so long should have the opportunity of leave, because there are other cases in which leave is very much more easily obtained. Then, as to the question of allowances. If a son and father of the same family enlist there is no allowance on behalf of the son. The allotment may be paid by the son, but no allowance comes as the allowance is already paid on behalf of the father. If, however, the father remains at home and sends two sons to the war then there can be allowances on behalf of the two sons. There is injustice in this matter, because in the case of the two sons going and death happening there is a payment continuous up to six months, and a pension to follow.

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  If it is the son whoso father has been fighting immediately there is an intimation of his death, the allotment is immediately stopped, and no pension follows. I am raising this question because I am receiving a great many complaints from people who are quite willing to do their duty to their country, but who feel that these inequalities should not happen. I ask the Government to do what they can in this matter. I believe they are willing to do it, and to reduce these great disabilities and disproportionate differences to a minimum. I give these instances so that, if possible, rectification may take place.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. George Roberts): I think I would like to ask my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Wing) to address the questions he has just put respecting allowances and matters of that kind to the War Office. I confess I have to admit some little difficulty in making an adequate response on behalf of the Coal Controller, and certainly I am not likely to add to my own personal difficulties by undertaking a task which goes beyond my Department. The hon. Member for North-East Lanarkshire (Mr. Millar) stated that a great deal has been expected from the appointment of Coal Controller, but that so far it has been impossible to get much information. I have to remind my hon. Friend, in the same way as I did hon. Friends on Friday last, that it was only as from December last that the Government undertook the control of the South Wales coal fields, and it was only from the beginning of this month that that control has been extended to cover the whole of the coal fields of Great Britain and Ireland.
  Mr. MILLAR: It was started, I think, about a month before that.
  Mr. ROBERTS: The appointment was announced before that, but it is perfectly accurate to state that the control was never assumed until the date I have mentioned, and it may be because of that that hon. Members feel, as I feel, the extreme difficulty of grasping the great complexity of the problem dealt with. My hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring was good enough to say that of course it is easy to criticise, and I confess I have been sometimes rather anxious, and even eager, to impart more information in response to questions than I have been
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  able to give, because, after all, Ministers save themselves a good deal of trouble if they can make ample response to questions. Nevertheless, I have made the best inquiries I can, and I am able to assure the House that the Coal Controller is in very close grip with an extraordinarily complex problem. Perhaps I may just instance this fact. Mr. Calthrop has traced the whole of the consignments of coal of the country from the pits to the respective consumers. He desires to ascertain how far the coal has to be transported. He desires to ascertain how coal is taken from the collieries to the various consumers in the country. The bare collection of statistics of that sort is an extremely heavy task, and then when you come to the tabulation and analysis of them I think you will realise that it is a problem of considerable difficulty. Yet the Coal Controller regards the possession of those; statistics as absolutely essential to carry out the scheme of mobilisation that he has in contemplation. The hon. Gentleman who introduced this subject asked me if the Coal Controller was taking over certain functions previously exercised by the Home Office, and how far he was having regard to the recommendations of the Home Office Committee. When you have the assurance that Sir Richard Redmayne, His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Mines, has been taken over by the Coal Controller, I think you will have an indication that it is the intention to co-ordinate the functions exercised by the Home Office and those with which the Coal Controller has been invested. The Coal Controller is giving very serious consideration to the recommendations of that Committee.
  We are aware of the fact that the splendid enlistment voluntarily of miners did have the effect of dislocating the mining industry. When we know there were some 288,000 of those enlistments, or over 25 per cent, of the working miners, then we must recognise, at any rate, that the withdrawal of those numbers of men must dislocate the industry, and result in a great diminution of output. It is true that other labour has been drawn into the mines, but yon cannot substitute labour as efficient as that which was taken into the Army. All the stronger and most energetic young men were taken, and any substitutes which are forthcoming must, of necessity, without any reflection whatever on the substitutes, be less efficient than the young men who were taken. The Coal Controller is in

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  negotiation with the Director-General of National Service on this point, with a view to maintaining a proper amount of labour in the mines, and therefore preserving, as far as practicable, the output of coal. Of course, we have to recognise in all these matters that the needs of the Army are paramount, and the War Office are requesting still that more of the young, able-bodied men shall be released from the coal mines. Nevertheless, the Coal Controller is keenly alive to the necessity of maintaining output for home consumption, for trade, for our Allies, and also for the very important factor of exchange in trade itself, which, of course, is a matter of great consideration, and the Coal Controller is doing his best in that respect. Regarding the question of absenteeism, I am glad to have the acknowledgment of my hon. Friend as to the position in Scotland. It is a tribute we would expect him to pay to his own countrymen, and probably to his own constituency.
  Mr. MILLAR: The hon. Member will admit it is quite true.
  Mr. ROBERTS: Certainly. I am accepting the hon. Member's statement, and, of course, associating my tribute to Scottish miners. It has been observed that it is estimated that 5 per cent, of lost time represents unpreventable absenteeism, but over and beyond that, of course, there is a considerable amount of absenteeism, to compass which it has been the endeavour of colliery owners, with, I believe, the whole-hearted support of the leaders of the miners themselves. I questioned the Coal Controller only to-day on this point, and he assures me that it is receiving his very earnest consideration. He is glad to convey to the House, through me, this fact, that there are signs of a distinct improvement on this head, though of course indirectly we have to acknowledge that this is in large measure due to the influence exercised by the leaders of the miners' organisations. Then we proceed to the question of transport. Of course, the House feels great confidence in the appointment of Mr. Calthrop, because he is a man of first-class railway experience, and I know he regards this question of transport as being one of the most important points in the distribution of coal. I stated on Friday last that it is the aim of the Coal Controller to economise transport by securing that consumers shall, as far as possible, receive
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  the supplies from the collieries nearest to them Undoubtedly, as I observed on Friday, there is considerable waste—criminal, in my opinion, at any time, but particularly so during a time of war and the labour stress that we are experiencing, and it is proved already that consignments, of coal are carried from one extreme to the other of the country, when there is suitable coal nearer at hand. The Coal Controller is having regard to that fact and also to the further point of the pooling of wagons. The question was addressed to me on Friday, and we know, not only in relation to the distribution of coal, but in the distribution of commodities generally in the country, that there has been considerable wastage on this head. The Railway Executive, I know, have been giving this matter very earnest consideration, and the Coal Controller does recognise the importance of the question, and is endeavouring, as I understand, on the lines suggested by my hon. Friend, to-secure at least district arrangements as to the pooling. I can give at least the-assurance that the Coal Controller is considering that matter, but I will make it my duty further to direct his attention tort, in view of the desire expressed here.
  With respect to the internal organisation of mines, the Coal Controller does-recognise that there may be possibilities of great economy and other improvements in the organisation of the mines themselves, and he is certainly intending to avail himself of the Advisory Committee which has been established, and he will act upon that as far as it may be practicable to do so. Of course, we want to recognise that, so far, the control of coal mines is a war expedient. What may happen after the War it is not for me to-predict. I am far too modest a man to adopt the mantle of a prophet. The Coal Controller has always to recognise that if conditions are to revert, then, of course, his policy must be modified accordingly. But still those are considerations which-are engaging his attention. He is also going to consider how far the public may be persuaded further to economise in coal. It may be, of course, absolutely necessary to compel them to economise, and I know that the Coal Controller is having special regard to the conditions which may prevail in the ensuing winter. After all, it is not practicable for him to accomplish much in relation to this winter, but he is shaping his plans with a view to what may occur in the winter of 1917–18. The

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  hon. Gentleman, I know, is keenly interested to learn what are the financial arrangements which will exist as between the Government and the colliery owners. I have to confess great difficulty in furnishing him with that information, but I can tell him that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, the Coal Controller, myself, and others have discussed this question. We have agreed upon general principles, and those points in the form of a Memorandum are now, I believe, to be submitted to the Cabinet in the course of a few days. If then the Cabinet decide that full information can be given to the House, I shall be very glad to give it.
  Mr. MacVEAGH: Can the hon. Member say whether an Irish representative has been appointed?
  Mr. ROBERTS: I cannot yet say whether that question has been decided. I have already given a personal undertaking to one of the Irish representatives that I will direct the attention of the President of the Board of Trade to that request, and it will have due consideration. With respect to miners' wages it is not proposed in any way to change them or the system under which they are paid. The existing machinery will remain intact; in fact, the Coal Controller will interfere as little as possible with the active management of the mines or the labour conditions of the mines. Everybody knows that the Miners' Federation are generally well able to look after the wages of their members. It is also true that the Conciliation Boards will remain in existence, and it is not in any way contemplated to interfere with existing rates. What my hon. Friend had in mind was that miners' rates of wages are guided by the selling price. The President of the Board of Trade had an interview with the miners' executive a 'week or two ago, and he assured them that it was not in any way contemplated that wage changes would eventually be made, but if, owing to a fall in price in any district, the rates might be open to change, no such change would take place without full consultation with the miners' representatives.
  The hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Wing) drew attention to the fact that there are certain pits idle and that miners are unemployed or underemployed in certain districts, although there may be a very strong demand for their labour elsewhere. As a result of a
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  conference with the Coal Controller I am able to say that this is a matter which is receiving consideration. He has received requests for the supply of miners in the iron ore mines, and there is an urgent demand for that class of labour. Consequently, the Coal Controller, in conjunction with the Director-General of National Service, has made arrangements for the transfer of that labour and the men who are willing to go who are underemployed in one particular district are being transferred to other mines. The Coal Controller, however, desires to be perfectly certain that there is proper housing and feeding accommodation before he transfers men to other districts, and some delay has occurred in consequence, but this is solely owing to the anxiety of the Coal Controller that in the case of these men who are transferred to other work of national importance proper and adequate arrangements shall have been made for them before they are transferred. I think everybody will agree that the Coal Controller in doing that is exercising a wise discretion, and one that we are pleased to observe. I think I have now covered most of the points which have been made.
  Mr. MILLAR: I wish to ask a question with regard to the arrangement which has been come to between the Coal Controller and the Director-General of National Service. Is it the desire of the Coal Controller that all the miners should be asked to enrol as volunteers under the National Service system, or does he intend to ask those to volunteer who are willing to go to the iron-ore mines?
  Mr. ROBERTS: I mentioned this point to the Coal Controller this afternoon, and I understand that he has agreed to the general principle of the scheme of the Director-General of National Service which contemplates that everybody should enrol for National Service. I believe that the Coal Controller concurs with the general scheme of the Director-General of National Service, and miners will be invited to enrol similarly with other classes of the community. Precautions will be taken that men shall not be removed from the essential occupation of mining without the knowledge of the Coal Controller, and without due consideration being given to the needs of respective collieries. I have now replied to the points which have been addressed to me, and I ask hon. Members to believe that when

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  questions are addressed to me, and I do not give the full information which they desire, it is not due to any desire to be discourteous, but because of the fact that this Department has only recently been set up. It deals with a problem of extreme complexity, and, therefore, I think I am entitled to ask on behalf of the Coal Controller that hon. Members should exercise a little patience. I can give the assurance on behalf of the President that it is our desire to give the fullest possible information.

  PRESS CENSORSHIP.
  Mr. DILLON: I desire to call attention to the very important matter which is set forth in the Resolution of which I have given notice—["That the greatly increased stringency of the censorship which has come into force during the last six months, the one-sided and unfair method in which the censorship is applied, and the practice of directing the Press as to the views and opinions which they should cultivate amongst their readers, are injurious to the State and ought to be discontinued."]—namely, the present administration of the censorship, which I declare has been greatly increased in stringency, which has been also characterised by a one-sided and unfair method of administration, and appears to have for its object the cultivation of certain views by withholding one class of information and fostering other information calculated to cultivate the view which the Government desire should be expressed. When this new Government was formed the Prime Minister himself in his very first speech declared that it was the policy of the Government that people should know all about the War, and he went on to explain that he had always held the view that there was nothing to be gained by keeping back bad news or the news of defeats, or news of any kind that could be revealed and made public without injury to the military situation. Subsequently, in this House the First Lord of the Admiralty declared on behalf of his Department that he proposed in the same way to open a new chapter by giving the public much more frank and full information as to Admiralty occurrences, and particularly as to the submarine campaign and the amount of damage done than had been the custom before. That is what was understood by the public from the declaration of those two statesmen.
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  What has happened? Let me point out and recall the memory of the House to what was in the minds of hon. Members at the opening of this War when we entrusted these enormous powers to the Government. I remember several Debates and questions being asked in the early months of the War, and the Government over and over again disclaimed any desire to use the censorship for the promotion of any particular policy or to use it for the purpose of screening the Government against criticism, and they said that the censorship had only been used for two necessary purposes (1) to prohibit and prevent the publication of any news calculated to endanger military or naval operations; and (2) for the purpose of preventing the advocacy of disturbances or strikes or any public movement in the country of such a character as to endanger the safety of the realm. Those appeared to be two perfectly proper and reasonable purposes; and in the early days we all remember what were the nature of the complaints, which were very grave and well founded. We all recollect the early dispatches in which no village in France was ever to be mentioned. We read long military telegrams stating that the troops of—Regiment arrived at—and moved on to—and after a brilliant engagement succeeded in capturing—It has now been proved by the present form of our military telegrams that all that was perfectly unnecessary, and this, to a certain extent, carries out the original purpose of the censorship.
  Then there was a great scandal which did enormous mischief in regard to the censoring of cables to America, and the correspondents in the American Press were very irritated at the persistent refusal to allow their cables to go to America, with the result that they adopted wireless and other means, and all this tended to annoy the American people and hinder our propaganda in America. All this was against the policy which had been approved by this House. Within the last six months the censorship has been put to a wholly new use, which was formerly not thought of, and which, in my opinion, constitutes a new policy, for which the Government has never sought the approval of this House and for which I am sure they will not be able to obtain that approval. The censorship is now much more stringent than it used to be. It is one-sided and unfair. It suppresses in the newspapers the publication of facts with

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  regard to the truth which would tend to make the public take the view that the Government do not desire them to take, and it does not prevent the publication of untruths so long as they tend to create public opinion in favour of the Government. That, in my opinion, is an intolerable use of the power of censorship, and I think I shall be able to prove beyond all question that that system is now in full operation.
  8.0 P.M.
  There is another matter to which I wish to draw attention, and which I am inclined to think is unknown to many Members of this House, and that is the practice of issuing long statements of precautions and instructions to the Press of this country directing the Press what views they are to cultivate in the minds of the public; and this has now become a regular and constant practice. Long documents are sent out asserting that it is extremely desirable that certain views should be discouraged and others encouraged, and this brings the Press down to the level of the reptile Press which used to be controlled by Prince Bismarck. The Prussian ideal of Prince Bismarck was that the Press should be used to cultivate in the minds of the people those views and opinions that the Government desired should be cultivated. I charge the Government of this country that they have taken a leaf out of -Prince Bismarck's book, and it is now the practice of the Government to issue instructions to the Press as to the views they are to advocate. It may be said that the Press are not compelled to follow those instructions. That is quite true, but surely everybody who knows the extent to which the censorship can annoy and inflict injury on any newspaper editor, will understand that the receipt of a circular such as I have described from the head office of the censorship means very strong pressure—I put it no higher—and the newspaper editor who defies the censorship must have something of the courage and power of Lord Northcliffe himself. Let me refer to one of the charges I am making. I pointed out that in two speeches, one made in this House and one made in Wales, the present Prime Minister declared, as he had often done before, that the people of this country were so constituted that they could stand bad news, and that it was bad policy on the part of the Government to attempt to hide unfavourable news. He also said that in the
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  future the truth would be told and people would make the best of it We all remember the expression which was so common a few months ago, although I do not see it used now—it has disappeared with the ginger group—the expression "Hide the Truth Press." Certain organs of the Press, mostly Liberal, were denounced and exposed to odium as hiding the truth. But all the Press has become "Hide the Truth Press" now, not from choice, but from necessity, and when any subject is embarrassing to the Government, which they do not desire to have written about, or the facts disclosed, they send out orders—it is no longer a question of censoring some special news—but the newspapers get orders to suppress all news referring to such questions.
  Take the Salonika question and the question of Greece. The Press have been ordered to publish no news about them at all, and consequently, as we all know, whereas up to Christmas there was a great deal of news, some reliable and some unreliable, about the situation in Greece and Salonika, since then the newspapers have been blank, absolutely blank. That is not because the situation has become more easy—on the contrary it is worse than ever, according to my information; it is more critical and more serious, and it is a situation in which some great decision will have to be come to an the near future, if not actually at the present moment. Yet, so far as the public of this country is concerned in the last few months, since Christmas, they have been kept in absolute darkness and fog, and know nothing whatever, except what we are able to gather from private sources of information, as to the happenings in connection with that expedition and as to the state of the Greek question. Some day an announcement will be made, perhaps of a very grave character, without giving the public any preparation or any opportunity of forming an intelligent judgment upon it. One thing I want to assert is this: We all had the experience of last Saturday's and Sunday's rumours. The city was humming with rumours. Every second man you met told you of some most horrible catastrophe. These rumours are the direct offspring of this policy of hide the truth and concealment. They are the inevitable consequence. That is what used to be said against the late Government, which never practised this policy of hiding the truth to anything

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  like the degree we now have it. It is a policy which invariably leads to all kinds of false alarms.
  I want to take three specific cases in which I shall seek to prove; by bringing them down to concrete cases, the reality of the enormous mischief being done by this policy. I will take, first, the case of Lord Milner's mission to Russia. Secondly, the case of the First Lord of the Admiralty and the submarine campaign; and, thirdly, the case of the Salonika and the Greek situation. First of all, Lord Milner's mission. I put a question in the House the other day as to the length of his stay in Russia, and the numerous speeches which he made in that country, a course quite unique in connection with these missions. I asked why were they all suppressed, and I received a preposterous answer to the effect that the Foreign Office knew nothing about it. This is not the first mission which has gone from this country to foreign capitals to discuss questions connected with the War. We have had the Prime Minister himself going to Paris and to Rome, and after that to Calais. The present Prime Minister went to Rome on a very important mission. Each one of those missions, at which there was presumably as much business to do, lasted at the most three or four days, and every word publicly uttered was communicated to the people of this country, as it ought to be. I claim it is outrageous that a Minister of the Crown should leave this country and make speeches in foreign capitals, and that those speeches should be hidden from the people of this country. These have been the uniformly unbroken characteristics of all previous missions from this country to foreign capitals. But here we had a mission which lasted three weeks or a month, in the course of which Lord Milner delivered several public speeches—not one single word was reported in this country. Are not these circumstances, circumstances of suspicion? I think it was a very extraordinary thing that that mission should take on this peculiar character, knowing what we did know of the condition of Russian politics. It was very extraordinary that this particular gentleman should be sent to Russia and remain there three weeks, and go all over the country making these speeches, and we should be denied all knowledge of them. I have here in my hand a very remarkable
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  piece of correspondence which appeared in the "Morning Post" of the 1st March. I have been informed by a very good authority that one "Morning Post" correspondent in Petrograd must he taken as more or less inspired by our Embassy for reasons I need not now go into. Hero is what it says in its correspondence as to the nature of Lord Milner's proceedings. It is the only light we have thrown on them and it conies from a man who is in close touch with the British Embassy:
  "The general impression made on the Russian public is that the members of the Conference have been not a little districted by the internal affairs of Russia. From repealed conversations which I have had with the British delegates, I am in a position to that this Impression is erroneous…Another egregious fable was started here the other clay to the effect that the British Ambassador had recently visited Tsarskoe Selo and arged in the name of England that the Duma should be allowed to reassemble. The date for the reassembling of the Duma was fixed by Imperial order mouths ago."
  Here is a really important matter in this correspondence—it is extremely serious:
  "Lord Milner's speeches, read in relation to the knowledge of what too many people here have been led to believe about England, furnish a useful counterpoise, and therein lies the negative value of the Conference in regard to toe general public. The positive value apart always from the real work done, lies in the close and intimate acquaintance gained during weeks of labour between the men of the Allied nations."
  Close and intimate relations between Lord Milner and Mr. Stuermer and Company! That is the positive gain of our mission. The beginning of that sentence is the more sinister because it says Lord Milner's speeches supplied a much-needed corrective to the view which prevailed in Russia. What was the view which prevailed in Russia? It was that we, the people of England, sympathised with the democrats, the Liberals of Russia, and not with Mr. Stuermer. Lord Milner's speech corrected all that. "And in the meantime," concludes the correspondent,
  "personal friendships between members of the respective ruling classes of the two countries are not the least of the important results of this Conference."
  That is one view of Lord Milner's mission, and then they go on to describe a speech delivered by Lord Milner at Moscow, in which Lord Milner said there was not the slightest foundation for the rumours which had besieged him since he came to Russia regarding the disturbances and troubles there.
  "If I believed one-tenth of what I heard would be in a lunatic asylum."
  That is his impression of the condition of Russia. It is only by scraps we are allowed any information of what our representative, a member of the War Cabinet, has been saying in the midst of

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  these momentous occurrences in Russia—occurrences which might easily have lost us the War in a perfect cataclysm of misfortunes. These gentlemen, whose friendship Lord Milner cultivated and whose friendship is held up to the British people as the chief result of the mission, are the gentlemen who had agreed to open the Western Front to admit the Kaiser's troops. Here is what a great Liberal Russian newspaper said of this oration of Lord Milner's at Moscow—the oration characterising the extraordinary rumours which he said would drive him into a lunatic asylum. The "Viedomosti" says:
  "Extraordinary rumours betoken an extraordinary state of affairs to which only a popular Ministry could put an end."
  Observe this:
  "And if this only too well-known Conservative and Imperialist merely wanted to insult Moscow, what right had he to come here at all?"
  That is the comment of a great Russian Liberal newspaper on the speech of Lord Milner at Moscow. What right had the Government to allow this to go on behind our backs? It might have brought down the whole War with a crash to ruin without the people of this country knowing what was going on in their name. Here is another sinister comment on these proceedings, it is from an interview with Mr. Karensky, the Socialist Minister of Justice, one of the most important men in the present Russian Government, reported by Dr. Harold Williams, the correspondent of the "Daily Chronicle," who I believe to be one of those best and most intimately acquainted with Russian life. Here is what he says:
  "We talked of England, and Mr.Karensky expressed an ardent desire that the democracies of England and Russia should be linked by close bonds of sympathy and common effort. Now at last the War will really be a war of liberation. I must tell you frankly, said the young Minister, that we Russian democrats have been latterly rather worried about England because of the close relations between your Government and the corrupt Government we had."
  There is no wonder that Mr. Karensky and every true democrat in Russia had been worried when they had seen Lord Milner, that well-known Imperialist and reactionary, in close relation with Mr. Stuermer, and heard him sneer, as he did in that Moscow speech, at the absurd rumours that there was any trouble brewing in Russia. It is perfectly monstrous that these performances of Lord Milner should have been suppressed by the Censor and should have been withheld from the knowledge of the people of this country. I asked the question why it was
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  that Lord Milner was sent? Surely, our Government, unless they were quite blind, knew—they ought to have known—that in the circumstances which then existed in Russia and which were well known to some people here, as I shall show from some correspondence, Lord Milner was the last man in the world that they ought to have sent. The man who ought to have gone to Russia was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Barnard Castle (Mr. A. Henderson). He would have been a suitable missioner to send to Russia under the circumstances, if it was necessary, and I assume that it was, out of respect to the Russian people, to send a member of the War Cabinet. It was a mistake to send Lord Milner with his record to begin with, and then to give him a free hand to wander over the country and deliver these most mischievous speeches it was a marvel that there was not a great deal more harm done. Will not M. Gutchkoff, now Minister for War, who has gone to the Riga front to steady the troops there, who is one of the leading men of the whole of this revolutionary Government, whose past record is well known throughout the country, and who as a volunteer with the Boers warred in the Transvaal against us, give a nice idea of our Government when it sends Lord Milner to represent it? Surely these matters ought to have been known to the Government before it sent Lord Milner?
  I now come to the next point. I wish to attach all this to the question of the censorship, because my complaint is that the Government, having committed the enormous blunder of sending Lord Milner, then by a grossly indefensible application of the censorship tried to keep the people of this country and the Members of this House in ignorance of what had been said by its representative in the most critical condition of things which existed at that time in Russia, and which was perfectly well known to some of us. I had a very intelligent Russian gentleman call upon me six weeks ago, and he told me of the whole thing. He said, "In a few weeks you will see the Russian Government destroyed." It all came true. This representative of the War Cabinet must either have been ignorant of what were the real conditions in Russia, or he must have deceived the British people. Let me try to prove that fact, because it is a very strong statement to make. Lord Milner came back to this country on 5th March, and on

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  6th March there appeared in the "Times" newspaper, and some other newspapers, the following statement:
  "The King received Lord Milner at Buckingham Palace yesterday."
  I suppose that was by way of adding weight to the mission.
  "In giving his impression of the conference to a correspondent after his interview with the King. Lord Milner said that it was largely owing to His Majesty the Czar and his hearty support that the results of the discussion were so satisfactory."
  Listen to this:
  "About the continuation of the War and the part that Russia was playing, I could not rind any difference of opinion whatever."
  What are we to say of our missioner, a member of the War Cabinet, who comes home and uses language like that after he has been three weeks in Russia?
  "On all hands there is only one aim—to bring it to a rapid and successful conclusion."
  Mr. Stuermer and company, of course, are included.
  "It is quite wrong to suppose that there is in Russia any controversy about the waging of the War. It is as I say merely a question of administration; in fact, much the same class of controversy as we have here in England."
  I say, deliberately, that statement is an outrage, and the publication of that statement, in view of the facts of the situation, is an absolute outrage on the British people. The other day I put the question whether that statement was submitted to the Censor, and I was told that it was and was passed by him. The Government either knew what was going on in Russia or they did not. If they did not know, they are not lit to govern this country for another hour, and the destinies of this country are in terrible danger if men so grossly ignorant and incompetent are at the head of affairs. If they did know, and they must have known, then it is a shameful use of the censorship to allow such a statement with the authority of the Censor to be published and to suppress statements which warned this country fully of what was going on. Lord Milner, when he published that statement, either was ignorant of the true facts of the situation in Russia, which is hard to believe, or he was deliberately deceiving the British people for some purpose which I utterly fail to follow. He cannot escape from that dilemma. There is no escape from it. Either he was ignorant or else he was deceiving the people of this country, and whichever horn of dilemma he seeks to be impailed upon he is not fit to sit on the
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  War Cabinet for a minute longer. I made a charge that the practice of the Government now in the censorship is to pass things, no matter how false, provided that they support and buttress up the view that they desire to cultivate for the moment, and to suppress news however true which works against their views. I have in my hand a copy of the "Daily Telegraph" of 19th March—that is, more than ten days after the interview and some days after the outbreak of the revolution—and in that we are given extracts from letters received from Dr. Dillon, the great correspondent, from Paris. These letters were suppressed. The first of them is dated
  "Paris, 19th January, 1917"
  It was suppressed. The "Daily Telegraph" evidently was not allowed to publish these letters until the 19th March, two months after they were written. The first letter begins:
  "I make hold to tell you this for your own information: Russia is on the verge of revolution. For over two years the country has been in a condition of ferment. The revolutionary elements were all ready to act. just as a mine might explode, if the spark were applied. The Russian mine did not explode because the men who had it in their power to apply the spark held their hands."
  That was Dr. Dillon's warning, written on the 19th January. He proceeds:
  "Few people in Great Britain or France understand' the full meaning of these nominations. The new President of the Council of the Empire (the Upper Chamber) is Shtsheglovitoff—the worst type of a turncoat, sycophant and tool that Russia has produced. He was a Liberal first and opposed the autocracy. Then he became a partisan not only of autocracy, but of every crime that seemed necessary or helpful to the consolidation of the autocracy. He hushed up the murder of Liberals the attempted murder of Witte, in which I should have perished—for we were to have been blown up by bombs. He arranged the great trial of a Jew on the charge of having put a Christian to death for ritual purposes. This trial and its sensational character were first announced by me in the "Daily Telegraph' mouths before it began"
  That is one of the friends of Lord Milner, who comes home and boasts, when giving the great result of his mission, that he has cultivated relations of intimate friendship with a criminal, who is now in gaol awaiting trial for his life, and would have been shot but for the fact that the Russian people, in their great outburst of liberty, have decreed the abolition of the death penalty. I trust that they will keep him in gaol for the rest of his life. That is the gentleman your representative cultivated so warmly. The main result of our mission was the close intimate relations which have resulted between the govern-

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  ing classes. Dr. Dillon wrote again a letter, dated 6th February, from Paris, in which he said:
  "The situation as I sketched it for you in my last letter is unchanged. The Czar, who is by no means stupid, is sawing off the bough on which he is sitting—over an abyss. In words, he is yielding and conciliatory; in deeds be is provocative to a degree that I should hardly have deemed possible to a man who is so shrewd as he."
  He goes on to say that the revolution is absolutely inevitable. That was the truth, and it would have told us here where we were two months before the revolution took place. That was suppressed. Lord Milner comes home with all the honours of his mission on his brow and issues a most false, scandalous, and deceptive interview that is passed by the censorship and sent out to the British people with all the authority of the Government, because people who read things in the newspapers know that the Censor has passed them. There is no getting away from the dilemma that either the Government and Lord Milner were grossly ignorant of what was going on in Russia, or imminent there, or else they deliberately deceived the people, and stupidly deceived them, because I cannot conceive what purpose they had in mind. I said just now that some people in England knew all about this Russian revolution long before it came to a head. I mean to say that they knew that Russia was trembling on the verge of revolution. By some extraordinary piece of good chance, the Russian correspondent of the "Sunday Times," who is an extremely able man, whoever he may be, warned us of it over and over again. He had told the public in this country from private information that a revolution might break out any day. Yet it seemed highly desirable and necessary to keep the country as much as possible in the dark. So much for Lord Milner. I think I have made out a very strong case against sending him on that mission at all, and, secondly, against his conduct in issuing the interview which I have read. Before I pass from that part of my speech I should like to say that the Russian Government has the most appalling task before it. It is already complaining bitterly of the tone of some of the newspapers in this country. I cannot help connecting that with the whole tone of the Milner campaign. The "Times" and several newspapers in this City are doing their best to hamper the new Russian Government. They are charged to-day by
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  one of the correspondents from Russia with circulating in this City rumours and reports against the Russian Government, which have been tracked to the Tsarina and her agents. In my opinion the Government would be much better employed in using their censorship—if they had the courage, but, of course, they have not—in stopping the circulation of that kind of stunt, calculated to injure the Russian Government and trying to hide the truth from the British people.
  Let me come to the second point in my indictment—that is, the one of the conduct of the First Lord of the Admiralty in connection with the submarine campaign. We were promised in categorical and unmistakable language, and in a most solemn manner, that we should be supplied with more information, and more accurate information, than that with which we had ever been furnished before The First Lord adopted an heroic attitude. He was very gloomy and pessimistic, buthe was against withholding the facts. Then, to the amazement of everybody—I have had several letters from journalists on the subject—instead of getting more news, we get far less. The late Government always let us know the names of the ships torpedoed, their tonnage, and the fate of their crews. That was published regularly. The present Government, with their grand new system under which the truth was to be made known, is a fraud—that is a straightforward expression—an absolute fraud, because now we get nothing but the number of ships of over 1,600 tons. It might be 20,000 tons, 40,000 tons, 50,000 tons, or 100,000 tons, but we get no information at all and we are not told the names. If the Government were to come forward and say that they have made up their minds to give no information about the submarined vessels, I do not say I would agree, but I could understand it. But after coming forward and telling the people that you are going to tell them everything, to tell them less than they were told before is not good enough. I put it to the right hon. Gentleman who is responsible for the censorship, How is he going to explain or defend that? Does he intend to maintain that course in future? The result, of course, has been in this case, as in others, that the wildest rumours are afloat and great public alarm prevails. I do not wonder, because no one knows what the truth is, and when everyone knows that submarines are very

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  active and a great many ships are being sunk it is inevitable, if you will not tell the truth, that rumours will be spread, probably exaggerating the state of affairs, and the result is that rumours of a most alarming kind are flying about. That is the second illustration I have of the deliberate policy of the Government to suppress the truth and to circulate falsehoods. I think it is perfectly monstrous.
  Now I come to another case. It is the case of Salonika and the Greek situation. I take that in two departments. In the first place, the question of the whole policy of the Salonika Expedition. If we had complete confidence in the new Cabinet and could shut our eyes, knowing that they would follow the best policy that could be adopted, the present system of government might be tolerable; but no one in this House has that confidence, and to do what they have done, that is to take the case of a great military and political question where politics and policy and military considerations are inextricably bound up together, and to put an extinguisher on it and shut it out from public knowledge until the catastrophe comes, whether it is favourable or unfavourable, is, in my opinion, an outrageous use of the censorship. We know perfectly well that a great struggle is going on behind the scenes as to whether the Salonika Expedition shall be abandoned or not and also as to whether, if it is kept on, it will be made a reality. Further, no one knows anything about the policy of Greece, which is vital to the Salonika Expedition. Rumours have reached some of us that Greek bands have attacked our troops and that ugly and savage encounters, characterised by very great outrages, have been taking place between the French troops and the Greeks. I hope it is not true, but I am afraid it is. We do not know in the least what is the situation in Athens. I believe it to be extremely bad. I am told by one gentleman who says he is very well informed that we have carried over a large part of the Greek Army by day, and when night falls they all come back and are now beginning to appear in the shape of the well-known Greek insurgent bands. That is the kind of story one hears. But we do not know. No information is allowed to be published. I have talked this thing over with men who have more knowledge and better means of judging than I have. I have, always regarded the
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  conduct and policy of the Government in connection with the whole of the Salonika Expedition as nothing short of moonstruck madness. Either we ought to have abandoned the Salonika Expedition long ago or to have occupied Greece as a basis for that Expedition.
  This is one of the reasons why I take this opportunity of making this strong-protest against the disgraceful and infamous use of the censorship in connection with the situation in Salonika. Last year 60,000 of our men were down, although they were unable to do any serious fighting, with perhaps the most malignant form of malaria in the world. Now we are approaching another summer. We have now, all counted, a very large force—I should say over 400,000 men. Are these men to be left there in the delta of the Struma and the Vardar to die like flies? There has been talk about draining the marshes of these rivers. I was talking the other day to a gentleman who has been there for months, and he says it is folly and nonsense. You cannot drain the rivers because when the snows melt in the spring they flood the entire plain, and our unfortunate soldiers, who are not making, and apparently are not going to be allowed to make, any real offensive, are tied to this wretched pestilential swamp. What is the dark band—it is not military but political—that leaves our unhappy men to die in this swamp, and does not allow them to do what I am certain they are eager to do, and that is to get at the enemy? In God's name solve this Greek question in one way or the other. There is the whole of Thessaly and Portovolo and the whole of that great fertile and most healthy country open to us as a base. What is the moral difference between occupying a pestilential swamp at Salonika and taking such a base as will enable our troops to drive the enemy from Monastir and up into the mountains? I was talking to a man the other day who has been all over this ground, and who has been throughout the thickest of the fighting for the last two years, and he told me that in his deliberate conviction it would be easy for the Army that is there at present, if they got fair play and were allowed to do it, to march towards Monastir and cut the railway.
  If you cut that railway the War is over. I do not believe the War would last a month after the railway was cut. Every day and every night, this gentleman told

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  me, long trainloads of large cannon and munitions of war go on to Constantinople from Prussia to the Dardanelles, and other long trainloads crowded with Turkish soldiers go up to the assistance of the German troops on the Rumanian frontier. If you cut that railway you would paralyse Turkey at once, and she is out of the War and the Straits are open, and to this hour the people of this country have never been allowed to penetrate by a single hair's breadth into the dark mystery which involves the whole of that expedition. Are you going to go on wasting tens of thousands of tonnage, which this country can ill spare in maintaining a body of men to die in a swamp and do nothing, or are you going to allow that expedition to take the field and do the work that it was sent out to do? At all events the people of this country are entitled to know something of the Salonika Expedition. Every day we have long telegrams from the Western front—the Westerners and the War Office take care of that. Every time a village is taken we all rejoice and are proud to see what has happened. It loses nothing of its importance in telegraphy. Everything that is done is published to the world. But these unhappy men in Salonika, whom the War Office is determined it will not allow to do anything because they are not on the main front where all the glory is to be reserved for the main body of the Army, are banished. They are cut off from us, cut off as it were from civilisation. It is a perfectly outrageous use of the censorship to boycott our own men and practically to drive out of our memory this expedition. It is one of the most scandalous things that the Government has engaged in, and that abuse has greatly increased since the present Government came into power. I spoke just now of the dark hand, and I shall continue to raise this question on every available opportunity until I get an answer to the question: "What is the influence that has done this thing?" There is some mysterious influence. Everybody who has come back from Salonika has the same story to tell of the mysterious influence concerning this Salonika Expedition. What is it that protects the King of Greece? We are told by people somewhat behind the scenes that the influence which protected the King of Greece was the Czar. That has been freely stated. If that is so, I think it is a most sinister thing, because then the
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  dark hand could be easily identified. The gentlemen who are prepared to open the Eastern front and to let the troops of the Kaiser in to maintain their rule in Russia did not want the Salonika Expedition to succeed, and did not want to cut the railway and end the War in that way. If those dark influences were at work they have now been removed. If that be so, let the Government of this country take its courage in both hands. Let them either abandon the Salonika Expedition or make it a reality. The point I want to drive home is that the boycott ought to be taken off. We ought to be allowed to get news of this expedition. We ought not to have a large body of our troops there, treated as though they were outlaws and marooned in this district as if the whole Empire had forgotten their existence and took no interest in their career or in their achievements. We ought to have a decision from the Government one way or the other. Let them make this expedition a reality during the coming summer, or let them clear out of Salonika and get into Thessaly and Porto Volo. Let them boldly attack the enemy, or else abandon this expedition, with its loss of human life and its demands upon the tonnage of the British Navy. One word more, and then I have finished my indictment. I will give another instance of the one-sided conduct of the Government. I have here the third of a series of articles of an extremely interesting character that were being published in a paper failed the "National Weekly," and entitled "The Truth about the Greek Situation." These articles give certain statements on behalf of the King of Greece, explaining how it was that he adopted the course which he has taken. I do not sympathise with these articles, though they are extremely interesting They show that the King of Greece had a great deal to say for himself. Though I have bitterly denounced him, I always said that he had a grievance, because he offered to join us. He said that if we would land 150,000 troops in Salonika and would convince him that we meant business and did not intend to run away he would mobilise the Greek Army and join us. He did offer to join us; but that is not my point. My point is that this is a cleverly written article, and I cannot find in it a single word which justifies suppression. All that one can find in it is that it states certain facts which the

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  Government do not like to be known, not that they injure the military situation in the least, but that they show that the Government, in the opinion of the writer, made certain very bad blunders.
  Seeing that in the early days of the Greek situation the Prime Minister declared that the whole Balkan business was one prolonged muddle and a series of disastrous blunders, I think it is rather hard that an English journalist should have his articles suppressed because he gives what he says is the truth about the relations between ourselves and Greece. I do not pretend to know whether his statement is true or not, but I can say that the statement is very interesting and goes a long way towards explaining how it came about that the King of Greece should be so obstinate as he has been in withholding his support from the Allies. He offered his support, but he came to the conclusion from our operations that we never meant business at Salonika, and that if he joined us we would skedaddle when it suited our purpose, and he would be left, as he said, to the fate of Belgium, Serbia, and Roumania, which he said was going to be destroyed. He was a true prophet there. I did not believe he was a true prophet, but he was. Every single small country that has joined the Allies has been wiped out of existence, and he says, "You must not blame me if before I submit my people to this awful fate which has overtaken every one of your small Allies, and whom you have abandoned one after the other, I insist that I must see before my eyes a sufficiently strong expedition. In that event I will put my Army into the field." I do not say whether that is true at all. Although this action does not quite come up to the stupidity of the policy of the Government in regard to the Milner mission. I think it is wrong for the Government to be afraid of the statement of a case because they dislike some of the facts. If the censorship is carried out on the lines which I have now described, I shall raise this subject again and again.
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir G. Cave): I think I had better rise at once before this Debate passes to another subject, and say a few words in answer to the hon. Gentleman. I have listened very carefully to the whole of his speech. He has done, as I understand it, two things.
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  He has made an attack upon the censorship in this country, and he has also made an attack, first, upon the policy of the Government in sending Lord Milner to Petrograd; and, secondly, upon the leaders of the Army for their conduct of the campaign in Salonika. I am only responsible, in so far as I have to answer in this House, for the Press Bureau, and I propose to say a few words in reply to the hon. Member's attack upon that institution. I am not responsible for the other matters of policy to which he referred, and he will not expect me to dwell upon them or deal with them at length. He has made some strong statements against the censorship and the Press Bureau. He stated that the censorship is one-sided; that it suppresses facts simply because the Government dislikes those facts, and encourages other statements which are untrue. That is a general statement, and I believe it to be wholly unfounded. I know something now of the principles upon which the censorship is conducted, and I say without fear of contradiction by anyone who knows anything about it that the principle upon which statements for the Press are censored by the Bureau is that they are either wholly untrue or, if true, are of such a nature that if published they would interfere with the conduct of the War or prejudice our relations with our Allies. Those are the grounds upon which statements are usually censored. That being so I listened very carefully for some evidence, or some statement in support of the general charges which were made, and I made a note of the specific statements which the hon. Gentleman has made. First he says that general directions are given to the Press as to what they should publish, and he went on to say that pressure is put on the Press to publish these statements and not to publish others. I do not believe that the Press of this country would submit to any such attempt if it were made. It is inconceivable to me that any Government would venture to say to the Press or indicate to it in any way, "This is our view Publish it. If you do not, you will suffer." Yet that is the charge which the hon. Member made.
  Mr. DILLON: No. It is better to be quite clear. I said that a custom had arisen of issuing long documents to the Press advising the Press to support certain views. I said specifically that the Press might take no notice of these state-

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  ments, taut I said that the Censor has it always in his power—I do not say that he would try to do it—to annoy and worry the Press.
  Sir G. CAVE: That is the statement which I had in mind. The hon. Gentleman said truly that the Press are not bound to publish these statements.
  Mr. DILLON: Or to act on them.
  Sir G. CAVE: But he went on to say that the Press knew very well that if they did not act on them, matters would be made unpleasant for them. Therefore it amounted to a charge of coercion by the Censor. That is the statement which I am repudiating. I believe it to be wholly unfounded. I believe that such pressure, if it were attempted, would not be submitted to. If the hon. Gentleman had given some evidence in support of his statement I would attach more importance to it than I do at the present moment.
  Mr. G. FABER: Before the right hon. Gentleman assumed his present important office there was the case of the "Globe."
  Sir G. CAVE: The "Globe" published a statement which was not true.
  Mr. PRINGLE: It has been republished since on the authority of a Noble Lord.
  Sir G. CAVE: It was absolutely untrue and it was very injurious to us in the conduct of the War. Steps were at once taken against the "Globe" in order to put an end to the practice. The censorship was exercised in order to prevent a publication which was untrue and would prejudice the conduct of the War.
  9.0 P.M.
  Then the hon. Gentleman went on to refer to rumours which were current on Sunday last. What has that to do with the matter? The rumours were untrue. If any of the Press brought them to the Press Bureau and said, "May we publish this?" they would have been told, I have no doubt, "These rumours are untrue. You had better not put them in." What is there to complain of in that? Nothing was done to spread the rumours, nothing except to guide the Press by informing them of what was true and what was not. I cannot see any possible cause of complaint in that. The hon. Member proceeded to deal with the mission of Lord Milner to Petrograd. His complaint was, I think, that Lord Milner's public speeches in Petrograd were suppressed in this country. I myself read in this country some reports of Lord Milner's
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  speeches in Petrograd. In fact the hon. Gentleman read them himself, for he commented on them, which shows that his statement is not wholly true. Is it true in any particular? Was there even one speech of Lord Milner's made in Petrograd and telegraphed to this country which was not published here? The hon. Member will not say that there was. Yet unless he does so his case wholly fails because his case against the censorship is that it suppressed reports of Lord Milner's speeches. I should like him to instance even one speech of Lord Milner's which was telegraphed to this country and was not published here. I know of none. I have made inquiries and, so far as I can ascertain, no single speech of Lord Milner's which was sent to this country was withheld from publication. If that is so that is an end of that charge.
  The hon. Gentleman wont on to refer to Lord Milner, in order, I think, to show that a mistake had been made in sending a very distinguished member of the Cabinet as our envoy to Petrograd. I do not think that that statement will tend to improve our relationship with Russia. I think that it is very much more calculated to do us injury than to do us good. The hon. Gentleman attempted to make the House believe that Lord Milner entered into relations with only one class in Petrograd. I believe that to be absolutely unfounded. It was his plain duty to enter into relations with the Russian Ministers who were in power at the time. Nobody representing this country and going to Russia could take any other course, and naturally, and as a matter of course, he must have had conversations with those who had charge of the foreign affairs of Russia and the conduct of the War. There can be no doubt that our Envoy was bound to take that course, even though the internal policy in Russia may not commend itself to the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. DILLON: Did it commend itself to you?
  Sir G. CAVE: It is not my duty at all to comment on it. I am dealing with the attack on Lord Milner, which was wholly unfounded and unjustified. I go further, and say that everybody in the House knows that the relations between Russia, the mass of the Russian nation, and this country are of the happiest possible character. No nation in Europe stands

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  higher in the whole body of Russian public opinion than this country, and to endeavour to embroil us and to throw doubt upon the action we have taken in going into consultation with Russian Ministers is to do a disservice and not a service to this country. At any rate, I cannot see any ground in that fact for an attack on Lord Milner or on the Government, and still less for an attack on the censorship.
  The next point is that the hon. Gentleman says that an article by Dr. Dillon was not allowed to be published in this country for some time after it had been written. If so, I think that the extract which the hon. Gentleman gave from the article justifies the refusal to allow it to be published, because according to him this article referred to a Minister of an Allied Power as being a turncoat and a sycophant, and it went on to charge him with a series of murders. Is it really suggested that an article that makes charges of that kind against a Minister in control of the country of one of our Allies if published in this country would do no harm to our relations with these Allies? The quotation which the hon. Member made was reason enough for the course which he says was taken with regard to this article. The hon. Gentleman then went on to a second specific point.
  Mr. DILLON: The right hon. Gentleman has not alluded to the interview with Lord Milner, published in the "Times" of 6th March.
  Sir G. CAVE: I am not competent to say whether that account of an interview with a Minister of the Crown was accurate, but, if it was, I do not think it would have been the duty of the Press Bureau to suppress a report of that interview. I do not take the view which has been put forward, that we must pass everything that we like and suppress everything that we dislike. I think we are bound to allow the publication of a statement which is put forward as being authentic unless it interferes with the conduct of the War. I have not had an opportunity of seeing the account or verifying the statement, nor can I say whether Lord Milner's views were correctly reported.
  I proceed to deal with the attack upon the censorship for not having published more news as to attacks by submarines upon British and neutral and Allied ships.
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  That certainly does not concern the censorship. These accounts are issued by the Admiralty, and it is quite impossible for the Censor to take it upon himself to reduce the statements made by the Admiralty, and still less to ask the Admiralty to make them fuller than they are. At all events, that part of the hon. Gentleman's attack does not concern the Department with which I am concerned. I have very little sympathy with Members of the House who complain that their curiosity as to military matters is not satisfied because information is not given in the public Press which they would like to have. The information which is given is necessarily regulated by military considerations, first and foremost, and I have no kind of sympathy with the feeling of a man who, knowing that the authorities in control, whether of the Army or the Navy, consider it right, in the interests of the conduct of the War, and in order to prevent information from reaching the enemy, limit the publication of information, complain of that limit being imposed. We are bound to accept the statement of the Minister who tells us that to give either the names or the number of ships which are attacked or sunk or to give the tonnage or other information would be injurious to the interests of the country. To give all that information does no good in the world to the country, and it might do us a great harm, for it at once goes to our enemies abroad. I venture to think that is the answer to all these complaints. The hon. Gentleman said that less information is given now than was given before, but it is only recently that the submarine menace has developed, both around our shores and at considerable distances, and it is for the Admiralty to consider and decide what information to give.
  Sir S. COLLINS: Is not the First Lord of the Admiralty giving more information?
  Sir G. CAVE: He may be giving more than he has given before, but whether that is so or not I really do not care. I am satisfied, and I believe most Members are satisfied, that the First Lord has given all the information which can be given without injuring our interests in the conduct of the War. The last point taken by the hon. Member was about Salonika. He complains that he has not had suffi-

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  cient news from that theatre of war. There again that has nothing to do with the Press Bureau.
  Mr. DILLON: I think it has.
  Sir G. CAVE: I think not But whether it is so or not, the only point for me is, and I cannot act upon any other, that not all the statements which are made can be published without injury to our Army. That is the only thing I care about. If a statement is submitted which would injure us in the conduct of the War it is better that it should not be published. Even though the hon. Member may be dissatisfied, I would far rather have him dissatisfied than that a statement should be published which may do harm to this country. The hon. Member referred to rumours he has heard, all kinds of pessimistic rumours, as to a coming catastrophe and soon, and he complains that these rumours are not published It does not occur to the hon. Gentlenifin that these rumours may be wholly untrue, and if so what would be the use of allowing rumours which are unfounded to be published in the Press? I listened to the hon. Gentleman's speech and I heard him make many statements which I know to be untrue, and I think that to have published them in the Press would have done us harm. The hon. Gentleman exercising his right makes those statements in this House at his own risk. No one can prevent him, no one would desire to prevent him from saying what he thinks is right, but would he say—can he fairly say—that when articles are submitted to the Censor which contain false statements it is not their duty to consider whether those statements ought or ought not to be published?
  I do not propose to follow the hon. Member into his advice as to how we had better conduct the War. He maintains that we ought to occupy Greece, and to go on to Uskub, and to cut the railway somewhere between Nish and Constantinople, or at some other point, and so end the War. If these things had been possible they would have occurred to the Commander-in-Chief in Salonika, and, with all respect to the hon. Member, I prefer the judgment of the military officer in command to the advice that he has given us.
  Mr. DILLON: How do you know that it did not occur to him, and he was not allowed to do it?
  Sir G. CAVE: I do not think it worth while to follow that up. I think that the country has confidence in the commanders in the field and knows that they receive the full support of the Government at home. I do not think it necessary to follow the hon. Gentleman into that part of his speech any further. I think I have said enough to discharge my duty, which was to repudiate and, as far as possible to disprove any statement as legards the Press Bureau or the censorship, that there is a desire to allow the publication only of that which they like and to suppress that which they do not like. There is no ground for such a suggestion, nor is there for the suggestion that statements which are untrue are either encouraged or allowed to be published in the Press with the authority of the Press Bureau. On that point I venture to submit to hon. Members that the charge has not been made out.

  NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND EXPENDITURE.
  Major GODFREY COLLINS: I do not intend to follow the right hon. and learned Gentleman on the question of censorship, except to say this that the policy of the First Lord of the Admiralty differs in some degree from the policy which he advocated in Opposition. If, as I can well understand, circumstances have since arisen which have caused him very properly to have changed his mind. I hope he will come down to the House and tell us that. in view of the present situation, the facts he is now making public are what he thinks best in the public interest. The Amendment of which I have given notice—["That in view of the continued growth of the National Debt, there is urgent need for increased control by the House of Commons and the Treasury over Government Departments, their staff, and their expenditure"—is divided into three heads. It refers to the growth of the National Debt; secondly, to the lack of control by the House of Commons and the Treasury: and, thirdly, to the expenditure of public Departments. To those three points I invite the attention of the House, and I hope to be able to offer a practical contribution to the Debate. A hon. Friend said ironically to me the other day that if the War lasted much longer all we should have left would be the Consolidated Fund and the National

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  Debt; meaning thereby that everyone will either be a salaried servant of the State or living on the interest of the money he has lent to the Government. We are moving straight in that direction. Twelve months ago we were faced with the theory that the War would be brought to an end by the attrition of men, and we are faced to-day with the reality of famine and debt. Why is this? is it not because of the probable waste of our resources by the late and by the present Government? Every shipowner knows of the waste which has been going on for many months in ships, and every manufacturer knows of similar waste in Government Departments. This new national luxury of Government State Departments will, if it continues, smother the State. Their number grows fast and their cost comes out of the pockets of the taxpayers. The waste of men, involving a waste of expenditure and of energy, with the logical sequence of national debt, goes on all round. To-day we are confronted with a National Debt of 4,000 millions, on which yearly interest alone will be 200 millions, and at the moment a 5s. Income Tax, practically a quarter of the income of Income Tax payers; so that the nation is disposing of its productive capital, which is being diverted to unproductive purposes. That is the reason for the present abundant prosperity.
  The position is similar to that of a man who, owning a large estate, mortgages it up to the hilt and disperses his money in countless directions. Sooner or later debt stares him in the face, and his income and credit have disappeared while he has diffused great prosperity all round. When soldiers and sailors return they will hear of these huge profits and high wages, and they will be asked to share equally with those at home the heavy burdens of the future. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that our resources are not unlimited, but we are waging war on the unlimited liability principle without clear direction as to how our resources are being expended. If the country is to stay the course, much more care should be exercised in the financial and economic position which the War has brought in its train. It is true our revenue is 500 millions, but the abounding revenue is the product of our abounding national expenditure, and the abounding revenue to-day is no criterion of the future. When the millions of public expenditure cease,
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  where will the revenue be found to meet the interest of the debt and the expenses of the Government. In view of high prices of the necessities of life, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not likely to turn to indirect taxation as a source of potential revenue, but will be forced to rely upon direct taxation after the War to meet the new debt and pensions charge, because the working classes, deprived of war work and high wages, will be in no condition to accept taxes on food and clothing. Did a nation ever make sacrifices so freely as this nation has made during the last thirty months and a Government ever expend the nation's resources so recklessly as they have done during during that time. In May, 1916, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in introducing his Budget, told us that our expenditure for this present financial year would be 3¾ million pounds per day. He said he would be disappointed if serious economies could not be effected and that large total reduced. The present expenditure is £7,000,000 per day. During the last twelve months our National Debt has increased by 40 per cent. and the rate of interest which the Exchequer requires to pay has increased by 15 per cent. To-day our National Debt is 4,000 millions. It is rising steadily. It is true that our loans to our Allies and to our Dominions amount to a thousand millions and I feel sure that they will endeavour to repay, to the best of their ability, the interest and in time, the capital sum. But we cannot overlook the fact that our Allies may be in great financial straits and that through the stress and strain after the War the interest on the money may not be immediately forthcoming. This money has been advanced by the people of Great Britain, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer must face that fact and raise the necessary revenue. But there is another way of looking at it. If we subtract this thousand millions of National Debt, our present debt to the public of Great Britain is £3,000,000,000. Even if the War ended to-morrow a further thousand millions of borrowed money would be required to pay for demobilisation, as only gradually can our natrenal expenditure be reduced, and therefore we fall back again upon this figure of £4,000,000,000 as the sum of our National Debt to-day. I am assuming in these calculations that the War is coming to an end to-morrow, while we know every day that prices are steadily

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  rising, and in view of these few remarks I do not think the House will think me pessimistic in what I am saying.
  Whereas twelve months ago the Chancellor of the Exchequer reckoned that he would require £165,000,000 for the interest on the National Debt, Sinking Fund, and Pensions, we start the coming financial year having to find £200,000,000 alone for the interest on the National Debt, and allowing a half per cent. for Sinking Fund accounts for another £20,000,000. Then we come to the most painful of all additions to our expenditure, the amount required for pensions, and according to the official figures this is some £25,000,000 or £30,000,000 a year. Adding these three figures together we get a total of £250,000,000 to be paid for the interest on National Debt, Sinking Fund, and Pensions, or a total increased charge during the year of £85,000,000. It has been calculated out that our total capital of stored up wealth amounts to £16,000,000,000. It is quite certain that we could not liquidate a quarter of that amount, but we have succeeded in borrowing a quarter of that amount and have turned a quarter of that amount into National Debt. The question I ask the Government is this: How far can we go along in that manner? The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in May, 1915, told us that the amount of money brought under review by the Income Tax assessors was £1,150,000,000, and that the amount on which tax was paid was £970,000,000. If a further 10 per cent., equal to 2s. in the £, graduated both ways, up and down, was put upon the income brought under the review of the Income Tax assessors, the amount raised would be about £100,000,000 a year, equal to the increased charges which will be required to meet the interest on the National Debt and the pensions. Hon. Members may form their own opinions as to the amount of Income Tax which will be required in the future, but so far as figures at my disposal permit me to form a judgment, an Income Tax of 6s. 6d., graduated up to 12s. 6d., will be necessary to find the money to pay the interest on the Debt, Sinking Fund, and pensions. That is the reason why we invite the Government to face the question of expenditure in their public Departments.
  I have referred to the present financial position. May I come to the method adopted by the Government in spending the hard-earned money of the public? Here I turn to the Report issued by the
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  Comptroller and Auditor-General of the Navy, on page 14 of which he refers to the prices paid for coal. The House will remember that in July, 1915, a Bill was passed to limit the increase in price to 4s. a ton which was to be charged to the public. Business men would assume that the Admiralty would not pay such a large increase, but instead, and here I use the exact words of the Comptroller and Auditor-General,
  "The prices paid by the Admiralty have generally been higher than would have been payable had the Act been applicable."
  In other words, the Admiralty paid a larger sum than 4s. increase for the coal used by the Navy during that year. On page 15 of the Report he refers to the system adopted by the Admiralty in placing their contracts. Everyone knew that during the years 1915 and 1916 to place contracts on the basis of the net cost plus a percentage was an absurd basis. Everybody knew it led to extravagance and removed every check to safeguard the public purse, but it was not until thirty months after the War started that the Treasury, at the instigation of the Public Accounts Committee, suggested to the Admiralty that their present system should be dropped and that contractors' profits should be fixed, and even now the Admiralty have not agreed to this proposal, which I hope the House will note was first suggested to the Treasury by a Committee of this House. I will now turn to page 16 of this Report, where the Comptroller and Auditor-General refers to the prices paid by the Admiralty for cordite. The House will quite appreciate that during the first fifteen months of the War very large quantities of cordite must have been ordered by the Admiralty from their contractors, and that these large quantities would have permitted the manufacturers to reduce their charges by enabling them to spread their output over a large quantity of goods, and so reduce their on-cost charges. What do we find? According to this Report, the prices paid in 1915 and in the later months of 1914 were the same as during the pre-War period. It was apparent that there was a ring or an understanding among these contractors to maintain the prices they received from the Admiralty. I would like to read to the House, if I may, the words of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, on page 16 of the Report. He states:
  "It was observed that towards the end of 1915 the firms tendering for these supplies had offered for the

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  year 1916 a reduction of a penny a pound on the then existing prices, but that the Admiralty, apparently at the suggestion of the Ministry of Munitions, refrained from accepting that offer."
  In other words, towards the end of 1915, these firms agreed to reduce their price by 1d. a pound, and let the House recollect that at the time when wages were higher than during 1914, and all through 1915, they were getting these higher prices, but the Ministry of Munitions evidently came to the aid of the Admiralty in this matter, and the Admiralty refused to accept the reduced price. I have, I think, quoted enough cases from this account to justify my words about the method adopted by the Admiralty in the expenditure of public money. While referring to this subject it is very striking to observe that on four occasions in this Report the Comptroller and Auditor-General states:
  "My inquiry has not yet been replied to"
  It seems to me that the Admiralty are seeking out some justification for their laxity in this matter. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, who represents the Government at present may give us some assurance that business men are going to be employed in future with the supreme power of placing contracts in which public money is involved at the Admiralty. Turn now for a moment to another Department where a large waste has been going on. No doubt other hon. Members will be able to cite instances of waste in other Departments. I turn to the Ministry of Munitions for another example of waste in men and commodities. This has been going on during the last twelve months. Weeks after a certain type of gun was discarded by the military, for good military reasons, the manufacture of shells for this discarded type of gun continued. The Ministry of Munitions were occupied in manufacturing waste every day! These few instances, I think, are sufficient for my purpose; yet let me refer also to one new Department—the Ministry of National Service. This Department has enlisted 150,000 men, and by so doing they have created unrest and uncertainty in the minds of these men. At present, so far as I can understand, they have few situations to fill.
  Let the Government, instead of lecturing the public in the matter of economy, lecture themselves. In respect to the overpowering National Debt I have given chapter and verse as to the waste of public
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  money; also waste in the manufacture of commodities by two great Departments of the State. The practical question is: What can the House of Commons do to help the Government to wage this War effectively, and meet the difficulties which the War has brought? Ministers in this, and in the late Government, paid, and pay, lip-service to economy. In reality few care. Control over expenditure by the House of Commons is gone. Ministers, when questioned, place the responsibility for expenditure on the House of Commons. That is a shallow reply to a deep question. Treasury control has gone. Treasury control has disappeared, if it ever existed, over these new Departments. I hope the Government will deny that statement; and I challenge its accuracy. Have the Government power to check expenditure in the new State Departments which have been created during the last four months? We are drifting to a six shillings Income Tax, and the country asks, and is entitled to ask: "Are we getting value for every man employed by the State to-day? Are we getting value for all the commodities which are used by the State in their various Departments?" The supreme object of the House of Commons is control of expenditure, but the necessary knowledge is deliberately withheld. Without knowledge control cannot be effected. Without publicity the facts cannot be known. Without discussion the present position cannot be remedied. Publicity in these matters is not a danger, but a safeguard. Honest finance can never be achieved without publicity. Obscurity and lack of knowledge cover up mistakes, and enable those mistakes to be repeated. Strategy is common-sense applied to war. Unless the cost is known, how can success be achieved? Even that knowledge without the creation of a right spirit of economy cannot be effective.
  I suggest that the expenditure of £7,000,000 per day should be classified under two heads, and that this classification should be applied in a geographical sense. Omitting the cost of the men in the firing line and on the high seas, we ought to know the cost of the remainder. Our expenditure should be divided under effective and non-effective heads. Omitting the men in the firing line and on the high seas, are we getting value for the men we are thus employing? That is the kernel of the whole position. As the House well knows, in business the cost

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  of an article is determined by two factors. There is first the wages paid for productive labour, and secondly the on-cost charges, wages, machinery, etc. It is the aim of every business man to reduce the second of these two items. My suggestion is to apply-that broad line of demarkation to our national expenditure. If applied, the proper atmosphere created, and the matter pressed well home, I am positive that this expenditure could be reduced by one or one and a half millions per day. The Cabinet are failing to reduce expenditure. I suggest that they should call in the assistance of the House of Commons. Several subtle psychological influences which are a check on expenditure in the past have disappeared. The Government of the day does not require to find the money to pay, as the money is borrowed. Even the check on private firms has disappeared, as the Admiralty instances I have quoted show. The present expenditure has risen through State management, without check, aggravated by scarcity and high prices.
  A summary of expenditure under the headings I have mentioned would enable the War Council, and the Committee, which, I think, should be appointed from this House, to compare the cost of our expeditions abroad, in men, commodities, torpedo-boats, and trawlers. This analysis would show that to produce a given effect, say, at Timbuctoo, the cost would be so much, and to produce the same effect at Ypres, the cost would be also so much less. A comparison could be made with the value of this expenditure at a time of exhausting resources with the potential result which might be achieved. Further, I think the Government should appoint someone, a member of the War Council, as controller of public expenditure. This matter has completely got out of hand. It is only by some drastic step that the reality and seriousness of the situation will be understood. It must be brought home, not only to Departments in London, but to every officer, to every employer who is employing men, to everyone who is using commodities. Let the question be to them: Can a £1 commodity do instead of one at £2? Can four men do the work of five? Economy in practice can only be effected if a proper atmosphere is created. It must percolate through the head down to his thousands of assistants. Effective economy cannot be imposed from without; it must start from within. Then the
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  thousands of assistants will take their lead from the chief, because if it is imposed from without instead, they will spend their time in trying to defeat the foreign aggressor in the shape of an outside authority.
  As I have said before, this War will be won on margins, and the Food Controller is bringing this home to the people. Reduction of our non-effective expenditure will increase our effective strength. Efficiency regardless of economy may have been justifiable during the first six months of the War, but will anyone seek to justify that position to-day? I pleaded for control in this House eighteen months ago. The Government of the day then turned a deaf ear to my appeal. I hope we shall have a different response from the Government to-night. I have pleaded for knowledge. I have pleaded that the Government should create the true spirit of economy in Government Departments. Without complete knowledge I do not see how a true and correct policy can be determined, and without a correct spirit in administration that policy will fail in action. This is no party, but a national matter. The interests of the State are in jeopardy whilst our present expenditure continues. I urged eighteen months ago, while the Income Tax was only 2s. 6d. in the £, that it should be heavily increased. It is to-day 5s. in the £, and from what I have said earlier in my speech we are faced with a further increase in the immediate future. This problem can only be solved if the Government create the spirit. It is for the House of Commons to impose their will in this matter on the Government. The pressure can come from no other source. They have not to go to the taxpayer and ask for increased burdens. They can place the burdens if they will upon posterity, but I appeal to the Government to face this matter, to create this spirit, to place someone on the War Council as a controller of public expenditure, and to call to their councils a Committee of this House to impress upon every Government Department the vital need of restricting expenditure and conserving the national interest.
  Mr. LEIF JONES: The House is, I think, indebted to my hon. Friend for having directed our attention to this question of national economy, and I do not think that anyone who has really considered the facts and the figures will think that he has put an exaggerated case

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  before the House. I think in all the figures that he has given to us he has stated his case with studious moderation, and he has rightly placed in the very forefront of his case the growth of the National Debt. We are to-day spending not our income but our capital. We are not in the position of a rich man spending out of his superfluities. Every day the capital indebtedness of the country is growing. Every day we increase the debt. Every day we are moving along the road which, if continued far enough, must bring this country face to face with ruin. On the showing of the Government, during February and March the national expenditure has been at the rate of £7,260,000 a day. We were told when the Supplementary Vote of Credit was brought in that that was only for a short period, owing to the special demands for ships and for some other items, and when we entered upon the new year the daily expenditure would be considerably diminished. We shall enter on the new year, however, as I think I can show, with an expenditure not, it is true, of £7,000,000 a day, but with a daily expenditure which I work out—and I should be glad to be corrected if I am wrong—of £6,600,000. The Vote of Credit which has been taken for the first two months of the new year is £350,000,000. That was to cover sixty days, which is at the rate of £5,800,000. But there is a great deal of expenditure which does not come out of the Vote of Credit, and that cannot be put at less than £800,000 a day. The interest on the debt, which, as my hon. Friend has said, is close upon £4,000,000,000, I reckon at £195,000,000 a year. The Civil Services and Revenue Departments require about £100,000,000—I am dealing in round figures—so that of expenditure which does not come out of the Vote of Credit at all there will be £800,000 a day, giving a total for the new year of £6,600,000 a day. If that is continued for twelve months—and I will not put the proposition which my hon. Friend put of supposing the War is going to end to-morrow; it is far better not to say this War will come to an end before this day twelve months, and we had better make our arrangements on the assumption that the War is going to continue than that it is coming to an early close—we may take it the expenditure will not be less than £6,600,000 a day, and it is more likely to increase; but, assuming
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  that it is £6,600,000 a day, the expenditure for the year will be £2,400,000,000, and assuming that our revenue remains at what it is to-day, or even allowing that we have a revenue next year of £600,000,000, you will add during the year not less than £1,800,000,000 to our National Debt. That means to say that to the National Debt, which on 31st March is put at £3,900,000,000, you are going to add £1,800,000,000 at the present rate of expenditure, which would take you to £5,700,000,000. I should be surprised if in the next financial year there is a smaller National Debt than £6,000,000,000. That is the case which we present to the Government for their consideration.
  The late Chancellor of the Exchequer, in presenting his Budget about a year ago, said if we continued at the rate of £5,000,000 a day, he thought the nation could bear the strain for as long as he conceived the War might last; but I ask the Government and I ask my hon. Friend who represents the Treasury, do they think that this Government can face a war of indefinite duration if the expenditure is to continue at £6,600,000 per day? It is because I am convinced that the country cannot indefinitely stand that strain that I associate myself with the demand made upon the Government by the hon. Members opposite to take some further steps than they have yet taken to diminish the expenditure and bring it within more reasonable bounds. We are on the road to ruin as things are. I know it is an easy road to travel, because all check upon our expenditure is gone from a man the moment he begins to spend his capital and begins dipping into his purse, represented by the capital instead of by income. The man who is spending in this way his capital is inclined to think that he has apparently unlimited money, but the Government are now in the position of running further into debt with an unlimited purse, and no form of expenditure is blocked on the ground that we cannot avoid it.
  I ask the Government to tell us of any instance in which they, as a Government, have blocked an enterprise on the ground that it was too costly to undertake. I know there have been some limitations in the building of new post offices, or a few public buildings of that kind, but this has been more than made up for by the hotels they have taken over and the expensive new Departments which have been created.

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  As long as a man is spending a limited income he feels a check upon what he does, and he will refrain from an undertaking because he is going to exceed his income. We are told that the Government will not exceed in their expenditure the capital of this country, although they are making such large drafts. I would, however, remind them, and especially my hon. Friend who represents the Treasury, that an effective check used to exist, because when additional expenditure was incurred new taxation had to be proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he used to dislike proposing it very much. That check is gone, and we are now at the absolute unfettered will of the Government in matters of expenditure, small and great, both in matters of policy and administration. The Government have elected to govern this country without the House of Commons, and we have little or no control left.
  Mr. FABER: So did the last Government.
  10.0 P.M.
  Mr. JONES: I am not making a charge against this Government in particular. I believe the same charge is true of the last Government, although in a somewhat less degree. We have got further on that road, and we have little or no control. Civil enterprises are undertaken without the House having any part in them. We hear of them after we are committed to the policy, and if a Bill is necessary we may be asked to give our sanction. [An Hon. MEMBEB: "All stages in one day!"] I would like to know how far has the Treasury been consulted in regard to the new idea of purchasing the liquor trade of this country by the Government as a productive enterprise? We are told in the Press that that is the decision of the Government, but we have never been told it in the House of Commons, we have never been asked here if we wish to indulge in a trading venture of this kind in the middle of a war, and we have never been asked whether we wish to add £300,000,000 or £400,000,000 of a liability to this country at the present time. I instance that in passing. I suggest that if the Government wish to diminish expenditure it would be well to refrain from expensive enterprises which do not immediately conduce to the better conduct of the War. If we do not control policy, neither do we
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  control the administration of that policy, and that again is wholly in the hands of the Government.
  It is quite true that there are some things required for the service of a country like ours which must be done whatever their cost may be. I admit that, but I submit that the number of those things is very small, and I further submit that the cost is an essential element even in deciding upon a warlike enterprise. I beseech the Government—there was a time when the House of Commons did not beseech the Government in matters of expenditure, but they ordered, and I am sorry the House of Commons has yielded its power to the Government in this matter. We stand here in a position of absolute helplessness in face of the Government which is settling its own policy behind our back as well as its own expenditure, and they come to us merely for a formal expression, or rather for a fulfilment of the ancient formality, because the money cannot be got except by the formal consent of the House. [An HON. MEMBER: "You can refuse supplies!"] How is the House of Commons to refuse supplies in the middle of a war? That, of course, is a remedy open to us in a time when we are not in the midst of such a conflict as we are now engaged in. At present the Government are masters of the situation by the fact that we are in the midst of this terrible War, and we cannot bring forward those ordinary methods of criticism which are open to us in time of peace.
  Mr. D. MASON: Turn them out!
  Mr. JONES: That has been done, and I would ask my hon. Friend whether any improvement has resulted. With regard to the remaining part of our expenditure, we no longer have any Estimates. If hon. Members look at the Estimates which are presented they will see that there are none of the details which used to be found in them, and if you take the Navy Estimates you will find hundreds of millions grouped under one heading. I am not sure that you would find even the millions, and you might find a Token Vote. Under the Army Estimates it is the same. I do not say that it would be possible to present ordinary Estimates, because they are public documents, and they might contain facts which might be of service to the enemy. I am only putting this point to show that such control as the House used to exercise over the Estimates is gone.

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  There used to be some control in the review by the Public Accounts Committee of the expenditure after it had taken place, but that review occurred a long time after the expenditure had happened, and therefore is, to a large extent, ineffective, but even that control is no longer there. If hon. Members will look at the Army Appropriation or the Navy Appropriation Accounts they will find that for the larger part of the money which has been expended by the Government no details at all are given. The same is true of the expenditure on the Army. That control which used to be exercised by the Committee of Public Accounts has really gone, because during the War we cannot even review the past expenditure on the Army and the Navy.
  That brings me to a practical point which I would commend to my hon. Friend opposite. The Committee of Public Accounts founds its Reports to this House or reports of the Controller and Auditor-General in regard to the audit which is made of the public accounts. That audit is not undertaken at the end of a financial year, when the Report is presented to us; it is a continuing audit. The Controller and Auditor-General now has his representatives in every great public Department and in every sub-division of every great public Department, and it does seem to me that when you have a continual audit going on, when irregularities of expenditure or extravagances are continually being brought, to the notice of the Controller and Auditor-General, it is a great misfortune that there is no method by which the Controller and Auditor-General, acting as the representative of this House, can instantly bring to the notice of the notice of the Treasury, or of the House, or of a Committee of the House, those irregularities or extravagances. You have an audit continually going on, yet it is twelve or eighteen months before the House or the Committee of Public Accounts is put in possession of the results of the observations of the Controller and Auditor-General. I think there is a real waste of opportunity of correcting errors through not making a better use of the audit of the Controller and Auditor-General, and I would ask my hon. Friend to draw the particular attention of the Treasury to that matter.
  I am told that you cannot make this use that I suggest of the continuing audit by
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  the Department of the Controller and Auditor-General without undermining the Ministerial authority of the heads of the various Departments. If a head of a Department were to feel that responding to a remark of the Controller and Auditor-General, or a remark of a Committee of this House, drawing attention to the audit, would relieve him of responsibility I do not think that the House would assent to that view. I do not see why when the Comptroller finds out an irregularity or extravagance he should not at once bring it to the notice of this House. He does it at present in an irregular way. He knows the head of the Department and probably sends word privately to him or to some other person in the Department whom he may probably know. All we require is that when an officer of the Comptroller and Auditor-General comes upon an irregularity he should authoritatively and at once bring the matter to the notice of the Department and the House, so that it may be checked without further delay. If that practice had been in operation during the last two years, very large sums of public money would have been saved. As I have stated the control of the Estimates is gone. The control of the Appropriation Accounts is gone, and you are left in this House absolutely without any form of control over the expenditure. Then there is the Treasury, and I would ask my hon. Friend how much control has he got left. I have complained before that we have not to-day in the House the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. It is outrageous that this House should be without its official representative at the Treasury in the shape of the Financial Secretary. I know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is here as a Member of this House, but that is not enough. He has his hands absolutely full and it is not possible for any one man to discharge together the work of the two offices of Chancellor of the Exchequer and Financial Secretary to the Treasury. I wish to protest, and indeed I shall protest on every occasion when I have an opportunity, that we are left here without our proper representative in financial matters—the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. But even if we have the Financial Secretary to the Treasury here, the fact remains that the Treasury have already yielded up very largely their control. They have-issued a series of minutes by which they have parted with the control they formerly exercised, control which they have have exercised for many decades—I was

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  going to say for centuries past. They were told at the beginning of the War that the exercise of control by the Treasury would mean delay in matters which could not be delayed. I do not deny there is a great deal in that at a time when war suddenly and unexpectedly breaks out. At that time it was necessary for large expenditure to take place in regard to which there was not time to consult the Treasury or anybody else. But we are not now at the beginning of the War, we are nearing the end of the third year of it, and by this time financial arrangements and the means of controlling expenditure ought to have been duly thought out and fully rearranged to meet the exigencies of this War.
  I submit that neither the Treasury nor the Departments have really hammered out a system by which extravagance can be prevented in war-time. We have lost control of finance. The Treasury have yielded up control to the Departments. The Departments have got internal committees for controlling themselves, I believe, but controlling ourselves in matters of expenditure is very inferior to the authority and control which is exercised either by wise overseeing or by hard facts. Neither of these limitations any longer apply to the expenditure of any of our Departments. Each Department is its own master. It spends as it sees fit, and no one interposes at any time to check the expenditure, or if he does, he is asked, "Do you know a war is on? Why do this sordid sort of thing as talk about money? You will stop us at your peril." I ask my hon. Friend to see to it that the financial representatives in the different Departments are armed with full authority to enforce such measures of economy and restraint as the Treasury may see fit to exercise. I think our Debate to-night will not have been wasted if we can bring home to the Government how responsible we hold it. They have taken into their own hand the whole control of this matter, and the nation will hold them responsible if hereafter, owing to the lavish expenditure now going on, we should be driven to concluding an unfavourable peace because we are unable to continue this vast expenditure.
  Mr. G. FABER: I was talking the other day to a very young girl, who said: "Does not everything depend on the point of view?" I would ask this House the same question—Does not everything depend on the point of view? We are in the
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  presence of the biggest thing, financial and otherwise, this world has ever known, and when the right hon. Gentleman opposite speaking about these matters tells us that the Committee of Public Accounts should be called in to do this, that, or the other why, that is rather like Dame Partington with her mop trying to keep back the Atlantic. The Committee of Public Accounts could not manage this thing. It is too big. They have never been able to do it from the very first day of the War. They could not do it in the old days when we had Budgets of under two hundred millions a year. Even then the Committee of Public Accounts could only pick up items here and there and save us a few hundred pounds. But now we are spending at the rate of two thousand five hundred millions a year. We are told that if we had the Financial Secretary in the House—I do not suggest the right hon. Gentleman said so, but the cheers with which his statement was greeted would lead one to believe there are Members in this House who believe it would make a practical difference if the Financial Secretary were here. I say it would make none. There is not a banker or financial man in the country who could deal with this thing, let alone the House of Commons. We all know that the House of Commons, even in times of peace, could not exercise practical control over expenditure. Everything depended upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his policy. Whatever his policy was, that policy was carried out; and the amount of retrenchment that you could carry out was infinitesimal.
  I perfectly agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the expenditure is awful. What would he do? How can he stop it? Can he reduce it by £1,000,000 per annum? I doubt it. How would he set about it? Those are the practical questions. It is no good his getting up and saying that he can do it. Will he give some indication how he or the Committee of Public Accounts, or any other Committee of this House, would set about it to cut down this expenditure of £6,000,000 per day? I am myself appalled at the expenditure when I walk across St. James's Park and see those colossal buildings that have been put up and are being put up no doubt all over the country. Of course, one is appalled; but how can you stop it? You cannot stop it! There was one way in which you could have stopped it at one time, and that was by getting ready.

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  Then there would have been no War. I have got to remind the House again, as I reminded it a year ago, that a fortnight before the War, when there was some Debate on finance, I got up and in quite humble tones—I was almost inarticulate in those days—suggested that we should be lucky if we got out of a Continental war with an expenditure of £1,000,000,000, and very lucky indeed if we, got out with an expenditure of £500,000,000. The House was full, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer was expected to speak, and I was howled down with derisive laughter. Even my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), with his great knowledge of finance, who was sitting next to me, said, quite audibly, "Oh! Faber, you have put on a nought too much." Evidently, he thought that we should get through Continental War for £50,000,000 or £100,000,000, showing that he had not the remotest idea what this, the greatest struggle humanity has ever known, was going to cost. You talk of saving a few thousands here and a few thousands there. I tell you that nobody in this country can do it. The right hon. Gentleman says that we are running straightway into bankruptcy. We are. If the War ended to-morrow we we should in one way or another owe £5,000,000,000, and, if you take that at 5 per cent. it is £250,000,000 a year. We have got to face for all time a peace Budget of £500,000,000 a year. [An HON. MEMBER: "And you go on spending!"] What does the hon. Gentleman suggest? Does he suggest cutting down expenditure by having less men in the field, or less ships on the sea? How is he going to cut it down? I cannot say. I am telling you that you cannot do it. I also entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we are going straightway into bankruptcy. And so is the whole of Europe. I do not know if that is any consolation. I know that Germany is going to be just as bad as we shall be, and worse. All the other countries in Europe are going to be broken, and the whole financial control of the world will be in the United States.
  Mr. STEWART: Although I agree in great measure with what the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment have said, there is one point upon which I differ from the former completely. When he was asked what remedy he would suggest, he said he would cut off supplies.
  Major COLLINS: Those words did not come from me, but from some other hon. Member.
  Mr. D. MASON: I suggested that that was one remedy we still had.
  Mr. STEWART: I am particularly glad that that interruption did not come from the hon. and gallant Member for Greenock, because that is my native town. If you cut off supplies we shall lose the War, and will not only lose the money we have put into it, but will have to pay an indemnity to Germany as well. I. sympathise very much with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Leif Jones) in his warning about the great speculation hinted at in the Press as to the purchase of the drink traffic, and I hope the Government will not propose to part with very large sums of money without explaining to us the reasons for it. If you do it for financial reasons you will ask the people to drink more, and if you do it for moral reasons I do not think that these are times in which to make moral experiments. As to the possibility of encouraging economy in this War, I feel it is only fair and just to the Treasury to say that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer were here I should like to congratulate him on having turned a deaf ear to those people who asked him to issue the last loan at 6 per cent. interest. The fact that he got a loan with conversion of over £2,000,000,000 at 5 per cent. has saved this country £20,000,000 a year in interest I earnestly hope that in connection with the new issue of Treasury Bills he will not be too lavish in his interest. Treasury Bills are the most convenient form in which people who have loose money to invest will invest it. It is right that the House should know by a discussion of this sort the position to which we are working. If we are to go on spending seven and a quarter millions a day and the War goes on another year we shall have spent £2,646,000,000. If we add that to the present Debt of £3,900,000,000, we shall have a total Debt of £6,500,000,000, and if we take off the income we are collecting for the coming year, we shall still have £6,000,000,000 of Debt in a year's time upon which to pay interest. If we have to pay £300,000,000 a year in interest, in addition to our Budget of £200,000,000, with pensions added, our taxation, if we finish the War this year, will amount to £5,000,000 a month.

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  We cannot possibly go on borrowing money in the same successful way we did recently. It is quite clear that if we have to collect £300,000,000 to pay interest on capital, there will be a very strong movement to reduce the interest even if some of the capital is not written off. And that is the cloud that is now hanging over the public if the Government come forward and ask for more money at present. I do not know whether the Treasury would consider showing some hon. Members—say, the four Gentlemen who have put their names down to this Amendment—the War expenditure daily for a fortnight. Would it be possible to show them how you can get rid of such an enormous amount of money as £7,250,000 per day and where the expenses really go? The Public Accounts Committee have done their work very well, but, after all, it only comes on the scene when the money has been spent, and it really has no control over it. To pay contractors of munitions on a basis of a 10 per cent. commission on their outlay was really financially a disaster. It may have got their work done quickly, and probably it did, but it resulted in the contractors bringing in more men than they could usefully employ, paying them any wages they liked, and the longer the pay list the greater the profits. I know of one case in which a small private company, which I think started since the War, with a capital of under £10,000, paid all its excess profits and had a profit of well over £100,000 to its credit after twelve months' working. Last year we spent £2,000,000,000 against a pre-war expenditure of £200,000,000, and we are therefore spending at the rate of £10 to £1, which cannot go on indefinitely. The Board of Trade figures are fairly satisfactory, but it must be remembered that the high price of commodities is inclined to hide the small trade which we are actually doing.
  I should like to ask, when transport ships and such-like under Admiralty orders are lost—and a good many of them have been lost—(what account is that debited to? Have we any scheme of insurance? I understand we do not insure warships. Could we be told where the actual money which is lost, is debited? The Admiralty, of course, is immune from criticism, but we get our knowledge from various sources, and I have a list of several ships which seem to me to have been lost in a way which requires explanation. We do not
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  get any explanation. I should like to ask whether, if a ship is lost by impetuosity and imprudence on the part of her officers, whether mercantile or naval, a proper inquiry is held and due responsibility brought home to the people who are guilty or doing their duty in an inefficient manner. I cannot give the names of the ships, but if the representative of the Treasury would like to see them, I can give him half a dozen which have come under my notice within recent times.
  It is a difficult and delicate matter, perhaps, to mention the position of America in this War. We do not know whether she is in it yet or not, but we see paragraphs in the newspapers that America is willing to lend so much money to the Allies. It seems to me that America might do something more than that. We do not want her money, but I am sure some of those engaged in the War are, perhaps, less fortunate than we are. Could she be induced to take over some of the money which we have lent to our Allies—to relieve us of the debt, for instance, that Russia owes to us? It would be a fine compliment from one great democracy to another, and I do not believe there would be any need for us to guarantee the transaction. If she would relieve our Treasury of £500,000,000 by taking over the debit balance which Russia has it would be a very friendly and nice thing for her to do. I do not think that is an unreasonable thing to ask, because America has been like a huge sponge mopping up the money of Europe during the last two and a half years. I do not join altogether in the pessimistic cry of the previous speakers. I deprecate the statements made by the right hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division (Mr. Leif Jones) and the hon. Member for Clapham (Mr. Faber), who say we are on the road to ruin. I rather hope and think we are on the way to victory.
  Mr. FABER: That is a different thing. I do not say we shall not gain the victory.
  Mr. STEWART: We should remember that the issues of this War are things that money cannot buy, and though it is important to exercise economy, we must not jeopardise the efficiency of our Fleet and Army. I am quite sure that the Treasury will not take in a hostile spirit what has been said to-night, and that they will, if possible, see their way to adopt some of the suggestions made, and avail them-

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  selves of the services of those hon. Members who are ready to help them to secure the great end which we all desire.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I am very glad that this subject has been raised, and that there are a considerable number of Members here to listen to the proceedings. I am very sorry to say that during the whole Debate, with the exception of my hon. Friend the Junior Lord of the Treasury (Mr. Baldwin) there has been practically no one on the Government Bench. In the last few minutes the Chief Secretary for Ireland has come in, but with that exception there has not been present a single Member of what used to be the Cabinet and what I presume is now the Cabinet. I draw attention to that fact for this reason, that it is impossible to achieve economy if the Government do not desire to achieve economy. We are debating the Third Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill, an extremely important Bill, which, in the old days, always commanded the attendance of a large number of Members and the greater part of the Government; but in these days, when Motions for economy have been put on the Paper, we have not the presence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, we have not the presence of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, because he is not a Member of the House, and, with the exception of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, there has not been a Cabinet Minister present during the Debate.
  HON. MEMBERS: Move the Adjournment!
  Sir F. BANBURY: In the old days we should have moved the Adjournment. I do not think we can do that now, when such an important thing as voting money to carry on the War is before the House, but I do think we ought to draw the attention of the Government to the fact that they are treating the House of Commons with disrespect and are paying no attention whatever to the desire that economy should be introduced and carried out. Two things are necessary to win the War—one is a large Army, and the other is the money to provide that Army with their pay, their food, and their munitions. We cannot win the War without both those things. One is as important as the other, and therefore it is absolutely necessary that the Government should not only be present, but that they should consider economy. The
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  right hon. Member for Rushcliffe has said, very truly, that this House now has no control whatever over finance or over the Government. We have none. I did hope that under the new Government more respect would be paid to the House of Commons, but I am sorry to say that less respect has been paid to the House of Commons since we had the new Government than before. The hon. Member for Clapham asked, "How can we ensure economy, how can we spend anything less?" May I refer him to the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General on the Appropriation Account for the Navy issued this year? On page 14 there is a note on subletting of contracts. A firm on the selected Admiralty list had contracted for certain articles at a price of £54 per set, and had sublet the whole of the contract at a lower price, though permission had been given to sublet a portion only. The case was brought to light when the sub-contractor, who had meanwhile been placed on the selected list, tendered for the supply of those requirements at a price of £12 15s. 6d. a set, instead of £54. I venture to say that that is not an isolated instance. It is an instance which the Comptroller and Auditor-General has happened to find out. We have no representative of the Admiralty present. They do not consider it worth while to be present when questions of this sort are introduced, hut when we have the Admiralty giving £54 a set for something which a sub-contractor is willing to sell for £12 15s. 6d.—a price on which he makes a profit—then we may certainly say that there are many things in which economy might be practised without efficiency being reduced. There is another ease here in which a contractor was given a sum of money to hasten delivery, and in order to make up for the increased cost of materials and wages. When that had been done he was also given the original bonus for quicker delivery which had been promised in the first contract, when it was first instituted, thus paying twice over for the same thing. In another case 6s. a day, with food and lodging, were paid to motor drivers, and then the London General Omnibus Company was paid a large sum of money to instruct these drivers. Surely they did not want to give those wages except to skilled people, and they should have found out, before they paid those wages, whether the men were skilled or not. There can be no question that there are many ways of

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  reducing expenditure, but this cannot be expected as long as the Government take no interest in it and as long as they do not come down here themselves. They might extend to us the common courtesy of listening to what we have got to say instead of staying away. And I say, with all deference to my hon. Friend (Mr. Baldwin), that they have sent down an hon. Gentleman who, with all his knowledge and ability, is new to the work, and has not got that position in his office which gives the authority which he ought to have, and, therefore, he cannot really represent the Government when their conduct is being called in question in this way.
  I would like also to say one word with regard to the extraordinary statements which have appeared in the papers with regard to the purchase of breweries and public-houses. Here when we shall probably, if the War lasts another year, have to face a National Debt of £6,000,000,000, I cannot conceive anybody out of Bedlam coming down and saying that they are going to add to that the enormous sum of £300,000,000 or £400,000,000 in order to buy public-houses or whatever else it may be. The object may be good, but the time is not opportune. There are methods—I do not say that they are very good methods—by which the attention of the House might be called to the expenditure of the public Departments. The first one is giving a day for the Report of the Public Accounts Committee, and to see that the Report is carried out. A day is sometimes given—not always—but nobody pays the slightest attention to their Report, and nothing is done. Something must be done to penalise those people who have, I will not say betrayed their trust, that is too strong a word, but who have been extravagant in their methods of carrying on business. That is one way. The other is that which I have already attacked, namely, that the Government themselves should take some interest in the matter. I would like to make one or two observations upon the extraordinary number of Committees that are being continually set up. I see that two were set up to-day—one to see how the supply of sea-water fish can be improved, and another to see how the supply of fresh-water fish can be improved. Why could not one Committee have looked after both? Are there to be two hotels—one for the Committee on sea-water fish and the other for the Committee on fresh-water fish? The hon.
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  Member for Hornsey (Mr. Kennedy Jones) is apparently to receive the reward for his services in advertising the War Loan. He has been given a position—
  Mr. OUTHWAITE: He is a director.
  Sir F. BANBURY: No doubt it is a very good appointment [An HON. MEMBER: "He is not paid!"] I do not know whether he is paid or not, but certainly he has a paid staff. I do not know whether they are to have a duke's house or a baronet's house. For the last year or so I have endeavoured without fail to draw attention to the vital necessity there is for economy. I do not take a very gloomy-view of the position, provided the Government in future will see that the money is not wasted. I believe that this great country, if properly, managed, can rise to the occasion. We can meet all our liabilities and can again become prosperous, but that cannot be done if this reckless extravagance goes on, and the means of effecting this must come from the Government, from those in high places. More than two years ago I was present at the Guildhall when two very powerful speeches were made by the late Leader of the Government and the present Leader of the Opposition, and the present Leader of the House, in which they said that they hoped that the City and other parts of the country would practice economy. I was asked to say a few words, and I said, "If you gentlemen will set the example we will follow." I am sure the country would have followed, and I believe the country, in many instances, has followed that advice, but the people who gave the advice have not set the example.
  Major CHAPPLE: The remarks of the hon. Member for Clapham seemed to me to entirely miss the point. The complaint of the Mover and Seconder was not about expenditure, but about unnecessary and wasteful expenditure. That is the whole point of this Debate, and I agree that there should have been a larger attendance of the Government. The first and most essential thing is to win the War, and the second is to find the money for that purpose. But one cannot fail to note that there is an evil leaning on the part of many people to waste. Waste is everywhere. If a man wastes ten pounds of Government money he quotes in justification somebody else who wastes a hundred pounds, and it seems to be continually accepted that the

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  Government purse is good game. I deplore the lack of a citizen conscience on this point. I mean by citizen conscience that conscience in the citizen which makes him regard a public wrong as a private insult. No one seems to take a public wrong as a private insult and resent it accordingly. I am not going to try and get my tongue round the millions referred to to-night. If we want to counteract waste it seems to me that we must do so with the small no less than with the large sums, and we must educate the public along those linesy I want to make a contrast, which I think will interest the House, where economy and efficiency go hand-in-hand on the one hand and where waste and inefficiency go together on the other. I speak of my own personal experience, and I desire to refer to the sanitary staff of the medical service in France, and to its efficiency and economy, and to contrast that with the administration of our hospitals in this country as an illustration of waste. With the sanitary staff in France nothing can exceed the efficiency and the thoroughness with which the work is carried out. The medical officers go about hunting dumps in order to find abandoned articles, which they put to efficient use. So effective is that work that it excites the admiration of all those who see it, as it excites their amazement. For instance, they want a chimney, and the medical officers get numbers of circular tins, knock out the bottom of? each tin, place one over the other, and thus make the chimney. They have no bricks, but they go about the dump and find tins and pack those tins with soil and construct excreta incinerators. That brings about such a state of efficiency in the sanitary arrangements at the front in France that I could take any Member or group of Members round those sanitary arrangements and defy them to tell me what they were, so free are they from noisesomeness. Boilers are built into those incinerators, and hot water is supplied to the troops in such a way that one can never get a bucket of hot water out wihout pouring a bucket of cold water in They have made from waste products incinerators which preserve health and promote sanitation at the front
  I give this illustration of how things can be done by applying ingenuity instead of finding money. I refer to the front
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  in France. Come to our hospitals here and go around them I suppose there is nothing upon which we are so willing to spend almost to excess, if necessary, as upon our hospitals. In our hospitals there is reckless waste. One hospital has had spent on it over £12,000 to equip it for surgical purposes. Before a year was cut the whole of that money was diverted, and although a beautiful system of surgical equipment and arrangements and plant was made the whole of it was turned to another use. I could take you to our hospitals where there is constant and incessant waste of food. It might be small, but it is waste, and it is wrong. Why do we find that Government Departments are so extravagant? The whole system of the Army seems to make it difficult to find a remedy.
  I suppose the best example of efficiency that I have ever seen is Mr. Cadbury's works at Bournville. What do you find there? You find that every machine, every individual, every hand is at work and producing the largest amount of output with the minimum expenditure of effort, and energy, and time, and money. There is efficiency everywhere. "Oh," you say, "but Mr. Cadbury is a great organiser." Not at all; it does not necessarily follow that the head of that firm should be a great organiser. The secret of the whole success is that somewhere about that building there is a little suggestions box, and everyone is encouraged to make suggestions for improvements, and for every suggestion that is carried out the person who makes it gets a minimum fee of 5s. The result is that in that institution you have a democracy of ideas; every idea has a vote, and the result is efficiency and economy. What do we find in the Army? I suggested to a man a little time ago who made a suggestion to me that he should try to get it carried out, but he said, "If I did I should be far more likely to be court-martialled and shot at dawn for insubordination than I would be to find my suggestion carried out." Just think of the life history of a suggestion in the Army. A private makes a suggestion to a non-commissioned officer; the non-commissioned officer hands it on to the captain; the captain sends it on to the commanding officer; the commanding officer sends it to the A.D.M.S.; the A.D.M.S. sends it to the D.D.M.S.; and the D.D.M.S. sends it to the D.G.; and every-

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  body has dicharged his duty. The private has discharged his because a happy suggestion came into his mind and he passed it on, and so forth. But what has happened to the suggestion? A suggestion rapidly deteriorates when you hand it on. The non-commissioned officer said, "Magnificent!"; the captain said "Excellent!"; the commanding officer said "Good!"; the A.D.M.S. said "Not so bad!"; the D.D.M.S. said, "I don't see much in that!"; and the D.G. said "Folly!" That is the life history of a suggestion taken from its environment and handed on where its value is not known.
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson): May I ask my hon. and gallant Friend whether he can give me one specific instance of that kind of thing?
  Major CHAPPLE: I am contrasting the suggestion that finds effective use in an institution like Mr. Cadbury's, or any other great private institution, and the suggestion that so often follows this course in the Army. We know perfectly well that it is the most difficult thing in the world for an officer in the Army to criticise at all, and this is the difficulty which we have to face. I am sorry that my hon. Friend resents that. I think the House will see the point I am trying to make. I am not making any criticism about any particular individual. I am criticising the system. I was saying that the system does not, in the Army, lend itself to efficiency and economy.
  Mr. McVEAGH: He has to say something.
  Major CHAPPLE: It seems to me that we cannot secure efficiency in the Army without civilian aid. It can be truthfully said that all through the history of this War contempt has been shown for civilian opinion and effort, and civilian aid, and that has greatly hindered us in in our effectiveness. One of the best things the present Prime Minister did was to find outside the Army persons of business capacity and experience to show how things ought to be done to help towards harmonious and efficient working. Then there is divided responsibility. The man who first makes a suggestion hands it on, and says, "I have sent it on." There seems to be a tendency on the part of our public Departments to try and escape responsibility by putting it on to someone else. It is really pathetic to
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  find how efforts are made to hand over the responsibility to some other Department. What is the remedy? It is difficult for me as an officer in the Army to offer criticism at all. I dare not make this criticism outside the House. Why should the hon. Gentleman resent me making it here? I am saying that the system in the Army does not lend itself to efficiency and economy. I am going to invite my hon. Friend to follow up that suggestion. I do not know whether there-is anyone higher to whom he can send it, and thus relieve himself of the responsibility? But at least I am going to make it. If anyone in the Army has a suggestion to make, and he finds that it is difficult to make it, without having it resented, he is apt to make use of some Member of Parliament. That Member of Parliament may suspect that there is some personal motive or grievance behind the complaint.
  11.0 P.M.
  What we want is some Commission or tribunal—a mixed tribunal. When the present Prime Minister set up a mixed tribunal a little while ago for some entirely different purpose, he set a very good precedent, and one which ought to followed. It is not necessary to put a man in khaki in order to make use of him in this War. A man wearing civilian clothes and doing civilian work can be of immense assistance if we make use of him as we might do. I suggest that we should have something comparable to the suggestion box, and that this Commission, or tribunal, or committee should receive suggestions to be examined and reported upon. There is waste to be remedied. You could have the body I suggest receiving suggestions and receiving help everywhere, visiting and reporting, and able to back up their recommendations. As I have said, everybody speaking here to-night is resented by the Under-Secretary for War. There is far too much resentment. There is no reason whatever why we should not encourage suggestions from anyone, officer, noncommissioned officer, or private soldier, instead of resenting it as an attempt at criticism, or something like insubordination. We had members of the Admiralty complaining the other day that at Cabinet meetings they were not expected to speak; that it was their duty not to speak unless they were spoken to. Can you imagine the First Sea Lord consulting with Cabinet Ministers and not feeling

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  perfectly free to express his opinion for or against? Yet we had men at the Admiralty who actually complained that they were not at liberty to express their opinion freely. I think that spirit in the Army should be discouraged entirely. We should encourage everyone to express his opinion, and to give his aid, and we should not consider it was a breach of discipline if suggestions were made. This committee to which I refer would give advice, and would have the advantage of speaking out, of speaking upon the platform and through the Press. I have thought it consistent with the importance of the subject we are discussing to-night to make a contrast between one department in the medical service which is characterised by efficiency and by courage with other departments which show a disregard for public expenditure which, I think, ought not to be overlooked, and ought to be easy of remedy.
  Mr. BALDWIN (Lord of the Treasury): The discussion is on a Motion stating that "there is urgent need for increased control by the House of Commons and the Treasury over Government Departments." I think that a discussion of this kind can be productive only of good. I sympathise very much with a great deal that has fallen from most of the speakers, but I sympathise with no remark more than that which fell from my right hon. Friend the Member for the Rushcliffe Division (Mr. L. Jones), when he turned towards me and said, "How much control has the hon. Member got at the Treasury?" I will answer him quite straight—not nearly as much control as I should like. More than that, if I am not giving secrets away, and if I may take the House into my confidence, I have never yet in the short time I have been at the Treasury said "No" to any request that has been made to me, but before I get as far as the smoking-room in the House of Commons, I am beset by Members asking me to change my mind. The hon. Member for Greenock (Major Collins) spoke in words that found an echo in my own heart when he said that what we wanted to get was an atmosphere of economy. I worked on a Committee for eight months in the War Office last year, the sole purpose of which was to help to create such an atmosphere in that Department, and if the hon. Member for Greenock can create such an
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  atmosphere in this House he will have no more loyal supporter, no more warmhearted follower than I shall be myself. It has been my duty during the short time that I have tried to perform the functions that fell to my lot to follow closely the Estimates that have been brought before this House, and in the few weeks that I have been responsible for the presentation of those Estimates there has been urged on the Government, with all the eloquence at the command of various eloquent Members, that they should increase sanatorium benefits, old age pensions, and soldiers' pensions, those merely arising on the last few Estimates that have been brought in. If I look back over some of the discussions at which I have been present on the Estimates in comparatively recent times, I cannot help remembering that when the Government made certain recommendations about the salaries of Members of Parliament serving and suggested means by which the expenditure could be reduced, the House of Commons objected, and I cannot help remembering how last year, when £200,000 was knocked off the Agricultural Vote for Scotland, very severe pressure was put upon the then Financial Secretary and the Secretary for Scotland, which they resisted with much difficulty. This new similar pressure has been put upon me with regard to a similar reduction. I make no complaint, but I cannot help asking when I read the words of this Motion that there is urgent need for increased control of the House of Commons why the House has not allowed itself to be surrounded by that atmosphere of economy to which the hon. Member for Greenock (Major Collins) alludes? Not only that, but the House of Commons—I am not for a moment saying whether it is right or wrong—has sanctioned various increases that have been given in the way of bonuses and wages, and these very increases that we see going on throughout the country day by day, and will go on, they in turn are reacting in the cost of all the commodities of the country, and they help to send each other up and make it more and more difficult for the Government to-day to make any stand in any quarter for that economy which each of us wish to see, but which when we get into a deliberative assembly we seem perfectly impotent to check. If I may give my own personal experience, I have since the beginning of the War been a

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  very loyal supporter of the Government that has been in power for the time being, holding the view that the first duty of a loyal Member is to strengthen the hands of the Executive so long as the War lasts. It was also my lot to investigate from a financial point of view the internal economy of one or two Government Departments. I have always been a keen critic of the Government, and it is very natural, with my commercial training, that I in common with many other hon. Members of this House, must have seen from the time the War began various mistakes made, or what we thought were mistakes at the time, in the light we gained by subsequent experience, but mistakes which were almost inevitable and inseparable from the enormous scale of the work that had to be done, and not only done, but improvised. The conclusion I came to deliberately was that so long as the War lasted I could not see in what form the House of Commons as such, with every desire to see it, could get a more close control over expenditure. Many of us in this House until this Government came into power, and many hon. Members since this Government came into power, may have tried to devise measures without seeing practically a way by which this control could be secured. You must remember that so long as the War lasts it is impossible to devise any other method of financing except by Votes of Credit in the main. Where you get a Vote of Credit you are bound to lose a certain amount of close control. You are bound, when you take the human element into consideration, to see relaxed somewhat and at some time that close control which you get when the sum which has to be spent is bounded by an estimate, and that the persons in charge will be held responsible by the House of Commons if the estimate is exceeded.
  The time will come when we shall be able to get back to the old system, and it is then that I would most earnestly beg the co-operation of every individual Member of this House. We are suffering—all the world is suffering—from a most dangerous inflation of prices. You have in the shortage of commodities common to all the work and in the inflated credits common to nearly all countries two confluent streams, which join forces in a mighty column which will sweep everything before it. The danger point will come after the War. Economy in this
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  country, if we are to avoid disaster, will be an absolute necessity, and the only thing we shall have—the one thing which is always the only corrector of extravagance—is high taxation, and we shall have that for many years to help us. But we want, and must have, the co-operation of every individual Member of this House, and of this House in its collective capacity, and we shall want also, I think, that the Government of the day—whatever that Government may be—shall choose its most repellant personality and make him Chancellor of the Exchequer. We must do that, and we must practice that not only ourselves, but by our example influence those who are in our Constituencies to do it. The only way this country can avoid disaster after this War is for the people of this country, from the highest to the lowest, to work hard and save hard, and if that can be done we may look forward, I confidently believe, in spite of the expenditure on this War, to seeing ourselves within a generation one of the most prosperous people in the world, and with the soundest finance. But if we do not do that, if we allow ourselves to be carried away by thinking that these inflated values existing to-day are going to last, and to be a token of prosperity which in reality is non-existent, then we shall be steering straight to a disaster from which nothing can save us.
  Mr. P. MEEHAN: I wish to draw attention to the unsatisfactory manner in which applications from men in the Army for discharge are being dealt with in Ireland. While in this country thousands of men have already been released for agricultural purposes, very few have been released in Ireland. There is great delay, and applications are dealt with in a very unsatisfactory manner. The commanding officers look upon the applications only from a military point of view, and have no consideration whatever for the question of food production. The Irish have been called upon to make a special effort to produce food, and they are doing, and are prepared to do, their best, but in the efforts that they are making they expect some attempt at co-operation on the part of the Army.
  I will give a few examples and show the way in which applications have been dealt with. A farmer, named Gilbride, 45 years of age, with a wife and four children, the eldest of which is 16 years of age, who held 20 acres of land,

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  left his farm and joined the Army after the War broke out. He applied at Christmas to be released temporarily for spring work, but after considerable correspondence his application was refused. As a consequence, the whole of his land, which is fit for tillage, is lying derelict, and in all probability his wife and family will be evicted. His application was refused on the ground that he was fit for general service, and that he could not be spared. Another farmer, 47 years of age, named J. O'Rourke, who is unmarried and farms 12 acres, joined the Army and left his farm in the charge of his housekeeper. On 2nd February he applied for permission to go home and do the spring work, but up to the present he has received no reply to his application. There is nobody except his housekeeper, and those 12 acres fit for tillage are lying idle. Those are two examples of men who, when the War broke out, left their farms and joined the Army to help, to the best of their ability, to bring the War to a successful issue.
  There is another case of a young boy who joined the Army only in February last, and is still stationed at Cahir. He is 17 years of age, and cannot be sent to the front until he attains the age of 19. His father farms 150 acres, 52 of which are tillage, and he finds it very difficult to get men to assist him, no matter what wages he pays. He applied to have the boy discharged temporarily in order to carry on the spring work, after which he could go back until harvest time. He received a reply that the boy would be allowed out for one month during the busiest part of the season. In addition to tilling so much land, this man has a dairy farm and supplies milk to Government institutions in Ireland. Seeing that the boy is only 17, that he cannot be sent to the front for two years, and that he is stationed within 30 miles of his father's farm, he might be dispensed with temporarily and sent home to help produce the food which is a vital matter for the safety of the country. I would strongly urge the Under-Secretary for War to take these cases into consideration. There are many other cases in which similar applications have been made. Such applications will also be made later in the year when harvest time comes. We do not ask for impossibilities. I do not say that it is the fault of the War Office, but there should be some co-operation between the War Office and
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  the commanding officers, and directions should be given to the commanding officers that, in oases in which they have men who are necessary and available, and who could well be discharged temporarily for the purposes of agriculture, they should deal with the cases expeditiously and grant the applications.
  Another point which I desire to bring forward is the question of separation allowances and pensions. The present method of arriving at the amount of the allowance or pension on the basis of pre-War dependence is very unsatisfactory, and deserves the serious reconsideration of the Government. That is particularly the case in Ireland. Before the War there was no such thing as an allotment, and many men who joined did not contribute to the support of their parents. Since then, however, their fathers or mothers have been unable to work, either through illness or some other cause. In many of these families there is a number of young children dependent upon the father or mother. These parents under the present system are not entitled to receive any separation allowance or in the case of death, any pension, because there was no pre-War dependence, and we have cropping up, day after day in Ireland, very sad cases of widows and others left practically destitute owing to the death of their sons in the Army. In Ireland family affection is very keen, and when parents grow old the sons maintain them in their old age, though they have to effect large economies to do so. The last thing the old people want to do is to get into the union. Day after day members of the party to which I belong receive letters from all parts of Ireland from these old people, complaining either that they do not get any allowance at all or that the amount which they receive is absolutely inadequate to support them. I have one particular case in my mind of a widow with three sons in the Army. One is a prisoner, another is serving in Salonika, and another in France. She has made frequent applications for a separation allowance and has been refused, with the usual stereotyped reply that there was no pre-War dependence and consequently she could get nothing. If her boys had not joined the Army at the outbreak of the War, her husband having died since, they would have supported her.

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  There is another case of a widow who had an only son. She was able partially to support herself at the time the War broke out. Since then she has become delicate and half blind and cannot earn anything. Her son was killed on the 21st June last, and she has been allotted a pension of 2s. 4d. a week to support her for the rest of her life. I had a letter form her quite recently. She says about her son:
  "He gave his life in defence of King and country. Now the mother he was so good to may go into the union for all the country cares. It is a lesson hard to learn. I will put my trust in another appeal to your goodness."
  That is the position of many another Irish mother, and I would submit to the hon. Gentleman that this question of the system of arriving at the amount of separation allowances and pensions based on pre-War dependence is not equitable and is most unjust. Quite recently the Waterford Statutory Committee unanimously passed a resolution calling for reconsideration of this matter, and their example has been followed by other statutory committees in Ireland, and they give their reasons for it. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that one of the chief causes of the decline of recruiting in Ireland was the manner in which the dependants of soldiers who had been killed at the front were treated under this system of pensions and separation allowances. When people saw the way in which they were treated they took very good care to make it known in the district in which they lived. The stories are quite common. I would ask the Government to consider this question, and also the question I raised in the earlier part of my speech.
  Mr. BILLING: I should like to reply to one or two of the remarks in the lecture we have had from the Front Bench on the question of economy. I presume that this House and, what is more important, the people of this country, are supposed to condone every form of inefficiency and extravagance exercised by the Government on the understanding that it will be all right, and that we shall pay for it by high taxation after the War. I do not think that that argument is a reply to the points raised by hon. Members. It was suggested that because we had pleaded for fair and just treatment and adequate compensation for the men who had suffered, and for the dependants of those who had been killed, this House was condoning extravagance. As far as I am concerned,
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  and as far as most hon. Members are concerned, we resent that. I do not think that is condoning extravagance. It is giving justice rather than condoning extravagance. Even if it were so, it is no reason why we should ask the soldiers who are fighting to-day to pay for the inefficiency and waste that is going on behind them. The ideas put by the hon. and gallant Member on the other side were perfectly sound. We have had some experience of the Board of Inventions. I know quite a number of excellent inventions which have been submitted to the Board of Inventions, and the Board found themselves utterly unable to cope with them. They have no system for coping with them. When an invention is taken to them it becomes a sheet of paper which is put into a brown cover or a grey back, and it is filed. There is no definite and complete system for dealing with an invention on its merits, and I am afraid that if the suggestion appointing a committee were carried out, we should find that committee over-burdened with complaints relative to the various Departments, Naval, Military, and Civil, and that they would find themselves snowed under with various applications. I would still like to suggest that it might be possible for some form of economy to be produced, if there were committees of this House appointed to exercise a controlling hand on the extravagance and inefficiency in the respective Departments.
  When I had the honour and privilege of addressing this Housce for the first time, I raised this point and suggested that for every Department we might have a committee sitting in this House which would not only be able to keep its end up with the House, but be able to control to some extent, or rather to initiate inquiries at once, without the setting up of Royal Commissions, and the delay and paraphernalia of a Government inquiry, and be able to handle immediately any question which might arise in respect to extravagance or waste in any given Department. If I may elaborate the suggestion of my hon. and gallant Friend, there might be a small committee of Members of this House set up, possibly only for the duration of this War, to watch not only the extravagance, but the general administration of respective Departments. Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who sit on the Front Bench and represent those Departments have quite as much as they

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  can do to handle the Departments as they find them, and I would suggest that they might find such a committee a help instead of a hindrance.
  There is hardly a Member of this House who does not know of cases of gross, grave and wilful waste which is going on at the present minute. Yet to whom can we go? We put down questions in this House and get evasive replies. A Minister cannot stand up at the Bench and give his Government away. We put down a question about a contract, and the first thing a Minister does when he goes back to the War Office or the Admiralty is to call for all the papers in connection with the contract. Then, on the information which is supplied, he sees that he stands condemned, because most probably the document is one which he signed himself without reading it. We know quite well what Ministers do with documents. They are brought in in big bundles to be signed. I have brought them in myself. The Minister asks "Is this all right?" and he initials them or signs them without reading them and that is going to cost the Government or the country half a million of money. And then when a Member of the House of Commons puts down a question the Minister sends for the document reads it for the first time, and finds that he has sanctioned a contract which is wholly irregular, and to save his face he has to prepare an evasive answer. That is not only condoning extravagance; it is asking for waste.
  I dare say that if I put down a question to-night for the Under-Secretary of State for War, and asked him what was being done as to the R E 7 contract, he would immediately send for all the papers in connection with the contract, and possibly find that it was an order which was given for. I think, 1,000 of that type—or 500 shall we say?—which it was proved is a useless and wholly impossible type for an offensive against the enemy. The order was cancelled, but, as far as I can make out, owing to some mistake they forgot to cancel the older for the radiators—I think it was 1,000 radiators. We know that radiators are very expensive things. Quite apart from the expense to the country there are thousands of highly skilled mechanics employed in making them. I understand that they gave large orders for spares for these machines, and they employ stream line tubing, which is almost unobtainable in this country to-day. We
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  want it to meet the enemy in the air. Probably they will find when they get the papers that they forgot to cancel the orders, or if they did cancel them it was after taking delivery of a good many, and they are scrapped all over the country. They are still making the radiators and still delivering them, and I do not think it an exaggeration to say the mechanics are earning 2s. an hour, which is double pay, for overtime for working at the radiators which will never be used, but will be scrapped.
  If we had a committee in this House, we could go through and give this information, but the position is that if we give this information, it has to be so discreetly done. Directly I came to concrete facts, I know that if I gave them as clearly as I could in this House, the Under-Secretary for War would at once send for the contract officer to explain, and that officer would know that it was one of the five men who had given them away. The result would be that the officer in the Service, who was really working for his country, and to save its money as distinguished from those engaged in efficient administration, might be relieved of his command or commission. I put a question the other day to my hon. Friend as to what would happen to an officer who gave information to a Member of Parliament—would he be relieved of his command or his commission? I think the hon. Gentleman was quite right and entitled to answer that he would be, and that under the circumstances, he would be immediately conscripted as a private in the army. That may be perfectly right it may be impossible to conduct a War if officers are to give Members of Parliament this information; still, we may have the case of an officer who may say to himself, "I have tolerated this sort of thing for so long, that I feel I have to stop it." Suppose it is the case of an officer of some stores department, who sees waste to the amount of hundreds of thousands going on. He reports it to his senior, and who does it reach at the finish? The man who is responsible for the waste, and he puts the document into a docket and turns it down.
  It is absolutely necessary that, so far as the Air Service is concerned, a very careful inquiry should be made into the present waste. There are highly skilled men paid high wages at present employed, and we need now, more than at

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  any time in the War, efficient machines, and it is important that we should not lose the benefit of the labour at the present time. It is bad enough to lose the money squandered on these contracts, but it is even worse to lose their skilled labour in the manufacture of a class of machine which is so urgently needed. I think there is very great need of better administration than we have at present, so far as the technical side is concerned. I have had brought to my notice, only to-day, a new order for machines to which I call the attentiol of the Under-Secretary for War. I would like him to tell me how many of these machines had been taken within the last week; I would like him to tell me how many men has been smashed within the last three days. What have you decided to do with the order? Are those machines pliable, or possible to be employed under the conditions? Is it the fact that 250 B.E. 2 C machines, with a Raff engine of 90 h.p. have been ordered for delivery within the next three or four months? These machines have a speed of something like 80 miles an hour, and a climbing speed of something like 550 feet a minute, while there are machines which have a speed of 120 or 130 miles an hour, and a climbing speed of 1,000 feet a minute.
  And can the hon. Gentleman tell me why the mortality among airmen is so high? Hardly a day goes by but two or three pilots are killed in this country. I do not think I should be exaggerating if I say that the present average of the pilots we are killing in this country was something like (600 per year, in peace flying training. If my hon. Friend, the Under-Secretary, would like to know why I will loll him. It is because to a great extent we are using the B type machine for training. It is a stable machine and men can be quickly trained by it, but directly the man gets off the stable machine and gets on to an ordinary flyer and starts cross-country work, if his engine stops and he makes a forced landing he finds the landing speed so much higher than that of the machine on which he was trained, that when he attempts to land in the middle of a field he is generally-found in a hedge or tree, because he never had any training on those sensitively-controlled machines. The man always swears by the machine on which he is trained until it lets him in. Until he gets to the front the B type will not let him in. It is an ideal machine for peace conditions, provided you do not take
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  too many liberties. My contention is that it is no good training a man on a peacetime machine hurriedly, and then send him to France to use a war-type machine.
  There is no difficulty in teaching a man to fly on an easy type of machine, and it is because they are teaching men on the easy type at first that we are having so many terrible accidents in this country directly we send the men to cross-country work on the Bristol or the Sopwith, and various other machines. That constitutes not only a very considerable loss of manpower, because pilots are scarce and valuable, but, as well, the pilot represents to this country a certain cash value which we shall have to pay in taxation after the War. I expect if you took the whole cost of training in the last two years and spread it over the number of pilots we have trained, you would find that the pilot has cost not less than from two to three thousand pounds per head to be trained. We have all the officers and the engineering establishments necessary to keep up in order to train these men, and the machines they smash must also be debited to the cost of training. We are short of pilots and machines to-day, and yet I do not think I should be exaggerating if I said that we have in this country to-day thousands of aeroplanes. When I put down a question in this House I have got accustomed to the stereotyped answer that "It is not in the interests of the country," or "We shall be helping the Germans if we say that this type of machine has been stopped." A wave of panic would go through the German Flying Corps if my hon. Friend would rise up and say that the B.E. type of machine had been stopped in France, because the Germans would then know they would be coming up against something that was a bigger fighting proposition than that particular typo of machine.
  It is absolutely essential that the whole question of our Air Services should be reviewed to-day. It is an extraordinary tiling, it is a regrettable thing, but it is an absolute fact which anyone who has inside information can satisfy himself upon, that never since the outbreak of the War have we been less than three months ahead of anything the Germans have produced—we have been three months ahead of them on design and performance, and we have been 12 months behind them on production right through the War, and I say that the men who are

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  resposible for this administrative muddle ought to be brought to book. I make no personal attack. It is a very difficult thing for me, as lately in the Service myself, to stand up here and make anything in the nature of a personal attack, but if there are certain officers in senior commands or in supreme command of a certain Service, it is impossible to dissociate one's criticism from those men. Either they are ignorant of what is going on, which proves conclusively, to me at least, that they have no right to occupy that position, or they are aware of what is going on, in which case there is no excuse for them at all. There have been more men killed by "Koh-i-noors," by pencils, by calculations that have taken place in our drawing offices, than there have been by gunfire by the enemy in the air. The most elaborate calculations are constantly going on, as I have said time and time again, and at the present minute I am satisfied that there is no system at the Hotel Cecil, and that there is no co-ordination between the military and the naval branches whatsoever. There are men sitting in the Admiralty to-day, technical advisers, who through their technical advice have cost this country millions of money, and they sit there today. Hyde Park itself could not hold their blunders if they were spread out. There are thousands of men employed in this country in building the crazy things they are responsible for, and yet they are there. They have been there from the beginning of the War, and, so far as I can see, unless the criticism in this House is sufficiently strong, there they will remain, to the cost of this country.
  Only the other day it was suddenly decided by the Royal Naval Air Service to build a new type of machine. They got hold of a certain type of engine—the 240 Renault, to be correct—and they called on a certain designer, who is a very well known man, to get out a design, so that they could farm its building out to five firms. Orders were given for ten of these machines each to five firms, and when they went to the Admiralty to get the drawings, the Admiralty said, "You had better go down to Shortt's and get the drawings." The representatives of these five firms went to Shortt's to get the drawings to build this wonderful type of new machine, but when they got there they found there were no drawings.
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  Several weeks went by and eventually they got about five or six sheets of drawings, and for that particular machine there are 978 separate sheets of drawings. This went on for a fortnight, and then the firms in question went to the Admiralty and said, "We cannot get on. We have all our men hung up, and only about eight sheets of drawings for several parts of this machine, and there is no work for the men to do." So to keep these firms quiet a certain officer in the Admiralty, whose name I shall be pleased to give the hon. Gentleman, said they had better have an order for ten more, and these were ordered. Still they got no more drawings, and to keep them quiet, another order for ten machines was given. They went again about the drawings, and a further order was given for ten machines. When the order had increased altogether to 250 machines they started to worry for the general drawings. The engines were delivered, and they were waiting to get on. I think I am right in saying not one machine of that type has ever been erected. I do not think there is one of those firms who knew how these machines were coming together when finished making. They had been making them from small part drawings, and what was the result? After about three months of this—it happened last October—in February, after all the output, these firms were all called to the Admiralty and told that it had been decided that that type of machine was a wash-out, and all the work they had done was cancelled. They said: "What are we going to do?" and the officer in question said: "You had better build 225 Shortts." What is known as that was a wash-out two years ago. It is an obsolete type of machine, but some one at the Admiralty said that if they put 240 Renault engines into 225 Shortts that would be all right. Those firms, I think, at the present moment are building 200 or 250 of those obsolete or obsolescent type of machines simply and solely on account of the mess-up which these young officers at the Admiralty made over this other order to keep them quiet. That thing ought to be inquired into by a committee. When an officer knows a thing like that is going on, when a contractor knows he is becoming a party to robbing the country like that, we must have something in the nature of inquiry. That is why I suggest that a committee of Members might be very well employed in inquiring into cases

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  of this description, which would render it quite unnecessary for me to raise them on the floor of this House.
  Mr. H. P. HARRIS: Will you go before that Committee?
  12.0 M.
  Mr. BILLING: I have been before all the Committees up to now. I may add I have previously raised in this House the question of sending men out on machines that everyone knows to be inefficient. If we sent men to-day to sea in coffin ships there would be only one name for the men responsible for so doing. Yet the figures my hon. Friend gave when, in my absence last night, he replied to me, regarding the losses at the iront are decimals. I find it impossible to discover how he can kill decimals of men. I think the figure was given for six weeks, or an average of 7.6. That may be quite right, but if the hon. Member referred to losses the figures were quite inadequate. If he had said that our losses at the front at present are something like twice that it would have been a great deal more like the fact. The Germans are quite aware of our losses; they register them. I should like my hon. Friend to give a frank statement to the House as to what our actual losses really are, not only in France but on all our fronts and in England. I assure him that it would take a great deal more than those figures to frighten the men flying for us to-day. We owe them a very considerable debt. No matter how we propose to pay it after the War, we cannot do better during the War than to provide them with the best material it is possible to obtain, and the best administration that it is possible to give. I have been accused of using violent language here. I still go on using violent language. If that is the only possible way of attracting attention to the present Administration I shall do so.
  Mr. MacVEAGH: It is the only way to move the War Office, anyway.
  Mr. BILLING: As I have said before, I did not come here to achieve a reputation as a politician, a debater, or anything else of that sort, but for one distinct purpose. Our Air Service when I came into this House was in a fairly rotten condition. To-day it is in a fairly rotten condition. I regret that the only thing I have succeeded in doing in twelve months has been to persuade the Royal Flying Corps
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  that it was possible to train pilots to fly at night, and thereby settle the question of the Zeppelin menace. This, by the way, was possibly the best friend the Air Service ever had, because it awoke the people in this country to see what air control might really be. In the next summer we shall experience raids of a, much more serious character than Zeppelin raids. Our enemy has found that we have a cure for Zeppelin raids—provided we keep up the efficiency we had in this country about three months before the Big Push. But the great losses on our front have made a great run on our pilots.
  There is another question, that of raids by heavier-than-air machines—aeroplanes. I assure the House that there is no defence against a raid by them. Aeroplanes may come over to this or any other country at night, and at 15,000 or 20,000 feet they may drop their bombs and get back long before we know where they are. It is quite a job finding a Zeppelin at night. It is an impossible thing to find enemy aeroplanes at night. There is only one way by which we shall be able to stop air raids of heavier-than-air machines; that is by reprisals. Whether this country likes reprisals or not bothers me very little. I think in time that the men who are trying to conduct this War on the principle of—well, I do not know what principle to call it—I am almost at a loss for a simple word, but I must say, if we are to be raided in this country, and if we are to have our undefended towns attacked, the only way to stop it is by reprisals. I would like to see our Air Service to-day ready, fit, and able to carry out those reprisals; otherwise we shall have such a wail of indignation if we are raided day and night in the coming months, and this may bring the Government down as it brought the French Government down. It would be unfortunate if a rotten Air Service brought this Government down as well, because it requires so little to put it right, for there never was a country with finer material. We have the finest designers and mechanics and by far the best pilots in the world and the best facilities. There is only one thing clogging the wheel and holding the wagon of success from going forward, and that is the incessant intrigue and bickering and jealousy, and the desire of certain men to exploit their own ideas and designs instead of having to work out their ideas in competition with other machines.

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  It does not matter whose idea the machine is so long as it can prove by a test to be the best of its type, and then it should be adopted. I ask the Government to consider this matter, and I also ask the Under-Secretary for War not simply to wonder how he can evade replying to my points and endeavour to trip me up on points which I have made incompletely, but to be English in the matter. [An HON. MEMBER: '-'Scotch!"] Yes, Irish or anything you like, but be humane, and remember that even at this moment we are needlessly sacrificing the best lives of our country and squandering thousands of pounds which we shall have to pay in taxation. The Under-Secretary should remember that his position is one of great public trust and the lives of men are dependent upon what he does. I would ask him if he can meet certain Members of this House to consider these questions? I am not the only hon. Member who receives letters. Many other hon. Members have information which will support what J. have said to-night. Why not have a conference of these men and cut out all this political twaddle? Let us meet face to face and have it out, and see if we cannot get this matter put right instead of trying to hide and cloak up everything.
  Mr. KELLY: I desire to join in the appeal which has been made for further co-operation in the efforts which are being made to extend the area under tillage in Ireland by releasing the men who are essential for the operations of the harvest. I will quote one concrete instance. An application was made early last month by Mr. James Black, of county Donegal, for the exemption of his only son at home. This gentleman farms 160 acres of very rich land, and 80 per cent. of that farm is under tillage. Mr. Black himself was paralysed, and unable to look after the farm, and he applied for exemption for his son, who is twenty-seven years of age. The son is at present in a military hospital in Glasgow, and I ask the Under-Secretary for War to give this case his special consideration. I wish also to bring before the notice of the House and the Chief Secretary the manner in which the Estates Commissioners have distributed the land of the Stewart estate in county Donegal. This is a small estate of only 100 acres, situated in the town of Milford, in county Donegal. I need not remind the hon. Gentleman, who knows county Donegal,
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  that there are no ranches in that part of the country. Nearly all the farms are small and poor, and there is practically no untenanted land there. Consequently when a chance occurred of distributing 100 acres of land, the number of fully-qualified applicants was very large indeed. Furthermore, in distributing the land of this or any other estate, the Estates Commissioners are bound first of all by Section 17, Sub-section (23), of the Land Act, 1909, which lays down that the following persons are eligible for the purchase of parcels of land: First of all, a person being a tenant or proprietor of a holding not exceeding £10 valuation; secondly, a person who has surrendered land for the relief of congestion; thirdly, an evicted tenant or his personal representative; and fourthly, any person to whom, in the opinion of the Land Commission, after adequate provision has been made to supply the requirements of the persons mentioned in the Sub-section I have quoted, advances ought to be made. I hold that the Estates Commissioners are bound by that Section to consider the prevalent congestion in the case of this estate.
  The first person to receive a portion of this estate was a gentleman who received 16½ acres, and he was a caretaker for six years with the landlord. The second was an ex-soldier, who received 16½ acres, who promptly let his land at £5 an acre to a large farmer who already farms 120 acres. The third, who got 5 acres, is a mason working in a town. Another man, named Duffy, got 16½ acres; he was an ex-police man, who already had 11 acres, and he promptly let his new holding. A small farmer named Collins got 16½ acres; another, who had no implements, got 16 acres, and he let the land at £4 an acre to a farmer who had already 60 acres in his possession. A man named O'Donnell, who was not a tenant at all but an employé of the landlord, also got land. The last applicant was a man named O'Brien, who was a good cultivator, well supplied with implements for working on the land. He got 3 acres, but only after the Estates Commissioners had insisted on his parting with 3 acres which he already held. Still another man applied for a holding of this estate. He was encouraged to apply' to the Estates Commissioners, and was told to take out letters of administration in respect of his father's property. He did so, but after being put to the expense and trouble, and after having sent

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  the official documents to the office, his application was turned down. I must apologise to the House and to the Chief Secretary for raising these questions at this hour and on such an occasion, but I only do so because I have absolutely failed to get a reply to a series of questions I addressed to the Estates Commissioners and have got no redress whatever. I suggested in the month of February that these lands were being let to improper persons, and I received an answer from the Estates Commissioners to the effect practically that it was none of their business to inquire into allegations of this nature. I followed that up by sending them the list I have just read to the House, but they have failed absolutely to inquire into the allegations I have made. I appeal now to the right hon. Gentleman to sift thoroughly these matters, and to see to it that land situated in a district where land is so hard to procure shall be used to the greatest possible advantage.
  Mr. O'SHEE: Before the Chief Secretary answers, I would like to address him on another subject. I conceive it is his duty, as the representative of Ireland in the Government, to make demands on the Government which are in the interest of Ireland. I want to call attention to the fact that, although the War has now been going on for two and a half years, the expenditure on munition making in Ireland has not, as I understand, exceeded the sum of £2,000,000 sterling. The total expenditure in connection with the War now amounts to £40,000,000 weekly. Ireland has contributed in actual cash up to the present moment, in the way of taxation, at least a sum of £25,000,000, and yet less than £3,000,000 has been expended on munition work in that country. But the contribution of Ireland for the War is not confined to the amount of cash actually raised by taxation imposed during the year, because, as I assume, our country will be expected to bear her proportion of the taxes to be imposed in respect of the moneys borrowed for carrying on the War. The total taxation of the United Kingdom now amounts to about £500,000,000 yearly, and the excess taxation, over the prewar rate, is fully £300,000,000 sterling. The last Budget prior to the War realised a sum of about £200,000,000, while under the Budget for the current year £500,000,000 is raised by taxation, the additional £300,000,000 being for the pur-
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  poses of the War. Of that £300,000,000 Ireland has contributed £10,000,000, or £12,000,000. During the same period the borrowings have amounted to £1,500,000,000, so that the total expenditure for the year is close upon £2,000,000,000. If Ireland is to bear her proportion of the money borrowed during the current year, and of the money borrowed before the current year, as well as her proportion of what will have to be borrowed in the coming year, she will have to bear not merely the amount already raised by taxation and paid into the Exchequer, but also her proportion of the money borrowed for the purposes of the War. I would ask the Chief Secretary whether it is not his duty, as the representative of Ireland in the Cabinet, to see that a fairer allocation is made of war expenditure than has been made hitherto. The figure of £3,000,000 has been given to me as the war expenditure on munitions in Ireland up to now. So far as I have been able to investigate the matter, I cannot find that a sum of even £3,000,000 has been spent on the manufacture of munitions in Ireland.
  I would call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the fact that in November last an hon. Baronet, who is a Member of this House, was sent to Ireland by the then Secretary of State for War, now the Prime Minister, to investigate the conditions with regard to the materials Ireland could provide for the purpose of carrying on the War. The hon. Baronet went over the whole of Ireland and made what appeared to be a thorough investigation of the conditions and of the plant and materials available to provide munitions of war. Up to the present moment the report of the hon. Baronet has not been published. When he was in Ireland I had the pleasure of introducing two deputations to him, but I have never heard from that day to this whether there is anything in the hon. Baronet's report in reference to the claims put before him by the deputations, and I do not know what he said in regard to them. He informed the deputations that he would report to the Government. I assume that he has done so. I understand that this Report was sent in to the Government at the end of November last. After the lapse of several months it has not been published, and so far as I am aware no information has been given with regard to it as a whole. I believe tht some of my hon. Friends have been informed of the contents with regard

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  to a receiving depot in Dublin, but I have not seen them. I have only learned that within the last two clays. I was expecting all along that we should be given some information with regard to the Report, but no such information has been given to the public or to the House. Some information has been given to some Members of the House, but I think the full Report ought to be published. All Ireland is waiting for it. I can speak for only a very small locality, but I am aware from the reports which appeared in the public Press at the time that all over Ireland, in every place you went to, in the West, in the North, in the South, in the East, at Dublin, Belfast, Londonderry, Sligo, Galway, Limerick, Cork, Waterford and other towns, deputations waited on the hon. Baronet and made suggestions and put proposals before him, which he undertook to report to the Government, and I presume he has dealt with all these matters in his Report. It is quite unfair for the Government on their responsibility to send a representative in a responsible position, as the hon. Baronet was, as a delegate, as it were, to the people of Ireland in connection with munitions of war and manufactures for the purpose of enabling the War to be carried on. to raise false hopes in the minds of the people and not inform us of what he has said or what the Government propose to do with regard to his Report. Surely a visit which was boomed as the hon. Baronet's visit to Ireland was boomed at the time ought to have some other result than mere futility. It has had no result so far and it is quite unfair that this Government should play on the people of Ireland by declining to inform those whom the hon. Baronet saw as to what is being done or what has been said by him with regard to the representations they made to him.
  A Noble Lord who has often been spoken of by way of criticism or referred to in connection with the Press which he controls made a speech about a week ago, in which I am glad to say he called attention to the fact that in Ireland so little expenditure has been made for the purpose of carrying on the War, and he gave the figure I have given He said that while this country is spending over £'40,000,000 a week for the purposes of the War, it is a sad thing to say that Ireland is getting very little benefit out of that expenditure.
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  I hope the Noble Lord will use the Press which he controls in this country with so much ability to press that on the Government. It is said that he has made this Government. I hope he will endeavour to make this child of his obey him now in connection with this point to which he himself called attention. It is very sad to find that up to now no attempt has been made in Ireland to set up any industry which would be of a permanent character in connection with the War. One of the proposals which was made to the hon. Baronet when he came to Ireland was that the Government should in a town where there had been a large leather factory, take over that factory, which they could have had almost for nothing or, at any rate, for quite a nominal rent. They could there have inaugurated, or, rather, revived the manufacture of leather. The manufacture of leather had been carried on in that town until about fifteen years ago, when it ceased on the death of the proprietor of the manufactory. The plant of the factory is there, and is more suitable for carrying on that industry than any other. The people have never heard since that day whether anything is to be done in that matter. The Government have taken control in this country of many factories and industries. They are controlling the chief industries—the railways, shipping, and mines—and surely it is open to them to take some step in Ireland. I do not believe they have started yet. I understand that a few days ago an Under-Secretary was asked a question in regard to mines in Ireland, and said he was not aware that any coal mines existed in Ireland. The Chief Secretary is well aware we have coal mines, and I know he has visited some of them. I wish he would impart his knowledge to some of his colleagues, and especially to that Under-Secretary.
  My hon. Friends who have spoken in this Debate have referred to many cases of hardship where men whose release from the Army for purposes of agriculture has been asked for and refused. I have had a case brought to my notice. It is that of the secretary of a county council who had two sons when the War broke out. One of them was killed, and the remaining son then enlisted as a private. The son who was killed had a commission. The second son, the private, was in training over here, and the Department of Agriculture in

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  Dublin asked that he should be released. The father is a large farmer, having a farm of over 200 acres, and was secretary to the county council for many years before the War, and still is so. His duty as secretary to the county council requires him to attend at the office of the county council every day from nine to five, and he has to travel by train to get there. He wanted this son for the season in order to supervise the tillage. He employs a certain number of men, but he wanted this son, who is accustomed to farming, and who had been in charge of the farm before. He enlisted only last September, and was not ready to serve at the front, not having completed his training. It was the Department of Agriculture in Ireland that asked that he should be released in order to supervise the tillage operations in the spring, but up to a week ago he had not been released, though he had been transferred to an Irish regiment, and is in Ireland. The request was made on 29th January last to the War Office or whatever Department is concerned. I think this is an extraordinary case. Is my hon. Friend aware that any request for the release of ploughmen in Ireland is always, or almost invariably turned down? There have been very few cases of release. I should like the Under-Secretary for War to tell us if he can find a number of cases in Ireland where men have been released for ploughing. I think he will find that there are very few. We are told that in this country 14,000 have been released. I would ask, Have fourteen been released in Ireland? That is probably as many as have been released; I should say myself that not more than seven have been released. The commanding officers in Ireland seem to have made up their minds that they ought to release none. It is absolutely hopeless applying in Ireland. Whether warning has been given to the commanding officers in Ireland or whether they do it of their own volition I do not know. They have refused in almost every case to consider the application; certainly they have refused to accede to the applications, and I think that has made a very unfortunate impression in Ireland, for it is as much as to say. "if you are an Irishman, no matter how well you may be able to plough and no matter how much your services as a ploughman may be required, you shall not, because you are an Irishman, be released." That is what it comes to.
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  It is unfortunate, but I am sorry to say that that is the impression which it has made on public opinion in Ireland.
  Mr. LUNDON: I do not intend to delay the House more than a few minutes, but I should like to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to what is happening in regard to food production. At the inception of the scheme, as he is himself aware, consternation was caused in various districts owing to the impossibility of complying with the Regulations. That particularly applied to that portion of Limerick which I have the honour to represent, because for the last forty years tillage in East Limerick has been unknown. The farmers have chiefly relied upon dairying, and when the tillage regulations were issued they seemed to think, and, indeed, I thought myself at that time, that it was absolutely impossible for them to comply with them. It has now been found that in Limerick alone 850 ploughs were sold to the fanners of the county since the beginning of the operations, and so great is the demand for a tillage demonstrator that a second one has had to be appointed in the county. That speaks very well for the farmers who practically knew nothing whatever about the production of wheat and oats and other commodities which are essential under the demands now put forward by the Government. Something has been said about shirkers. I know the shirker is in the county of Limerick as well as in other counties in Ireland, and as you have shirkers among the farmers you have them among other classes of the community, even Government servants. When the right hon. Gentleman comes to enforce penalties upon any section of the community, I hope he will apply the same rod to the pet darlings of the Government as he would to the ordinary farmer. I attended a meeting in a district where there is a master of foxhounds, a gentleman named Baring, who has been in Limerick for the last fifteen or sixteen years. Since he came into the county he has always employed a pretty large stud, but he has never purchased a pound of oats from any farmer in the county or city of Limerick. He has 700 or 800 acres of land, and all he has tilled is about three and a half acres. I wish to ask if he is to be allowed to go scot-free? Why should not Mr. Baring be treated as an ordinary farmer in the county of Limerick? Far harder

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  treatment should be meted out to him than to an ordinary individual. He purchases all his oats and straw on this side of the Channel, and gives no opportunity to the farmer over whose land he rides of selling him corn or straw.
  I come to another gentleman, Arthur White, "Lumping Tommy Sands," as he is called, a land agent who works a farm for an Englishman in a district called Ballynanty near the village of Bruff. It is a farm consisting of 240 acres of the best land in the South of Ireland. That land has been grazed by bullocks for the last forty years, and, as far as I can gather, the profits of the farm are not going to the landlord, but into the pockets of Arthur White. A deputation asked him to give portion of his land, but he turned them down. I went through the place last Sunday week and not a bit of the 250 acres of land is being used for the production of food. Is he to get off scot-free?
  Then we come to another case. I have a letter from an adjoining parish concerning a gentleman who is well known to a good many people in Ireland, Mr. Digby de Burgh. He is very fond of criticising the Irish Parliamentary party and the late Liberal Government in the columns of the "Independent." He criticises everybody from the Almighty down to the bottom. He uses his pen and his voice against the local bodies and local Members of Parliament. He criticises everybody except the Tory party. He believes that if the Tory party went into office to-morrow Ireland would be absolutely saved. Tariff Beform would enrich Ireland by leaps and bounds. An inspector asked him if he had no notion of tilling any of his land, or complying With the Order, and the answer he got was, "If anyone comes to compel me to till my land I will give him the contents of a six-chambered revolver." What I want to know from the right hon. Gentleman is whether Mr. de Burgh is be let off on the plea that he is half-mad. If he allows that he will have a thousand half-mad men in the county of Limerick before a week is out. It is far easier to get a six-chambered revolver nowadays than it is to do the other thing. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see that Mr. de Burgh has to carry out the Tillage Order.
  I could name to the right hon. Gentleman six or seven other people in my Constituency who say they will
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  not till. Everyone of them happens to be a Unionist. Why will they not till? It is simply because some of them are half-mad, and the majority have backstairs up to Dublin Castle. It is all very well to say that the responsibility for tillage was forced upon a man who heretofore had been in the habit of tilling, but if you were to distinguish between the ordinary farmer on the one hand, and the grazier of 200 acres on the other, you would be up against a stone wall, because if men like De Burgh, White, and Baring are going by influence and other means to be let off complying with the Order, the farmer will say, "It is the same old game over again. The Government are still saying that any excuse will do—you will not be asked to do your duty; we will throw the responsibility upon the farmer who has already had to do his duty in the way of tillage." I do not wish to detain the House any longer, but I must express the hope that these people will be compelled to do their duty the same as the farmer. I should like, in conclusion, to express the hope that the right hon. Gentleman will take steps before we go back at Easter with regard to setting up the wages tribunals in every county in Ireland. Time is going, labourers are being employed on the land, and the sooner wages tribunals are set up and a minimum wage is established the sooner will they give their earnest cooperation and loyalty to the farmer, which is absolutely essential to the successful prosecution of the food scheme in Ireland. I trust, before we get back, those of us who are associated with the labour movement will be able to say that the right hon. Gentleman has carried out his word to this House, and the direct representation of labour will meet with the thorough approval of all concerned.
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Duke): The House, I am sure, will not expect me to reply in detail to all the points which have been brought to the attention of the House by hon. Members from Ireland in the course of this discussion, but I will reply to the successive questions which have been raised so far as my present information enables me to do so, and as to the matters on which I have not full information I will make inquiries. The hon. Member for East Donegal (Mr. Kelly), after a considerable display of patience, gave the House a large volume of particulars con-

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  cerning a Stewart estate of 100 acres in county Donegal, where there has been a failure, as he thinks, on the part of the Congested Districts Board to make the distribution possible of certain untenanted land.
  Mr. KELLY: It was on the part of the Estates Commissioners.
  Mr. DUKE: I should have said the Estates Commissioners. I confess that if the hon. Member had brought the matter to my attention three or four months ago, when the thing was in progress, there would have been a somewhat less remote chance of effective intervention than there is to-night, when the matter has already been dealt with, and probably the steps which have been taken are irrevocable. However that may be, undoubtedly the subject is one which in the constituency the hon. Member represents is regarded as possessing a great deal of interest, and I will take care that due inquiry shall be forthcoming. I can assure the hon. Member that if there is a miscarriage such as he suggests, and it is possible for a remedy to be applied, I will see what can be done in the matter.
  The hon. Member for West Water-ford (Mr. O'Shee) raised a question which has already occupied a good deal of my own attention and has been brought to my notice by the hon. Member and a good many of his colleagues—that is the question of the relative disparity between the expenditure on munition works in this Island of Great Britain and the corresponding expenditure in Ireland. Hon. Members who are familiar with that subject will know well that the smaller scale of expenditure there has arisen through causes which it is exceedingly difficult to grapple with in the course of a great war. There has been no indisposition to distribute munition works in Ireland. So far from that, works have been established, plant has been taken over, and workmen have been trained in delicate branches of industry which one would have thought it was impossible to provide. May I say also that they have been trained with excellent results? There is a munition factory in Dublin where practically the whole of the workpeople, both men and women, have been trained during the War. I can tell the House that they have been trained with so much success that the output of shells compares favourably with the best output in Great Britain in quality
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  and price. Works have been established, or are in course of establishment, in the city of Water ford, as the hon. Member for West Waterford will know. I have myself seen works in the West of Ireland in various places—in Limerick and in one or two other towns. Also, there are very considerable branches of munition works in the North, particularly in Belfast. I am not able to go in detail into the recommendations of the hon. Baronet the Member for the Loughborough Division (Sir M. Levy). The hon. Baronet visited many of the industrial centres in Ireland, and in the Report which he produced made recommendations that are at the present time receiving attention. Those recommendations, I think, are likely almost immediately to bear fruit in one or two particulars. The hon. Member for West Waterford referred to the discussion which had arisen in connection with the establishment of a fuse factory and an inspection depot. Both undertakings, I have reason to hope, will be in course of operation before any great time has passed. Steps are being taken with a view to carrying into effect the recommendations in that respect, and the works in Dublin which are being so successfully carried on I expect will be increased in the two particulars to which the hon. Member has referred.
  On the general question of the development of industrial possibilities and the attitude of the Government towards the munition industry in Ireland, it is impossible in the course of a reply to questions on the spur of the moment to give the hon. Member so satisfactory an account as he would desire. But with regard to industrial possibilities, I can assure the hon. Member that the Committees which are now sitting to deal not only with immediate possibilities but with the question of the reconstruction and development which must engage attention on the conclusion of the War, are by no means losing sight of the possibilities of Ireland. In that respect the Report of the hon. Baronet the Member for Loughborough is bound to be of considerable use.
  Mr. O'SHEE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say when the Report will be published?
  Mr. DUKE: I cannot say that. It was a Report made at the personal instance of the present Prime Minister when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I am not

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  in a position to say whether the document is one which ought to be laid before this House. But I can tell the hon. Member that the recommendations of the hon. Baronet have been under careful consideration. With regard to the matter which he mentioned last in the course of his speech, namely, the position in respect to the development of mines in Ireland, the hon. Member knows well that, notwithstanding all the difficulties to be surmounted, the construction of a railway has been undertaken in the case of one mine, and there is every desire on the part of the Government to utilise, so far as possible, those resources to which the hon. Member has referred.
  Then the hon. Member for East Limerick (Mr. Lundon) addressed the House on the question of tillage. I recognise, and every man interested in the increase of tillage in Ireland must recognise, with great appreciation the resolute way in which the farmers generally in Ireland have responded to the invitation of the Government, and to the directions contained in the Tillage Regulations, for the increased production of food to meet our common necessities in the present great emergency. As a matter of fact, farmers in Ireland have, on the whole, responded with astonishing and gratifying alacrity. Nothing, I say, could be more admirable than the response on the whole to the directions contained in the Tillage Regulations. It is quite true, as the hon. Member has said, that in County Limerick there is an enormous demand for ploughs, which has arisen partly from the fact that tillage had gone so much out of use in Ireland, and partly from the effect of the ready and, one might say, enthusiastic response to the Regulations. The hon. Member referred to a number of cases in which he stated that there had been a number of cases of persons, whom he named, who would not obey the Regulations. I can only tell him and tell them that if persons in leading positions have adopted the attitude which he described towards this question of tillage, there will be-no discrimination in favour of such persons when the question of the enforcement of tillage in accordance with the Regulations is finally decided. I must say, in regard to the general question, that in nine cases out of ten where there has been pretence of a resolution not to comply with the Regulations, when the defaulter has come face
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  to face with those who have the power to call in outside help for the purpose of carrying out tillage where there is default, he has altered his mind and has undertaken to conform to the requirements of the Regulations.
  Mr. LUNDON: I referred to Mr. de Burgh.
  1.0 A.M.
  Mr. DUKE: I can only say that conduct such as the hon. Member described will not commend itself to the favourable consideration of those whose business it is to enforce these Regulations. It certainly will not commend any man to me, and if in the last resort I had to decide this matter, a resolute defiance of Regulations made in the common interest is the last way of appealing to me. With regard to wages, the labourers in Ireland have shown a great deal of forbearance and patience in this matter. I would say a few words on this subject. There are to be statutory powers in order that the minimum wage may be effective, and I have reason to hope that we shall soon have set up—as soon as these statutory powers are obtained—the machinery will be ready; it is very nearly ready now—in agricultural districts where minimum wage questions have to be settled, tribunals for settling them where this has not already been done by agreement satisfactorily between employers and employed. I am happy to say that the prospect of tribunals for settling these questions has had the result of pricking the consciences of people in many parts of the country, for I have heard of negotiations between employers and employed, who have met one another in the most businesslike way and have come to terms in establishing increased rates of wages. That process will be accelerated and facilitated by the steps the Government will take, and I trust that the result will be at no distant date a great amelioration of the conditions of one of the most deserving, and in the past one of the most neglected, classes of the population of the country—the agricultural labourer. I do not propose to keep the House longer at this time of night. The Under-Secretary for War (Mr. Mac-pherson) has asked me to say that he will look personally into the various matters and cases which have been brought to his notice, including the case which hon. Members from Ireland raised' of the difficulty of obtaining release for

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  agricultural purposes, where possible, from the obligations of military service. He will take those steps, and I do not know, but I hope the House may see its way, as this is a Finance Bill which is essential for the objects we all have at heart, to permit this stage to be taken now.
  Mr. HAZLETON: I will not delay the House for more than a very few minutes, in response to the appeal the Chief Secretary has made, but there are just one or two matters with which I want to deal that arise out of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. I presume the statutory powers to which he referred as necessary before wages boards can be set up in connection with agricultural wages in Ireland will be dealt with in the measure announced to be introduced this week into the House by the Leader of the House.
  Mr. DUKE: Yes.
  Mr. HAZLETON: The points I have risen to refer to arise out of the reply to the hon. Member for West Waterford {Mr. O'Shee) with regard to munition making in Ireland. I think I may say for myself and my Friends on these benches that we welcome the speech of the Chief Secretary and what has been done in Ireland in this matter so far; but we would beg the Chief Secretary and the Government not to attempt to make too much of what has been done, because in proportion to the expenditure for Ireland and in proportion to the gigantic expenditure in this country, what has been done in Ireland is really only a drop in the ocean. My hon. Friend and the Chief Secretary referred to the receiving depot. I was glad to get an announcement yesterday from the Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Forster) that it has been decided to set up that receiving depot in Dublin. Of course, we are very glad indeed of that decision, and I would only just like to say this to the Financial Secretary to the War Office on that point: that we have had to wait a long time for that decision, and I hope that now, when the decision has been come to, it does not mean that we shall have interminable delays before it is carried into effect. We have had bitter experience in the past of War Office delays, and we hope this will not be another case in point.
  I think I gathered from the Chief Secretary's speech to-night that a further decision has been come to with regard to the
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  extension of munitions in Dublin in connection with fuse factories, and I hope also that we may have more satisfactory information on that point. I would like to say to the Chief Secretary and to the Financial Secretary to the War Office that I really think the Government would be acting wisely in publishing the Report of the hon. Baronet the Member for Loughborough (Sir M. Levy). His visit to Ireland did raise a great many expectations. He saw many people, and great publicity was given to his visit He received many deputations, and yet not a single word has been heard by the public in Ireland until yesterday, when it was announced that it had been decided to establish a receiving depot. I think that in fairness to the hon. Baronet himself, the Government, if possible, ought to publish his Report, and I hope they will see their way to do so.
  There is just one other matter that I want to bring to the notice of the Under-Secretary of State for War. On a recent occasion I had to raise in the Debate here the case of mechanical transport men who had been enlisted in Ireland being transferred to Infantry battalions against their wishes, and refused permission to join Irish regiments. I secured an undertaking that these cases would be individually looked into, but I hear from some of my Friends, and I have seen letters they have received, that there are many of these cases. My hon. Friend here (Mr. O'Shee) says he has two cases, the hon. Member for Newry (Mr. Mooney) showed me a letter he had; yesterday I received another letter on this subject; and the whole weight of evidence is that this is not a special case at all, but that evidently a very large movement in connection with these men has been organised from the War Office or someone else to break the contract with these men for the mechanical transport and to send them into Infantry battalions. Let me remind the hon. Gentleman that the number of men enlisted in recent months from Ireland for the mechanical transport has been the result of a special effort of the War Office for mechanical transport. These men, of course, have special duties and special rates of pay. They were induced from Ireland to join the mechanical transport, and, as I pointed out on the last occasion, more than 1,700 men have been enlisted for this purpose. The letter I received to-day is dated 25th March, and

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  this man, whose name I will send to the hon. Member afterwards, says this. If it is true—and, mind you, all the evidence I have goes to show that it is true—it creates a really serious position that will need to be inquired into by the War Office impartially. He says:
  "I enlisted in the mechanical transport and after some months of training outside London 7 was transferred to Edinburgh with some hundreds of my countrymen. Hut the day we left for Edinburgh we were not told where we were going or that we were being transferred to Infantry regiments, If we had known we would have refused to go. I would like to get back to the mechanical transport, or, failing that to an Irish regiment."
  My information is that that is true, and hundreds of cases have been dealt with in this way. I say it will be necessary for the War Office to hold a special inquiry into the case of these men, and either return them to the mechanical transport, as their contract implied they were for that branch of the Service when they enlisted in Ireland, or else transfer them, as they are pressing us to urge, to an Irish regiment. It is really a genuine case, and I ask the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State for War to give it his special attention, in order that we may have no more repetitions of these complaints the causes of which are evidently still going on to-day. I ask him to give the matter his personal and urgent attention.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read the third time, and passed.

  ARMY (ANNUAL) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  [Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

CLAUSES 1 (Short Title), 2 (Army Act, to he in Force for Specified Times), 3 (Prices in Respect of Billeting), and 4 (Amendment of s. 154 of the Army Act with Respect to Deserters and Absentees Without Leave) ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  CLAUSE 5 (Amendment of s. 163 of the Army Act Relating to Evidence.)
  (1) For paragraph (j) of Section one hundred and sixty-three of the Army Act, which relates to evidence, the following paragraph shall be substituted:
  "(j) Where the proceedings are proceedings against an officer or soldier on a charge of being a deserter or
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  absentee without leave, and the officer or soldier has surrendered himself into the custody of, or has been apprehended by a provost marshal, assistant provost marshal or other officer, or any portion of His Majesty's Forces, a certificate purporting to have been signed by such provost marshal, assistant provost marshal or other officer, or by the commanding officer of the portion of His Majesty's Forces to whom the surrender or by whom the arrest was made, and stating the fact, date and place of such surrender or arrest shall be evidence of the matter so stated."

  (2) After the said paragraph (j) the following paragraph shall be inserted:
  "(k) Where the proceedings are proceedings against an officer or soldier on a charge of being a deserter or absentee without leave and the officer or soldier has been delivered into military custody by a police officer in charge of a police station in the United Kingdom, a certificate purporting to be signed by such police officer, and stating the fact date and place of the surrender of the officer or soldier shall be evidence of the matters so stated."

  Mr. MACPHERSON: I beg to move, in. Sub-section (1), to leave out the words "or has been apprehended by."
  This is an Amendment which will, I am sure, meet the general views of the House.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Schedule agreed to.

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Restriction on Discharge of Soldiers Suffering from Venereal Disease).
  (1) Notwithstanding anything in the last foregoing Section (relating to soldiers who are discharged or transferred to the Reserve), no soldier of the Regular forces shall be entitled to be discharged if, at the completion of the term of his original enlistment, or of the period of his re-engagement, he is suffering from any venereal disease: and the period of his Army service may be compulsorily prolonged until he is cured of that disease.

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  (2) In this Section the expression "venereal disease" means, syphilis, gonorrhoea, or soft chancre in any infectious or contagious stage.—[Mr. King.]

  Clause brought up, and read the first time.
  Mr. KING: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  This is a Clause which I have brought to the notice of the Committee on previous occasions. It is an attempt, and I venture to think a very honest and sensible attempt, to deal with the great evil of venereal disease. We are told that after the War there will be a very great increase or recrudescence of this very dangerous disease. It is, of course, understood that the Government are taking steps to meet the evil. My proposal is that the War Office should have the power to say that any soldier suffering from a venereal disease in a communicable form may be kept in the Army until he is cured. My Clause does not say that he shall be kept in the Army; it simply says that the War Office shall have power to refuse his discharge so long as he has the disease in that form. This, I admit, goes a little further than the recommendation of the Royal Commission, who, recognising the great danger that there is in soldiers having venereal disease coming out of the Army and spreading it, have in their recommendations Nos. 21 and 22 dealt with this subject. They evidently are afraid to recommend that the discharge of such soldiers should in all cases be refused, but they suggest it. In suggesting that the War Office should take this power I do not want them to exercise it in all cases, but I do think they might discriminate and use such a power in certain cases if men were of such a character, for instance, that they could not be trusted and had been subject to frequent and repeated attacks of this disease—there are such men in the Army—or if there were cases where men who were going to get their discharge failed to give an undertaking for the future or there were any complaints which were unsatisfactory in regard to their treatment or conduct or capacity for earning their livelihood or otherwise. In such cases I think such a power as that I suggest might very well be acted upon at any rate, for a time. This is a large subject and a late hour, and I do not intend to detain the Committee any further upon it, but I hope, at any rate, that I shall
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  have a sympathetic reply from my hon. Friend, and even if he cannot concede the Clause to-day I hope he will consider it further. I am afraid we shall have another Army Bill before the War is over, and some such course of action as I suggest would, I think, be well worthy of consideration by the authorities.
  Mr. MACPHERSON: The House realises that my hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset takes a real interest in this subject, and I feel sure that his views in regard to this matter will have careful consideration. I have only to point out to him that there are one or two considerations which make it impossible for the Government at the present time to accept the proposed new Clause. In the first place, we could not keep in the Army many men who are afflicted with this disease, because it takes practically two years in these cases for the disease to be cured, and we have not the hospital accommodation to keep these men two years. Moreover, it would not do for it to be said or thought that the Army had become a segregation camp for this particular type of disease. The only other point I should like to lay before my hon. Friend is that I do not think he would like us to say that we should not discharge a soldier when his time for discharge arrives. I think that would be an interference with the liberty of the subject with which my hon. Friend would not in ordinary circumstances agree. In view of these circumstances, which, I feel sure, will appeal to him, I hope my hon. Friend will not press this Clause.
  Mr. KING: Before I announce my decision whether I press it or not, let me point out that the Clause in the Army Act—Clause 90—which refers to the discharge of a man docs not say that a man on being entitled to his discharge shall be discharged at once; it does not give a man any right to go out of the Army and to go free. It says he shall be discharged "with all convenient spend." It is quite clear that a man, when he becomes entitled to his discharge, is allowed to go-out under certain conditions which are therein stated. I propose to add one-condition which shall not be applicable in all cases, but shall be permissive. I am sorry the hon. Gentleman cannot go further, but I shall return to this matter on Tuesday, I cannot see that there

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  is any great injustice or difficulty in what I have proposed. However, under the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw.
  Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Appeal to Military Court of Appeal.)
  (a) Where any officer or soldier after his complaint has been inquired into under Sections 42 and 43 of this Act and the decision thereon has been communicated to him and where such officer or soldier still considers that he has not had the redress to which he may consider himself entitled, such officer or soldier may appeal to the Military Court of Appeal, and such Court shall investigate such complaint and shall issue its finding accordingly and forward the same to the Army Council, who shall communicate such finding to the complainant or shall take such steps as are necessary for giving full redress to the complainant in respect of the matter complained of in so far as the finding of the Military Court of Appeal is concerned, provided that nothing in this Section gives any officer or soldier any additional right of appeal from the finding or sentence of a court-martial beyond that already allowed by the Act and the King's Regulations.

  (b) A Military Court of Appeal consisting of five members shall be appointed by His Majesty the King, of whom any three shall form a quorum. Two of such members shall be military officers, two shall be persons not holding any official position under the Crown, and one shall be one of His Majesty's Judges of the High Court of Justice.

  Clause brought up, and read the first time.
  General IVOR PHILLIPS: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  In the Army Act the greater part deals entirely with punishments by courts-martial. There are two Clauses which I look upon as the Soldiers Charter—Clauses 42 and 43. I referred to this matter on the Second Reading, and gave notice that I would move this new Clause. When the Army was a purely voluntary Army, the men voluntarily placed themselves under this strict military discipline. Now that it is a compulsory Army, it seems to me more than ever necessary that these two Clauses should be elabo-
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  rated, and that officers and men in the Army should be given a further right to appeal from any decision that may be given against them in respect of any grievance they may have. The Army Act deals with every minute detail of pay, leave, promotion, and discipline, but if a man feels himself wronged in any of these matters he can only get redress under these two Clauses.
  They are the only two Clauses in the Bill which really give the officer and soldier any rights of redress whatever. As I have said previously. I think it is necessary that I should bring this matter forward as so many bad cases have occurred recently. There was the case of the young officer who could not get justice, and we had to pass a special Act of Parliament in this House to enable him to get justice. That was a serious case, but I can assure the House that there are numbers of cases in which officers and men do not get the justice to which they are entitled. They can only refer to their Commanding Officer and through him to the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief. If he decides against them there is an appeal to the Army Council, but that only means the same papers are brought up again. Some further Court of Appeal should be given to officers and soldiers. The Under-Secretary of State said in his reply the other day that officers had an appeal to the King as a final resort. I am sure every officer would be only too willing to have his case tried by His Majesty, but we all know that is not possible, and it only means that it is the Army Council over again.
  What I should like to see is a special Court of Appeal, and I suggest that it should consist of five members, two of whom should be military officers, one a judge of the High Court of Justice, and two persons holding no official appointment whatever. It would be very similar to the Court of Inquiry recently set up in the case of the young officer, who won his case in this Court, and got complete justification, and was re-established entirely. It has been suggested that this would bring officers back from the front. I am not a lawyer, but I understand the Court of Appeal does not have the whole of the witnesses before it. I do not think that is at all necessary. My idea was that the case should be written out, that the aggrieved party should submit his case, and that the Court of Appeal should have all

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  the documents in front of them. I do not think a reasonable reply has been given to my Amendment, and I think a Court of Appeal is necessary to keep up the discipline of the Army now that it has got to such a large size.
  Major NEWMAN: I have much pleasure in seconding the Motion.
  Mr. MACPHERSON: As my hon. Friend says, he has placed the considerations before the House on one or two occasions. I cannot see my way to accept the Amendment. I will promise my hon. and gallant Friend that it shall receive, if not during war time, in peace time, the consideration which it deserves.
  Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

  NEW CLAUSE.—(Rules for Field Punishment.)
  The rules for field punishment shall include Regulations providing that when an offender is attached for a period to a fixed object he shall not be attached in such a way as to prevent him from moving his hands and feet, nor with his arms extended above his head or at a right-angle from his body.—[Mr. Edmund Harvey.]
  Clause brought up, and read the first time.
  Mr. EDMUND HARVEY: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  This is carrying out the suggestion I made on the Second Reading yesterday My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary kindly promised that he would consider words which might be inserted in this Bill to carry out Regulations recently made by the War Office dealing with Field Punishment No. 1, and removing from that field punishment the danger of its being used, as it has been in the past, in the form popularly known as crucifixion. The new Regulations intro-
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  duced recently by the War Office entirely remove the possibility of that form of punishment in the Army. What I wish to secure is that it shall have statutory effect. I do not wish to delay the Committee by arguing the matter further, and I formally move the new Clause.
  Mr. MACPHERSON: I am grateful on behalf of the War Office to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds for the reasonable way in which he has drafted this Amendment, and for his acknowledgment of the fact that the War Office has fulfilled its pledge in altering or standardising the system of punishment known as Field Punishment No. 1. While not accepting my hon. Friend's Clause, I think I can give him an undertaking, which I hope he will accept, that we shall insert in the rules of procedure under Section 44 of the Army Act conditions which will require a system in the matter. I hope that will appeal to my hon. Friend as a reasonable thing to do, and that he will accept the undertaking.
  Mr. HARVEY: I am very glad to have the assurance of my hon. Friend. I am sure it will give great satisfaction in the country that this will become part of the regular Army procedure.
  Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
  Bill reported, with an Amendment; as amended, considered; read the third time, and passed.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  It being after half-past Eleven of the clock upon Tuesday evening, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing-Order.
  Adjourned at Twenty-eight minutes before Two o'clock, 28th March.