Commons Sitting of 14 February 1918

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
The following private Bills were presented, read the first time, and ordered to be read a second time: —
Belfast Harbour Bill,
"To authorise the construction of additional docks and other works at Belfast; to extend the powers of the Belfast Harbour Commissioners; and for other purposes."
Brentford Gas Bill,
"To confer further powers upon the Brentford Gas Company; and for other purposes."
Cannock, Hednesford, and District Gas Bill,
"To alter the standard price for the supply of gas by the Cannock, Hednesford and District Gas Company, Limited."
Cardiff Gas Bill,
"To confer further powers on and to give temporary relief to the Cardiff Gas Light and Coke Company from certain statutory restrictions as to maximum prices of gas."
Commercial Gas Bill,
"To authorise the Commercial Gas Company to raise additional capital; and for other purposes."
Gas Light and Coke Company Bill,
"To confer further powers upon the Gas Light and Coke Company."
Hampton Court Gas Bill,
"To modify the Hampton Court Gas Act, 1903; to confer further powers upon the Hampton Court Gas Company; and for other purposes."
Hastings and St. Leonard's Gas Bill,
"To give temporary relief to the Hastings and St. Leonard's Gas Company in respect of the statutory restrictions as to their standard rate of dividend; and for other purposes."
Lancaster Corporation Bill.
"To confer further powers upon the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the borough of Lancaster with reference to their waterworks undertaking; the construction of street improvements and the local government of the said borough; and for other purposes."
Liverpool Gas Bill,
"To amend the Liverpool Gas Act, 1914; and for other purposes."
Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway Bill,
"To authorise the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway Company to make a railway and works at Londonderry; and for other purposes."
Londonderry Corporation Bill,
"To authorise the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the city of Londonderry to acquire additional sources of water supply and to construct additional waterworks; to make a street improvement; to provide and run trolley vehicles and omnibuses; and to confer further powers on them with respect to the supply of water and electricity and to make further and better provision for the improvement, health, and local government of the city; and for other purposes."
London United Tramways Bill,
"To confer various powers upon the London United Tramways, Limited; and for other purposes."
Longwood and Slaithwaite Gas Bill,
"To amend the Longwood Gas Act, 1902, with respect to the dividend payable by the Longwood and Slaithwaite Gas Company during the present War."
Maidenhead Gas Bill,
"To authorise the Maidenhead Gas Company to raise additional capital; to confer further powers upon the Company; and for other purposes."
Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Gateshead Gas Bill,
"To confer further powers upon the Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Gateshead Gas Company."
Plymouth and Stonehouse Gas Bill,
"To confer further powers upon the Plymouth and Stonehouse Gas Light and Coke Company."
Portsea Island Gas Light Bill,
"To confer, further powers upon the Portsea Island Gas Light Company."
Richmond Gas Bill,
"To give temporary relief to the Richmond Gas Company in respect of the statutory restrictions as to their standard rate of dividend; and for other purposes."
Rotherham Corporation Bill,
"To provide for the transfer of the electricity undertakings of the Mexborough and Swinton Tramways Company to the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the county borough of Rotherham; to extend the area for the supply of electricity by the said Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses; to make further provision in regard to their electricity, gas, and water undertakings; and for other purposes."
Sheffield Corporation (Consolidation) Bill,
"To consolidate, with Amendments, the local Acts in force within and to alter the boundaries of the city of Sheffield; to make provision in regard to the various undertakings of the Corporation; to make better provision for the health and local government of the city; and for other purposes."
Southampton Gas Bill,
"To authorise a temporary increase in the maximum prices chargeable by the Southampton Gas Light and Coke Company."
South Metropolitan Gas Bill,
"To authorise the South Metropolitan Gas Company to raise additional capital; and for other purposes."
South Shields Gas Bill,
"To extend the limits for the supply of gas of the South Shields Gas Company; to confer further powers upon that Company in connection with their undertaking; and for other purposes."
South Suburban Gas Bill,
"To authorise the acquisition by the South Suburban Gas Company of the undertaking of the Dartford Gas Company; to confer further powers on the South Suburban Gas Company; and for other purposes."
Swansea Gas Bill,
"To give relief to the Swansea Gas Light Company from certain statutory re-
240
strictions as to maximum prices of gas and maximum dividends; and for other purposes.'
Yeadon and Guiseley Gas Bill,
"To modify temporarily the Yeadon and Guiseley Gas Act, 1899."
York Gas Bill,
"To confer further powers upon the York Gas Company."

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA ACT, 1915.
Copy presented of Order in Council, dated 12th February, 1918, amending the Order in Council of the 9th February, 1914, with respect to the Establishment of the Secretary of State for India in Council [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
FOREIGN JURISDICTION ACT, 1890.
Copy presented of Order in Council, dated 5th February, 1918, entitled the China (Control of Shipbuilding) Order in Council, 1918 [by Act] to lie upon the Table.
NAVAL AND MARINE PAY AND PENSIONS ACT, 1865.
Copies presented of Orders in Council, dated 5th February, 1918, and an Order in Council, dated 12th February, 1918, approving Memorials of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty made under the Act [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
COLONIAL REPORTS (ANNUAL).
Copy presented of Colonial Report, No. 953 (St. Vincent, Report for 1916–17) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
ARMY ESTIMATES (1918–19).
Estimate presented of the sum required for the year 1918–19, for the Effective and Non-Effective Services of the Army [by Command]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.[No. 2.]

SHOPS ACT, 1912.
Copy presented of Order made by the Council of the undermentioned local authority, and confirmed, with amendment, by the Secretary of the State for the Home Department:—
align="center">Borough of Droitwich
[by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

PIERS AND HARBOURS (PROVISIONAL ORDERS).
Copy presented of Report by the Board of Trade of their Proceedings under the General Pier and Harbour Acts, 1861: Session 1918 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
AIR FORCE ESTIMATES (1918–19).
Estimate presented of the sum required for the Air Force for the year 1918–19 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 3.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    VISCOUNT ESHER.
    Major DAVID DAVIESasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Viscount Esher has been appointed to serve in any capacity under the Foreign Office; and, if so, the nature of the duties which have been entrusted to him?
    The MINISTER of BLOCKADE (Lord Robert Cecil): The answer is in the negative.

    FINLAND.
    Mr. PEMBERTON BILLINGasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any further information to give this House with regard to the position of British residents and citizens in Finland?
    Lord R. CECIL: As far as His Majesty's Consul at Helsingfors has been able to ascertain, all British subjects in Finland are safe and well, though they are necessarily suffering considerable hardships.

    POISONOUS GAS (RED CROSS APPEAL).
    Mr. DENMANasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has taken any steps in reply to the Red Cross appeal for the discontinuance of the use of poisonous gas in this War; and whether he is prepared to enter into an agreement on the subject with the other belligerent States?
    Lord R. CECIL: I have not yet received the appeal from the Red Cross. His Majesty's Government propose to consult with their Allies as to the action to be taken conjointly in view of this appeal, and I can make no statement on the subject for the present.
    Mr. BILLING: May I ask whether the Noble Lord will use his influence with the War Office not to discontinue the use of gas so long as our enemies use it?
    Lord R. CECIL: It is entirely a military question.

    CENTRAL POWERS (OFFICIAL PRONOUNCEMENTS).
    Mr. PONSONBYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether there is any official medium through which accurate reports can be obtained of official pronouncements by statesmen of the Central Powers, in order that the misunderstandings caused by the inaccurate reports at present circulated by the Press may be obviated?
    Lord R. CECIL: The answer is in the negative. His Majesty's Government have no other channel for obtaining the text of such pronouncements than newspaper reports.

    FRANCE AND RUSSIA (ALSACE-LORRAINE).
    Mr. PONSONBYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in February, 1917, Lord Milner was present at a Conference of Allied representatives in Petrograd at which the ex-Czar and the Russian Government pledged themselves to support the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France and the creation of a buffer State on the left bank of the Rhine; and, if so, why the knowledge by His Majesty's Government of such an agreement between France and Russia has repeatedly been denied?
    Lord R. CECIL: The reply to the first part of the question is in the negative; the second part, therefore, does not arise.
    Mr. PONSONBY: Is the Noble Lord aware that this statement appears in the "Daily Mail Year Book," which may be taken as a semi-official document, with Lord Northcliffe at the back of it?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The Noble Lord is not responsible for what appears in the "Daily Mail Year Book."
    Mr. BILLING: Could the Noble Lord say what language Lord Milner employed?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of this question.

    "FREEDOM OF THE SEAS" (GERMAN INTERPRETATION).
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has any information as to the meaning attached in Germany to the phrase, "The freedom of the seas"?
    Lord R. CECIL: The most recent declaration on the subject to which my attention has been drawn emanates from Count Reventlow, who is reported to have interpreted the meaning of the phrase as follows, at a public meeting in Berlin in March, 1917:
    "What do we Germans understand by freedom of the seas? Of course we do not mean by it that free use of the sea which is the common privilege of all nations in time of peace, the right to the open highways of international trade. That sort of freedom of the sea we had before the War. What we understand to-day by this doctrine is that Germany should possess such maritime territories and such naval bases that at the outbreak of a war we should be able, with our Navy ready, reasonably to guarantee ourselves the command of the seas. We want such a jumping-off place for our Navy as would give us a fair chance of dominating the seas and of being free of the seas daring a war. (Cheers.) The inalienable possession of the Belgian seaboard is therefore a matter of life and death to us, and the man is a traitor who would faintheartedly relinquish this coast to England. Our aim be not only to keep what our arms have already won on this coast, but sooner or later to extend our seaboard to the south of the Strait of Calais."
    It is, of course, obvious that the phrase as used elsewhere has a very different signification.
    Mr. TREVELYAN: Does not the Noble Lord think that a more important statement of the Central Powers is that of Count Czernin, in which he said that he accepted the interpretation of the phrase "freedom of the seas" given by the President of the United States of America?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The question here is as to the meaning attached to the phrase in Germany.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Would the right hon. Gentleman say whether Count Reventlow is supposed to be the official mouthpiece?
    Lord R. CECIL: I do not know that he is. He is a member and a representative
    244
    of that clique in Germany which has usually exerted its sway over the Government of the country.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Is he anything more than a private person who happens to be a German?
    Lord R. CECIL: He may be a good deal.
    Mr. ALDEN: Does the Noble Lord think that Count Reventlow expresses anything more than the opinion of the German Navy League?
    Lord R. CECIL: It is impossible for me to say, but I should be glad if the hon. Member will tell me what in his judgment is the interpretation of this phrase in Germany.
    Mr. LYNCH: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us the meaning attached to this phrase in the United States?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of the question.

    WORKING-CLASS HOUSING (IRELAND).
    Mr. FIELDasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in relation to local authorities and schemes for the better housing of the working classes, whether his attention has been directed to the reply of the President of the English Local Government Board to a deputation representing the newly-formed National Council to promote social centres, that local authorities would not bring forward schemes without promise of substantial financial assistance, that he hoped to be able to announce very shortly what the financial assistance would be; and that he had received a very generous response from the Treasury, but he could divulge nothing further at the moment; and whether he is in a position to give a similar assurance to Irish local authorities?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Duke): No change in the intentions of the Government has taken place since I answered the hon. Member's questions on this subject on 22nd October, 23rd November, and 28th January. The question of the best procedure for dealing with arrears of rehousing at the end of the War is still under discussion.
    Captain SHEEHAN: May I ask whether the Local Government Board of England have not been taking steps in this matter,

    245
    and whether the Irish Local Government Board are taking any steps to, formulate a policy for housing after the War?
    Mr. DUKE: Oh, yes. The Irish Local Government Board were taking steps long before the announcement was made in the newspapers that the English Local Government Board were taking steps.
    Captain SHEEHAN: Could the right hon. Gentleman give us any idea of the nature of the policy or of the steps that have been taken?
    Mr. DUKE: There is a question on the Paper on which I shall have something to say on that subject.
    Captain SHEEHANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether, in view of the steps being taken by the English Local Government Board to provide for the housing of the working classes in the towns and cities of England, he will explain what steps are being taken in Ireland to carry out a similar policy; can he state what sum is being made available in England for post-war housing purposes, and what has been done by the Irish Government to secure that an equivalent amount shall be placed at the disposal of the Irish Local Government Board for these purposes; is he aware that much of the social unrest and the conditions of health which prevail in the slum districts of Dublin, Cork, and other Irish cities and towns are due to the housing conditions that exist unremedied; and whether any definite steps have been taken or any actual constructive policy adopted to see that Ireland has a full share in whatever work of re-housing is undertaken on the conclusion of War?
    Mr. DUKE: Information as to housing needs in Dublin and elsewhere in Ireland has been and is being collected by the Irish Local Government Board, and I am in communication with the Board as to the best means of dealing with the matter in the several localities. A decision has not yet been arrived at with regard to the extent of assistance out of public funds which may be required or which will be available. I agree with the hon. and gallant Member's suggestion as to the serious consequences attributable to defective housing conditions in Dublin and elsewhere and am dealing with the question in consultation with the President of the Local Government Board, the Secretary for Scotland, and the Minister of Reconstruction.
    Captain SHEEHAN: Is the Local Government Board in Ireland acting in conjunction with the borough councils and other urban bodies in Ireland, and getting information from them?
    Mr. DUKE: The Local Government Board in Ireland, at the time I took office, had a very great amount of information on this subject. They have added to that information, and they go on adding to it, as far as it may be necessary. The real question is not the information necessary to gauge the amount of new housing that is required, but the mode of providing the accommodation at the end of the War.
    Captain SHEEHAN: Is a definite policy or a scheme going to be adopted and made known publicly, so that public bodies may know what they are going to do after the War?
    Mr. DUKE: If my hon. and gallant Friend had not been prevented from attending here by his other public duties he would know that I have stated on several occasions that that is intended.

    SCHOOL TEACHERS, IRELAND (WAR BONUS).
    Mr. BYRNEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if his attention has been drawn to the treatment of convent school teachers and assistant school mistresses in Ireland; if he is aware that the recent award of 4s. war bonus has not been paid to these teachers; if messenger girls in Government offices in England are better paid than those teachers; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?
    Mr. DUKE: The answer to the first and second inquiries in the question is in the affirmative. I have no information as to the third. No further action as to the teachers in question is open to me.

    BUILDING MATERIALS, DUBLIN.
    Mr. BYRNEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he has received any complaints from Dublin builders or owners of destroyed property in Dublin with reference to the holding up of supplies of timber that are urgently required for buildings in the course of erection in Abbey Street and O'Connell Street; and if he will cause instructions to be issued

    247
    immediately for the release of timber and other materials required for these buildings?
    Mr. DUKE: I am in communication with the Board of Trade on this subject. Perhaps the question will be repeated.

    SHEEHY SKEFFINGTON (REPORT OF INQUIRY).
    Mr. BYRNEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he will issue instructions for the publication of the full Report of the inquiry which was held in Dublin and presided over by the right hon. Member for Walthamstow?
    Mr. DUKE: The Report referred to was published in 1916, Cd. 8376. As regards publication of the evidence taken by the Commission, I would refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to a question by the hon. Member or South Kilkenny on 19th October.

    GOVERNMENT OFFICES, DUBLIN (CLEANERS).
    Mr. BYRNEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he will state the wages paid to women cleaners in Government offices in Dublin; and when the cleaners in the Land Commission offices may expect an increase in wages?
    Mr. DUKE: The wages of charwomen vary considerably in different public Departments in accordance with the time for which they are employed. I would refer the hon. Member to the Estimates for particulars in the case of each Department. Office cleaners are only part-time employeés, and in paying war bonus to them this fact has been taken into account. A memorial has recently been received from the cleaners in the Irish Land Commission contending that they should get the full bonus, and a decision will be given on the application in due course.

    ESCAPE OF PRISONERS (IRELAND).
    Major NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether on the 8th instant a party of twenty-three young men who had refused to give bail for good behaviour were brought from Limerick to Ennis to answer the usual charges for cattle-driving and intimidation; whether
    248
    they were met at the station by a military motor-lorry and armoured car and also by a large party of republicans in motor cars and on horseback; whether during the uproar in Court on the hearing of the proceedings the defendants left the Court on the order of the local commander of the volunteers, who was in uniform, marched back through the streets, and left the town; and will he say if further measures have been taken to vindicate the ordinary course of the law?
    Mr. DUKE: A party of twenty-three men were arrested on a charge of unlawful assembly and brought before the magistrates at Ennis Petty Sessions. As no conveyance could be obtained to bring the prisoners to the Court-house, a motor-lorry was used which was provided by the military authorities. They also sent an armoured car as escort. A large crowd met the train at the station, but no motorcars nor persons on horseback were observed. Uproar occurred in Court, and in the confusion which followed an order for the clearance of the Court the prisoners escaped. The hearing was adjourned, and they will, no doubt, be rearrested. Perhaps I may say, in palliation of their conduct, that there was no dock to separate them from the crowd in Court. They got mixed up, and they got away in the confusion.
    Major NEWMAN: Why was this local commandant wearing a public uniform allowed in the King's Court at all?
    Mr. DUKE: I confess that I was not aware of that incident, and I am not sure that there was any such person there, but I will communicate with the county inspector on the subject.
    Major NEWMAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I put that as part of my question?
    Mr. DUKE: I am sorry that it has been overlooked. No doubt the hon. and gallant Member will put it down again.
    Mr. LYNCH: As there is nothing known as to how the prisoners escaped, is there any record as to how the police escaped?
    Mr. DUKE: I suppose that there were not enough police to prevent the mixed crowd in the Court getting out of hand.
    Major NEWMAN: Is is not a fact that one constable was badly assaulted by the crowd?
    Mr. DUKE: No; I think not. It has not been so reported to me.

    SOUTH ARMAGH ELECTION (MOTOR-CARS).
    Major NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he will state the conditions under which a motor-car can be used for other than business purposes in Ireland; whether, during the recent election in the South Division of Armagh, twenty cars left Dundalk with out authorised name-plates and the drivers furnished with licences signed by the hon. Member for East Clare authorising them to use a motor-car in accordance with the duties assigned to them in the name of the Irish Republic; and whether, in the event of a motor-car so used being contrary to any Regulations issued by the Irish Government, action has been taken against the owners?
    Mr. DUKE: I am sending the hon. and gallant Member copy of a notice containing the conditions under which motorcars can be used at elections. I am informed that the police have particulars of a number of motor-cars which were used at the Armagh election, and that a decision as to prosecution will be taken without delay.

    RAIDS FOR ARMS (IRELAND).
    Major NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he has been able to reconsider an answer he gave to the hon. Member for Enfield on 31st ultimo, when he informed him that the Irish Press had not been forbidden to publish reports of raids for or seizure of arms in Ireland by persons acting on behalf of the Irish army; whether, as a fact, an order to the above effect was sent to the editors of all Irish newspapers on the 16th ultimo; and is this order still operative?
    Mr. DUKE: The hon. and gallant Member's question to-day deals with a different subject-matter from that which I answered on 31st January. The answer I then gave was a perfectly accurate answer to the hon. and gallant Member's question. I am informed, however, that at the request of the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief in Ireland the Irish Press Censor has made a communication to the editors of Irish newspapers with regard to certain occurrences which might be thought to affect the security and safe custody of military arms. This communication was marked "Confidential." I assume from the
    250
    hon. and gallant Member's question that he has seen a copy of the document, and that he thinks it right, as a Member of Parliament, to disregard the official injunction to secrecy. In my opinion it is not in the public interest that I should follow the example of the hon. and gallant Member.
    Major NEWMAN: Why did the right hon. Gentleman tell me, when I asked this identical question, that no such order had been given?
    Mr. DUKE: I have already said that the question to-day deals with a different subject - matter from that which I answered —
    Major NEWMAN: I say no!
    Mr. DUKE: If the hon. Member will refer to the question which he has carefully framed for to-day in order to suggest that inaccuracy, he will be reminded that he has added to it a statement which he draws from, as I suppose, the confidential communication to which I referred.
    Major NEWMAN: Is it not a fact that I wrote to the right hon. Gentleman, telling him that I was going to raise this question, so that he could have communicated with me privately if he wanted to do so?
    Mr. DUKE: I did not think fit to communicate privately with the hon. Member, who never loses an opportunity to put embarrassments in the way of the Administration in Ireland.
    Major NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he has any information as to the continuance of the raiding for arms by persons acting on behalf of the Irish Republican force; whether he has any official information showing that on the 3rd instant a raid took place at Queenstown, when three Lee-Enfield rifles, a number of other rifles and shot guns, six revolvers, 1,800 rounds of Lee-Enfield and other ammunition were appropriated; that on the 8th instant a post office in county Cork was raided by a party of armed men, who drove up in a motorcar, and that 2,600 rounds of sporting ammunition were taken from two shops in Dundalk; and if he can say if any of these arms and ammunition have been recovered and restored to their owners?
    Mr. DUKE: Several raids for arms have taken place as mentioned in the question. The Queenstown case was not a raid, but

    251
    a burglary, in which a number of arms and some ammunition were stolen from the house of a dealer. I am told that nearly all the arms were of an obsolete type. The constabulary authorities have received no report of an attack on a post office in county Cork by raiders in a motor-car; but on 7th February a man armed with a revolver knocked at the door of Banteer Post Office, and when it was opened he thrust in his hand and demanded arms. When told there were none he demanded money, and was handed £3 10s. by the postmaster. At Dundalk a, boy in the employment of a shopkeeper stole 500 rounds of ammunition. This case was one of larceny, and the cartridges have been traced and the boy arrested. In the other cases referred to the arms and ammunition have not been traced.
    Major NEWMAN: What is the difference between a raid and a burglary?
    Mr. DUKE: The hon. Gentleman had, I think, better get a dictionary and study it.

    FOOD SUPPLIES.

      EGG EXPORT TRADE (IRELAND).
      Mr. BOLANDasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he is now in a position to state what arrangement has been made as regards the Irish egg export trade, and in particular whether agreement has been reached between the exporters and the carrying companies as to the form of case to be used and the extent to which the risk is to be bony by the owner and the carrier, respectively?
      Mr. DUKE: The Department of Agriculture are still in communication with the railway authorities in reference to this matter.
      Mr. BOLAND: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when a final answer will be given, in view of the fact that on 1st March the notice of the railway companies is supposed to come into effect?
      Mr. DUKE: My hon. Friend will know that the railway companies have to a certain extent an independent power in this matter, and what takes place must be a matter of negotiation between them and the Department. If the hon. Member will communicate with me on the subject in the case of any particular instance in rela-
      252
      tion to it, where he thinks I may be useful to the trade involved here, I will do all I can.

      GRAZING LANDS (IRELAND).
      Captain SHEEHANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the compulsory seizure of land by the landless people which has taken place in various parts of Ireland; whether the denial of access to the grazing ranches to the agricultural labourers and small farmers, who are willing to till and cultivate and make them fruitful in food supplies, is the immediate cause of the present agrarian disturbances; and whether it is proposed to introduce legislation providing for the equitable distribution of the grass lands of the country and the large untilled farms amongst the classes that are capable of cultivating them and making them nationally useful?
      Mr. DUKE: I have seen newspaper reports of the entry upon grazing farms in certain districts in Ireland of organised bands of men having no right in the lands entered, to which, I believe, the question refers, and have called for reports upon the matter from the constabulary. As the seizure of land in such a manner as is represented in the newspaper accounts may be a grave criminal offence, I could not regard it as a proper mode of promoting increased tillage. The Department of Agriculture in Ireland is taking means for increased tillage with the assistance of public funds, and will not hesitate to make a lawful entry upon lands subject to tillage which are not tilled. By this means food supply will be increased without interference with the rights of property. There is no prospect of any general purchase and redistribution of lands during the War.
      Captain SHEEHAN: Are the Department of Agriculture dealing with grazing ranches in the matter of making them available for tillage?
      Mr. DUKE: The Department of Agriculture are exercising a difficult discretion in circumstances of great public importance, and I think they are exercising it wisely. I do not think they would exercise it wisely if they set out upon a programme of converting grazing lands in Ireland generally to tillage land.

      BUTTER.
      Captain SHEEHANasked the Chief Secretary whether his attention has been

      253
      drawn to a resolution passed by the Cork Butter Market Trustees demanding that the official brands of the Cork Butter Market be recognised and that, should grading be determined upon by the Government, firkins and boxes bearing the trustees' brand and being in conformity with the Food and Drugs Act should be exempt from further grading by Government officials; that maximum price be paid for Cork branded butter of best quality and 2s. less for second quality, which are guaranteed to contain not more than 16 per cent. of water; and that any other class of firkin butter found to contain over 16 per cent. of water should be reduced in price proportionally to the maximum price fixed for butter of the legal standard; and if he will state what action it is proposed to take in reference to these demands?
      Mr. DUKE: I have not received a copy of the resolution referred to. The export of Irish butter is in the hands of a committee elected by the various sections of the butter trade, and on this committee the Cork Butter Market Trustees have two representatives. The question of the grading of the butter does not lie in the hands of the Department of Agriculture. It will be carried out by the Irish Butter Export Committee and the Butter and Cheese Import Committee of Great Britain.
      Mr. LYNCH: Is there any possibility of adding to the Committee a representative from Clare, where the industry is very important?
      Mr. DUKE: I do not think there is any hard and fast rule as to the constitution of the Committee. If the hon. Member thinks a representative for Clare ought to be added, I will make the representation.
      General M'CALMONT: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the province of Ulster is entirely unrepresented?
      Mr. DUKE: If that be so, it is capable of easy remedy. The people of Ulster never have any difficulty in getting their needs attended to.

      TILLAGE (IRELAND).
      Captain SHEEHANasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether the evicted farm on the Thomson-Orpen estate, formerly occupied by Timothy Murphy, at Coolekerane, Millstreet, county Cork, was
      254
      exempt from tillage last year; if so, on what grounds this was done; whether the evicted tenant was willing to perform the required tillage if he was permitted to do so; whether the Tillage Order will be made to apply to this farm this year; and whether it is the policy of the Government and the Department to give undue and unnecessary preferences to evicted farms, and thus encourage a system which has brought much ruin and mischief to Ireland?
      Mr. DUKE: The case referred to in the hon. and gallant Member's question is being again considered by the Department of Agriculture under the Tillage Orders in force for the present year.
      Major NEWMAN: Was the owner of that land a man who was intimidated?
      Mr. DUKE: I do not know.
      Captain SHEEHAN: Is not the land in occupation of a caretaker, and are there not many besides the evicted tenant who would be able to cultivate it, which would be in the public interest?
      Mr. DUKE: The rights of individuals as well as the interests of the public have to be considered in these cases.
      Captain SHEEHAN: Is there any question of right in leaving this farm derelict when there is need for tillage?
      Mr. DUKE: I do not understand from the hon. Member's question that the farm is derelict.

      SEA FISHERIES.
      Colonel BURNasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will favourably consider the appeal of the National Sea Fisheries Protection Association to permit fishing in areas which are at present closed, due regard being given to naval and military necessities; and will he sanction the return to each port of as many vessels as possible of ten to twelve years of age, the trawlers left in the trade being insufficient to fish even the present, limited grounds?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that, with the exception of a few cases in which the presence of fishing vessels would impede naval operations, the Admiralty restrictions on fishing are made with the sole object of securing the safety of the fishing vessels and their crews. Furthermore, it

      255
      has always been the policy of the Admiralty to remove or relax these restrictions whenever it is considered safe to do so. As regards the last part of the question, I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply which I gave on the 5th February to my hon. Friend the Member for Perth, in connection with a similar question.

    MARLBOROUGH STREET TRAINING COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
    Captain O'NEILLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether a circular has recently been issued by the principals of the Marlborough Street Training College in Dublin to the effect that from September next all candidates admitted to training will be charged a fee of £3; for what purposes the money thus obtained will be used; and whether a similar innovation is being adopted by any of the other training colleges?
    Mr. DUKE: The principals of the Marl-borough Street Training College have, by direction of the Commissioners of National Education, issued a circular to candidates for admission to the college to the effect that from September next all candidates admitted will be required to pay a fee of £3 per annum. The money thus obtained is intended to meet the general increase in the cost of training of the King's scholars, as the State Grants have proved insufficient for this purpose. I am told it has been the practice of the authorities of most of the training colleges under local management to charge a fee to King's scholars on admission.
    Brigadier-General M'CALMONT: Will the students already there be called upon to pay this £3, and does the right hon. Gentleman consider that this is a suitable moment to raise the price of education instead of lowering it, considering the cost of living?
    Mr. DUKE: The hon. Member will know that the administration of the Marl-borough Street Training College is not a matter under my control. It is a matter under the control of the National Board of Education in Ireland. I am not responsible for raising the fees there. The Board must be the judge of whether it is necessary to raise them. I would point out, as I have said in the answer I have given, that what has been done in the way
    256
    of raising fees at Marlborough Street Training College has not been more than what has been customarily done in the other training colleges in Ireland.

    LABOURERS (IRELAND) ACTS.
    Captain SHEEHANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland the number of cottages which were erected under the Labourers (Ireland) Acts last year; whether any schemes are being at present promoted under these Acts; and the total number of cottages erected since the Acts first came into operation?
    Mr. DUKE: I am making inquiries.

    ENEMY AIR RAIDS.
    Mr. GILBERTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, owing to the probability of an increasing number of air raids on London and to the services of special police constables being more often required in the future in dangerous areas, he can at once arrange that all constables required for street duty during air raids shall be supplied with steel protection helmets in order that these men, who give their services free, shall run no unnecessary risks?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir George Cave): Arrangements are being made to reduce the number of special constables assembling on an emergency call, and to increase the supply of steel helmets, and I am informed that helmets will be available for all special constables employed on street duty during air raids.
    Mr. P. A. HARRIS: Will they be available for people going from their houses to their duty? They often have to go considerable distances.
    Sir G. CAVE: I do not think that is possible or necessary, because they always have notice.
    Mr. HARRIS: Not oven in case of air raids?
    Mr. BILLING: Will the right hon. Gentleman use his influence to persuade the Government that the only true defence against aeroplane raids is an. air offensive over Germany?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of the question.
    Major HUNTasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the crushing to death of British children by aliens of military age during a recent air raid; and whether it is the policy of the Government to allow civilian aliens of military age to come into this country during the War?
    Sir G. CAVE: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. As regards the first part of the question, I am informed that there has been no such occurrence. The persons who were killed and injured owing to overcrowding in an air-raid shelter during a recent air raid were all aliens. As regards the second part of the question, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to my answer to his question on the 22nd October last.
    Major HUNT: Can the right hon. Gentleman not tell us whether it is the policy of the Government to allow more aliens, including Russians, to come into this country and to eat the food of our people?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has already asked the same question.
    Major HUNT: I did not get an answer.

    MR. E. D. MOREL.
    Colonel FABERasked the Homo Secretary whether E D. Morel, otherwise known as Morel-de-Ville, is an alien by birth; whether he has received six months' imprisonment under the Defence of the Realm Act; whether he is now to be automatically interned: and. if not, will he say why this course is not to be adopted?
    Sir G. CAVE: This man was French by birth, but became a British subject by naturalisation in 1896. He has served the sentence mentioned, and there is no power to intern him automatically on its expiration.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will my right hon. Friend bring in a Bill to give power to revoke a certificate of naturalisation?

    ENEMY ALIENS.
    Colonel FABERasked the Home Secretary whether he has any information showing that M. Kamaneff, who is reported to be on his way to this country from
    258
    Stockholm, is the same man who was named in the order to the German Imperial banks; if so, whether he has been in German pay; and whether he is to be allowed to be at large in this country?
    Mr. BILLINGasked the Home Secretary whether, having regard to the fact that M. Litvinoff has caused revolutionary literature to be distributed among munition workers in this country, more especially in the Woolwich Arsenal, he will now have this gentleman deported as an undesirable alien?
    Sir G. CAVE: These matters are receiving the attention of His Majesty's Government, but I do not consider it desirable to make any statement at present.
    Mr. FABER: Has M. Kamaneff yet arrived in this country?
    Sir G. CAVE: No. I think not.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the letter on which these statements are based have now been proved to be a forgery?
    Sir G. CAVE: No, I am not aware of that.
    Mr. BILLING: May I ask why I am not allowed to ask Question 43?
    Mr. SPEAKER: It has already been answered.
    Mr. BILLING: How am I to be aware when a question in reference to this matter has been answered?
    Mr. SPEAKER: Had the hon. Member listened he would have known.
    Mr. KINGasked the Home Secretary what is the estimated cost of feeding, housing, and guarding the 29,000 civilian interned aliens in this country; and whether he proposes to reduce the incubus of these interned persons by offering them useful work or the option of repatriation?
    Sir G. CAVE: I regret that it is not possible to give the figures desired. As regards the second paragraph, a large number of the prisoners are employed on useful work, either in the camps or outside, and the number so employed is constantly being increased.
    Mr. KING: Has the right hon. Gentleman given attention to the remarks of Lord Newton on this subject, who declared that this burden was an excessive incubus upon the country?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is giving information.
    Mr. BILLING: Having regard to the fact that, according to this question, 29,000 aliens are eating the food of this country, is it not in the public interest to deport them?
    Sir G. CAVE: No; these are German prisoners, who must be kept here.

    MILITARY SERVICE.

      CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
      Mr. KINGasked the Home Secretary whether on or about 6th February there was a strike of the conscientious objectors at Dartmoor; if so, what was the ground of grievance alleged; and what action has been taken to remove the causes of discontent?
      Sir G. CAVE: About half the conscientious objectors in the Dartmoor Work Centre refused to work on Friday last. They alleged as their grievance that one of their number, Harry Firth, who had recently died, had not been properly treated by the medical officer, and they also said that they desired to protest against the treatment of conscientious objectors generally. The Committee are inquiring into the matter.
      Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will disciplinary measures be taken against the strikers?
      Sir G. CAVE: That, of course, depends on the result of the inquiry. We inquire first and take measures afterwards.
      Mr. CROOKSasked the Home Secretary whether he will issue instructions to the Governor of Winchester Prison that the concessions to conscientious objectors who have served upwards of twelve months' imprisonment, whereby they are permitted to interview their friends in a private room, be acted upon?
      Sir G. CAVE: The Instructions by which the concessions were authorised do not provide that visits shall be in a private room, but Governors have authority, in their discretion, to allow the use of a private room if there is available accommodation. At Winchester Prison there is no such room available at present, but the
      260
      matter is being inquired into to see whether any alternative arrangement can be made.
      Mr. THOMAS RICHARDSONasked whether conscientious objectors are employed in the lime quarries at Grim, Harpur Hill, Dove Holes, and South, at Buxton; if so, whether this work is war work; and whether the men are being employed as substitutes for the regular men combed out?
      Sir G. CAVE: Conscientious objectors are employed at the quarries mentioned, but in the arrangement made for their employment it was specially stipulated that they should only be employed on production of lime for agriculture and other non-war purposes. They are not being employed as substitutes for individuals who have been withdrawn for military service, though, of course, employment in every industry is affected by the number of men who are now serving in the Army and Navy.
      Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether any of these men were invited to a dance at Princetown given by the conscientious objectors?
      Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of that question.

    DEATH AT DARTMOOR PRISON HOSPITAL.
    Mr. KINGasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that on the 6th February Harry Firth, of Norwich, died at Dartmoor Prison Hospital; that when he went to Dartmoor he was in an enfeebled condition, but set to work in a quarry, punished for not working hard, and only sent to hospital when past recovery; and whether an independent inquiry of persons not officials of the Home Office will be held into this and other recent deaths?
    Sir G. CAVE: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. Firth was sent to Dartmoor for work under the Committee at his own request, and before leaving Maidstone he was passed by the medical officer as fit for labour. He was put on light work in the quarry, and was at no time punished for not working hard or for any other offence. Symptoms of diabetes afterwards

    261
    appeared, and he was immediately admitted to hospital, where he remained until his death. An independent inquiry has already been held by the coroner, and the jury returned a verdict of "Death from natural causes," expressing themselves satisfied with the treatment of the deceased by the doctors who had charge of the case. I may add that, although an average of upwards of a thousand men have been employed at Dartmoor for upwards of ten months, this is the first death which has occurred in that institution.
    Mr. KING: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that cases of diabetes in young men, as this was, are always incurable, and that the rapid and progressive character of the disease, which is generally to be expected, is accelerated by exposure or hard work?
    Sir G. CAVE: I am not an expert, but the important fact is that the moment diabetes is diagnosed it is properly treated.
    Mr. KING: Can the right hon. Gentleman really give an assurance that as soon as diabetes is diagnosed it is sent to hospital?
    Sir G. CAVE: Yes.

    SUMMER TIME.
    Mr. DAVISON DALZIELasked the Home Secretary whether he has now completed the inquiries enabling him to come to a decision as to the date upon which summer time is to be introduced this year?
    Colonel YATEasked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the importance of daylight saving to allotment holders, he will consider the question of introducing summer time this year a month earlier than last year?
    Sir G. CAVE: I hope to make an announcement on this subject early next week.

    METROPOLITAN POLICE (PAY).
    Mr. WILESasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that the pensionable pay of the Liverpool, Birkenhead, Bootle, and Wallasey police has been increased to such an amount as will entitle the constables of these forces who have
    262
    completed their period of service to retire on a pension of 31s. 4d. a week at the end of the War, whereas the maximum pension of a Metropolitan constable is 26s. 8d.; and whether he is prepared to adjust the pay of the Metropolitan Police so that their retiring pensions may at least equal those given in the large forces of the Forth of England?
    Sir G. CAVE: I understand that the maximum salary of constables has been increased in the towns mentioned, but the service entitling a constable to maximum pension in Liverpool is appreciably longer than in the Metropolitan Police district. The war bonus payable to the Metropolitan Police has recently been substantially increased at the cost of a heavy addition to the Metropolitan Police rate, and I am not prepared at present to reopen the question.

    ENEMY BUSINESSES.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked (1) the Home Secretary whether he can state the number of interned alien enemies who were carrying on businesses prior to the War; whether communications have been sent to the Board of Trade for the winding up of such businesses, or what steps have been taken; (2) the President of the Board of Trade whether he has any information as to the number of interned alien enemies who were carrying on businesses prior to the War, and as to the number of such businesses which have been subsequently wound up?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Wardle): I have no information as to the number of interned alien enemies who were carrying on business prior to the War, and cannot without considerable investigation give the hon. Member the number of businesses owned by interned enemy subjects which have been wound up, as these have not been classified separately from those cases in which the owners were not interned or were resident in enemy or other countries. I may mention, however, that the Board have been furnished by the Home Office with lists of interned and uninterned enemy subjects who have been interested in businesses carried on in this country. Such lists have been carefully considered, and cases where it appeared desirable have been investigated with a view to determining whether they came within the scope

    263
    of the statutory provisions as to winding up. In many of the cases on the lists, especially those where the owners have been interned, it was ascertained that the business was no longer being carried on.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Can the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the policy of the House of Commons, expressed in the Act of Parliament, that all enemy businesses should be wound up, is being carried out by his Department?
    Mr. WARDLE: All enemy businesses are being wound up where there is any suspicion whatsoever that they are being carried on contrary to the provisions of the Statute.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Is not the policy of this House, as expressed in the Act, that enemy businesses are to be wound up, and will the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that they are all being wound up, big and little?
    Mr. WARDLE: Certainly; the Act is being carried out.
    Mr. BILLING: Will the hon. Gentleman say, at least, that enemy businesses shall not be allowed to capture the trade of one-man businesses, the owners of which have been called up to serve with the Colours?
    Mr. WARDLE: That also is being carried out under the Statute.

    "SATIRE" NEWSPAPER (SEIZURE).
    Mr. LEES-SMITHasked the Home Secretary whether the correspondence, MSS., cartoons, literature, and all back numbers of "Satire" taken during the recent police paid on Leonard Motler's lodging, 47, Crowndale Road, N.W., have been returned; and, if not, whether he can say why they are being retained?
    Sir G. CAVE: The back numbers of "Satire" will not be returned. The question whether the remainder of the material seized will be returned or not is under the consideration of the Advisory Committee.
    Mr. SMITH: Cannot they arrive at a quicker decision on this subject?
    Sir G. CAVE: A Committee is now sitting.
    Mr. LYNCH: Has the "Morning Post" been seized and the type broken up?

    SIR DOUGLAS HAIG'S DISPATCH.
    Mr. MACMASTERasked whether it is the intention of the Government to publish the last dispatch of Sir Douglas Haig as a White Paper?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY for WAR (Mr. Macpherson): It is not the practice to publish as White Papers military dispatches which have already been gazetted. Sir Douglas Haig's last dispatch was published as a Supplement to the "London Gazette" on the 8th January.

    SUPREME WAR COUNCIL.
    Major DAVIESasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the disclosure of what purported to be the decisions reached at the last Supreme Allied Conference at Versailles; and whether, having regard to the reply given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Leader of the Liberal party that it was not in the public interest to disclose the conclusions of the Allied Council, he is prepared to take immediate steps for the purpose of preventing such disclosures in the future?
    The CHANCELLOR Of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): The Government are taking and will take whatever steps seem most effective for the purpose.
    Mr. DAVID MASONasked whether the recent manifesto issued after the Versailles Conference represents the views of all the Allies, including the United States of America?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer is in the affirmative.
    Mr. MASON: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain the discrepancy between the manifesto and the recent statement of the President of the United States?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Perhaps when I have seen the discrepancy I shall be able to explain it.
    Mr. MACMASTER: Is it any part of the functions of the Conference at Versailles to issue manifestoes on declarations of policy?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I can add nothing on that subject to what was said by the Foreign Secretary last night.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Was the consent of the President of the United States given to this manifesto?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The President of the United States never had an opportunity of assenting or dissenting, but the diplomatic representative of the United States in Paris was present.

    KING CONSTANTINE.
    Mr. BILLINGasked the Prime Minister whether, having regard to the fact that King Constantine of Greece has received over £100,000 from German secret funds, any purchase he makes in this country, or the exporting to him of any goods of wearing apparel or otherwise, will be considered trading with the enemy?
    Lord R. CECIL: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. The question of whether such proceedings would constitute trading with the enemy is a legal question on which I am not competent to pronounce, but any applications for such export are being discouraged.
    Mr. BILLING: Will the right hon. Gentleman say through whom the special messenger received the permit to take two trunks of clothes from a Sackville Street tailor to King Constantine at Berne within the last three weeks?

    JERUSALEM.
    Mr. BILLINGasked whether, having regard to the fact that the British forces have now succeeded in recovering Jerusalem, any special facilities will be given by the British Government to facilitate the return of the Jews to the land from which they have been so long exiled?
    Lord R. CECIL: The Government have authorised the Zionist Organisation to appoint a Commission to investigate present conditions of the Jewish colonies in Palestine, and will await sympathetically its recommendations.
    Mr. BILLING: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a well-known Semitic in this country has offered to pay the expense of exporting them provided he is allowed to remain as Ambassador of his race in this country.

    M. LITVINOFF.
    Mr. BILLINGasked whether, in communicating with M. Litvinoff in the United States of America, on the occasion
    266
    of his previous visit, Lord Heading was acting in his capacity as representative of the British Government or in a private capacity; and, if in the former, has the Government any information with reference to this meeting that it can give to this House?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not know to what meeting the hon. Member refers.
    Mr. BILLING: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the papers in this country have published particulars in the past of this meeting, and would he take the trouble to inquire of the Lord Chief Justice whether on the occasion of his last meeting he did have communication with this gentleman; and will he also, when this gentleman is eventually arrested as a revolutionary leader in this country, inquire of that gentleman whether he had any communication with the Lord Chief Justice?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not look forward to having any communication personally with the last gentleman named. As regards the first part of the question, I know nothing whatever of the matter to which the hon. Member refers, and I do not intend to make any inquiry.

    RUSSIA.
    Mr. BILLINGasked whether, having regard to the present position in Russia, that country is to be regarded as an Ally, a neutral, or an enemy country?
    Lord R. CECIL: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. The position is so obscure that it is impossible to make any statement at present.
    Mr. BILLING: Will the right hon. Gentleman say when this House may expect to have a clear statement of Government policy on this subject?
    Lord R. CECIL: When the public interest permits, and not a moment before.

    MINISTER OF PROPAGANDA.
    Mr. ALDENasked the Prime Minister whether he can state the special qualifications of Lord Beaverbrook for the position of Minister of Propaganda; why it is linked up with the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster; and, seeing that

    267
    the former office affects the United States, whether he can assure the House that he is a persona grata in America?
    Mr. WALTER ROCHasked the Prime Minister if he would state precisely what duties will be carried out by Lord Beaverbrook in addition to the duties connected with his office as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; and whether Lord Beaverbrook is a member of the War Cabinet?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Lord Beaverbrook will undertake the duties in connection with propaganda which were performed by the senior Member for Trinity College before his resignation from the War Cabinet. The Prime Minister offered him this appointment because he thought that he could do the work successfully. The answer to the last part of the question of the hon. Member for Pembroke is in the negative.
    Mr. HOGGE: Will this work also include the work of receiving special reports from the paid, spies of the Government?
    Mr. BONAR LAW:I do not know to what the hon. Member refers when he talks about "paid spies," but it will include the receiving of reports from the servants of the Government.
    Mr. A. F. WHYTE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this appointment has created widespread dissatisfaction?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Perhaps the hon. Member is better able to judge of that than I am.
    Mr. BILLING: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether a knowledge of international finance is a necessary qualification for this job?

    LEAGUE OF NATIONS.
    Mr. ALDENasked the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the Government before the end of the War to take steps to secure the formation of a League of Nations; and whether Lord Reading has been empowered to discuss the possible terms of such a league with the United States Government and to cooperate with the President in carrying out the views he has so often expressed?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I can add nothing to what was said by the Minister of Blockade on this subject yesterday.

    CHIEF OF IMPERIAL GENERAL STAFF.
    Mr. ROCHasked the Prime Minister if he will give the terms of the Order in Council which at present defines the powers and duties of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: The terms of the Order in Council are as follow:
    "The Chief of the Imperial General Staff shall, in addition to performing such other duties as may from time to time be assigned to him by the Secretary of State, be responsible for issuing the Orders of His Majesty's Government in regard to military operations."
    Mr. ROCH: Can the hon. Gentleman tell me the date of that Order?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: The first Order in Council was dated 27th January, 1916, and it was reaffirmed on 20th April, 1917.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Can the hon. Gentleman say who is Chief of Staff now?
    Mr. HOGGE: Is there any truth in the rumours in the papers to-day that Sir William Robertson has been offered, and refused, the principal position in the Versailles Council?
    Mr. BILLING: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether this Order in Council has been affected by the meeting in London last Sunday of Sir Douglas Haig and the Prime Minister?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: Sir Douglas Haig and the Prime Minister did not meet last Sunday in London.

    FIVE-SHILLING TREASURY NOTES.
    Mr. R. GWYNNEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in the event of the issue of 5s. notes, he will consider their issue in booklets of twenty, somewhat similar to the small red postage stamp books?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I have carefully considered my hon. Friend's suggestion, but I fear there would be serious objections to adopting it.
    Mr. KING: Does that mean that it has been decided to issue these notes?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: No; I gave an answer on that point the other day, to which I can add nothing.

    INCOME TAX.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that at the annual general meetings of nearly every company doing business in the Dominions reference has been made to the injustice of the duplication of Income Tax within the Empire; that some companies have felt compelled to remove their offices from this country; and whether, seeing that the result is a loss to the revenue here, as well as an injury to Imperial trade, he will consider the advisability of making such amendment in the law as will do away with the present unfair method of taxation?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I cannot add anything to statements already made on this subject, and I would refer my hon. Friend to the Resolution of the Imperial War Conference dated 25th April, 1917, of which I am sending him a copy.

    TREASURY BILLS AND CURRENCY NOTES OUTSTANDING.
    Mr. D. MASONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the present amount of the floating debt, i.e., Treasury Bills outstanding here and in America, Ways and Means advances, and Treasury currency notes, etc.; and whether there is any intention on the part of His Majesty's Government to fund this floating indebtedness by the issuing of a long-term loan?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The amount of Treasury Bills, Ways and Means advances, and War Expenditure Certificates outstanding on the 9th February was (including £20,000,000 Treasury Bills issued in the United States of America) £1,341,373,600. The amount of currency notes and certificates outstanding on 6th February was £213,579,771, of which £28,500,000 were covered by gold, £5,819,551 by cash at the Bank of England, and the balance by Government securities, mainly of short date, which are included in the totals I have just given. As regards the last part of the question, I would point out that
    270
    since the 1st January last the Floating Debt has been reduced by about £38,000,000— largely out of the proceeds of National War Bonds—and that further reduction is looked for before the end of the current quarter. Up to the end of last week the applications to National War Bonds amount to about 352,000,000. This system of continuous borrowing was adopted by me as a substitute for a Loan, and I have now every hope that it will be successful.

    WAR LOAN (DEPRECIATION FUND).
    Mr. D. MASONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state the total amount which has been set aside for the purpose of the depreciation fund in the 5 per Cent. 1947 War Loan; what amount has been used for this purpose; and what is the average rate of interest cost to the State of the money borrowed for the carrying out of the transaction?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The total amount set aside to date for the purposes of the depreciation fund established under Section 32 of the Finance Act, 1917, is £30,139,220. Of this sum £27,962,937 has been applied in the purchase for cancellation of £29,535,000 5 per Cent. War Stock, 1929–1947, and £10,000 4 per Cent. War Stock, 1929–1942. No borrowing has been effected specifically to raise the money issued to the fund, which has been provided from time to time out of the general Exchequer balance, which has been replenished by sales of War Savings Certificates, Exchequer Bonds, National War Bonds, and Treasury Bills. As regards the average rate of interest paid on such borrowing, I would prefer not to anticipate any observations I may have to make in my financial statement.
    Mr. MASON: Am I to understand from the right hon. Gentleman's reply that the general rate of 6 per cent. which we are paying in America for Treasury Bills and other forms of borrowing all go to this Vote?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The money is taken from our general fund. I presume that the hon. Member knows sufficiently well what the rate is.

    WHITLEY REPORT.
    Mr. SHIRLEY BENNasked the Minister of Reconstruction how soon the Second and Third Reports of the Whitley

    271
    Committee which are now in his hands will be issued; and if he will have them issued in pamphlet form similar to the First Report now issued by the Ministry of Labour?
    The MINISTER of RECONSTRUCTION (Dr. Addison): The Reports referred to are now under consideration. I will consult my right hon. Friend about the second part of the question.

    APPRENTICES (SKILLED TRADES).
    Mr. BYRNEasked the Minister of Reconstruction whether the Government propose to make any distinction between indentured apprentices and unindentured apprentices in skilled trades; and if he will see that in making grants, awards, or bonuses all the Government Departments will give full and equal recognition to unindentured apprentices?
    Dr. ADDISON: The whole question of apprenticeship is now under consideration by the Ministry of Reconstruction and the Ministry of Labour, and I am unable to make any statement at present.

    NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
    sir GILBERT PARKERasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, if an officer of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve obtains a temporary commission in the Royal Marines and falls on the battlefield, his relatives receive no gratuity, while, in the case of an officer entering the Army from the Territorials or by the route of cadet training, his relatives receive a gratuity if he falls on the battlefield; and whether, in view of the achievements of many officers of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve or with temporary commissions in the Royal Marines and their service for the nation on the battle fields of Flanders and Gallipoli, he pro poses to reconsider their position?
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that if a man becomes an officer in the Royal Naval Volunteer Re serve or obtains a temporary commission in the Royal Marines and meets his death on the battlefield his relatives receive no gratuity as in the case of the relatives of
    272
    officers who enter the Army from the Territorials or after a course of cadet training; and whether he will consider the advisability of placing the two Forces on the same footing in this respect?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Awards are made by the Ministry of Tensions to the relatives of officers of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and officers holding temporary commissions in the Royal Marines who are killed in action under similar conditions and on similar scales to those made to the relatives of officers of the Territorial Army and officers holding temporary commissions in the Army. The questions, however, refer to gratuities payable under certain conditions by the War Office to officers rendering temporary service during the War or to their estates in the event of their death during war service. The regulations governing the service of officers of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and officers holding temporary commissions in the Royal Marines provide for payment of no similar gratuity. The matter will, however, be considered, but I must not be understood as giving any assurance that such gratuity will be approved.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: When and by whom is this going to be considered?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: It will have to be considered by us, and if we put forward any recommendation it will have to go to the Treasury. If we put forward any recommendation, we shall do so without delay.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an. undertaking that this will be put before the Treasury?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: It must first be put before the Board of Admiralty.
    Captain SHEEHAN: If a gratuity is paid in the case of the officers in the Regular service, why should it not be paid in this case?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: My hon. and gallant Friend must realise that we cannot take one item in one Service and compare it with another Service, and say that because a thing is so in one Service it must be so in the other. We must survey the whole field.
    Colonel WILSON: As this question was brought to the notice of the Admiralty about eighteen months ago, will any

    273
    decision as to paying the relatives of these officers who have been killed be retrospective?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I will bear that in mind. I can give no undertaking.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: I will put down another question.
    Mr. HARCOURT: Have the Admiralty considered recently the case of officers employed solely on land service?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Not to my knowledge.
    Mr. ANDERSONasked the Pensions Minister whether he is aware that Sergeant-Major James Edward Wright, No. 1513, 3rd County of London Yeomanry, made application in October, 1916, for increase of pension and was supported by the local sub-committee for St. Marylebone, who repeatedly urged consideration of his claim; that the St. Marylebone sub - committee warned the Ministry of Pensions on 18th December that unless some award was made which would relieve the man from the necessity of continuing in his employment he would probably die from aggravation of illness wholly attributable to his military service during the present War; that no award was made and that this soldier died on 20th January, fifteen months after he had made application and twenty months after the date of his discharge; and whether he will see that the widow is not allowed to suffer from the delay in making the award of increase of pension beyond that already given for his previous service in the Regular Army?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Sir A. Griffith-Boscawen): Wright was discharged on 7th May, 1916, on account of valvular disease of the heart, which was held by the Chelsea Commissioners not to have been caused or aggravated by service in the present War, and nothing, therefore, could be added to the Service pension which he previously enjoyed. There was, I regret, very great delay in dealing with the applications of the St. Marylebone committee for a reconsideration of this decision. I have had inquiries made as to the cause of this delay, and am in communication with the Marylebone sub-committee. The pension has been revised now, and the arrears will be paid to the man's estate, so that the widow will not suffer. She will be en-
    274
    titled to a pension as well as to the arrears of the man's pension, and this will be dealt with as soon as the death certificate is received.
    Mr. ANDERSON: Is there not something wrong when a delay of twenty months takes place in regard to the men's pay, and men are allowed to die before anything is paid?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Part of this delay was before the Pensions Ministry was in existence. I admit at once that there has been unjustifiable delay, and the whole question of dealing with the correspondence is now being overhauled.
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked the Pensions Minister when the amended Regulations of the Special Grants Committee will be issued; and, it not, will he take steps to expedite their issuance at the earliest possible date, in order that there should be no further delay in remedying existing hardships and inequalities'?
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Pensions Minister whether the old Regulations of the Statutory Committee have been revised, and, if not, when will they be?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: The Regulations of the Special Grants Committee, who exercise certain of the functions of the old Statutory Committee, have all been recently revised. The issue of the revised Part I. of the Regulations is only awaiting the completion of the Instructions, and it is hoped to have them in print and in the hands of the local committees within the course of the next few weeks. With regard to Part II., certain of the new Regulations are still under consideration, but a Circular containing such of them as have been approved is now with the printers and will very shortly be issued.
    Mr. HOGGE: Will the hon. Gentleman make certain that the proposals of the Ministry with regard to Part II. have not yet been approved by the Treasury?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: What I said was that they are still under consideration.
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked the Pensions Minister if he will communicate to all Members of Parliament, as well as to local war pensions committees, the terms rand conditions on which discharged disabled men wall be treated by hospitals;

    275
    and if arrangements will be made whereby men who require massage can obtain it at hours which do not interfere with such employment as they may be able to obtain?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: I will gladly send copies of the Instructions which have been issued to local war pensions committees, as to the terms and conditions of hospital treatment for discharged men to any hon. Member who desires them, but I doubt whether the demand for them is sufficient to justify general circulation. I am quite prepared to consider special arrangements for massage treatment on the lines indicated by the hon. Member.
    Mr. BILLING: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that private Members are constantly receiving communications from their constituents in regard to the Pensions Ministry, and Will he consider whether, in regard to Resolutions and Instructions decided upon by the Ministry, they can be circulated among Members in order that they may be in a position to answer questions put to them by constituents?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: I am willing to circulate the Instructions.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Pensions Minister if he can now state whether the pension to widows and children is to be increased?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: I am not yet in a position to add anything to my previous replies on this question.
    Mr. HOGGE: To save the trouble of putting down the question over and over again, can the hon. and gallant Gentleman tell me when he expects a decision with regard to this specific question, which is most urgent?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: My hon. Friend knows perfectly well that this is not a matter which rests only with the Pensions Ministry, and he knows, therefore, that I cannot promptly give an answer. The matter is under consideration of the various Departments concerned. I hope, to be able to make an announcement before long.
    Mr. BILLING: In view of the increased cost of food, and the numbers of families to whom this is serious, will the hon. and gallant Gentleman use his influence in pressing for a decision of this matter?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: Of course!
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Pensions Minister whether pensions to discharged men who have served previous to this War have now been brought into line with the present rates; and whether the same can be done for all dependants?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: A conference, resulting in a substantial measure of agreement, has been held within the last few days between the various Departments concerned in this question. I hope, therefore, to be able to make an announcement at an early date.
    Mr. HOGGE: I will put the question down a week hence.
    General M'CALMONT: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether this will include the pensions of pre-war officers' widows?
    Sir A. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: No; up to date we have been dealing only with other ranks; we have not been dealing with the question to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman refers, and we have not held any conference upon it.

    SHIPBUILDING.

      TRANSFER OF MEN FROM COLOURS.
      Mr. ALDENasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the War Office has consented to the release of 20,000 skilled men for shipbuilding; and, if so, if he can state when these men are likely to be forthcoming for such work?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes, Sir. Arrangements have now been made whereby men in the Army whose services can best be utilised for shipbuilding purposes shall be transferred to the Reserve, and then dispatched to those yards which can absorb them to the greatest advantage for shipbuilding purposes. My hon. Friend will appreciate that some difficulty must of necessity be experienced in selecting for release from the Colours the men best suited for the work, but I am able to inform him that a few such men have already been dispatched to shipbuilding yards, and that it is anticipated that they will be forthcoming at. the rate of 1,000 per week during the latter half of this month.
      Mr. G. LAMBERT: Will these men be allocated to private yards?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I should say so, but perhaps the hon. Member will give notice.
      Mr. TENNANT: Does this mean that fully 20,000 men will be released at the rate of 1,000 a week?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes; the War Cabinet have agreed to that.
      Sir F. FLANNERY: Will the 20,000 skilled men returnable from the Army include marine engineers as well as shipyard operatives?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes.
      Mr. HOGGE: Are those men chosen by the Admiralty or the Array authorities in conjunction with the trade unions, or how is a man to know that he has the technical qualifications to enable him to get his release?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I will put into my hon. Friend's hand the method by which we are proceeding.
      Colonel Sir F. HALL: Are these 20,000 men who are to be released to be taken out of the 470,000 men who are to be combed out or is the Army to be 20,000 short?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: It has been discussed, and the War Cabinet has given its decision. It is a very urgent problem. We want these men as soon as possible, and, what is more, we want the maximum output from all who are engaged in the shipyards.

    TRAMWAY COMMITTEE.
    Mr. GILBERTasked the President of the Board of Trade what were the original terms of reference given by him when he appointed the Tramway Committee; whether such terms of reference were extended by him in a letter sent to the Committee, and has such letter been made public; if he will state the date and the terms of such letter; and whether it contained any suggestions that municipal tramway undertakings and limited company tramways should be invited to consider proposals for increasing tramway fares?
    Mr. WARDLE: I am sending the hon. Gentleman a copy of the terms of reference of the Tramways (Board of Trade) Committee. These terms of reference have not been extended, but a more detailed indication of the nature of the
    278
    duties which it is expected that the Committee will have to undertake has been communicated to them, and has been published in the "Board of Trade Journal" and elsewhere. Amongst these duties is the consideration of such proposals for the revision of statutory tramway fares, as may be referred to the Committee by the Board of Trade.

    COMMITTEE OF PRODUCTION (AWARDS).
    Mr. BYRNEasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will see that the Committee of Production awards shall be paid to all Government workers in Ireland; and if he will cause to be circulated a list setting out the class of workers that are entitled to the recent 12½per cent. award?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY OF LABOUR (Mr. Bridgeman): I have been asked to reply to this question. The awards of the Committee on Production are applicable to the establishments in respect of which the employers and the unions, or workmen concerned, have been parties to the arbitration proceedings. If the employers concerned have establishments in Ireland, and the application included these, the awards will be applicable to those establishments. I am sending the hon. Member copies of the Orders which governed the 12½ per cent. bonus.
    Mr. HOLT: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the fact that during the absence of compulsory military service the labour market in Ireland is in a much more favourable position than in England, and will he in the interests of the public Exchequer take advantage of that fact in any Government transaction?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I should like notice of that question.

    LOSS OF SS. "TUSCANTA."
    Mr. ALDENasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can give any information with regard to the sinking of the "Tuscania"; whether he is satisfied that she "was torpedoed, and whether the method of convoy which up to the present has proved so successful requires to be modified; and if he can assure the House that every precau-

    279
    tion was taken to safeguard the lives of the troops on board this and other ships in the convoy?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The "Tuscania" was torpedoed. We are fully satisfied with the organisation of the convoy, and I can give the House the fullest assurance that every precaution was taken to safeguard the lives of the troops on board this and other ships in the convoy.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Mr. ASQUITH: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the House is to meet to-morrow, and what is the business for next week?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: If, as I hope, the Debate be finished to-day, it will not be necessary for the House to sit to-morrow. The business proposed to be taken next week is:
  Monday—Supplementary Civil Service Estimates.
  Tuesday—Speaker out of the Chair, on Army Estimates.
  Wednesday—Supply: Army Estimates, Votes (A) and (1).
  Thursday—Speaker out of the Chair, on Air Forces Estimates.
  Mr. WHYTE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Education (Scotland) Bill will be taken?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The hon. Member must realise that cannot be done until after the business of finance has been dealt with.
  Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Bill for the denaturalisation of enemy aliens is to be brought in?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: There is still an answer from one of the Dominions to come before steps can be taken.
  Mr. KING: Will the right hon. Gentleman introduce the Education Bill for England before the Education Bill for Scotland? [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] The Bill for England is of very much greater importance to this country.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: It depends upon what the hon. Member means by "this country."
  Mr. BILLING: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is proposed to take the Criminal Law Amendment Bill in the present Session? [HON. MEMBERS: "Next Parliament!"]

  HIS MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH.

    DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS. [THIRD DAY.]
    Order read for resuming adjourned Debate on Question [12th February],
    "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:—
    Most Gracious Sovereign,
    We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom, of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.''—[Major-General Lowther.]
    Question again proposed. Debate resumed.
    Mr. DENMAN: On a point of Order, Sir. I regret to have again to raise the point of Order to which I referred yesterday, and that has relation to the form in which the King's Speech is printed in our records. I have to refer to it again, because new facts have been brought to my notice. In another place Lord Curzon informed the House that the missing paragraph had been accidentally omitted from the printed Report, and was intended to be included in the King's Speech. I find, as a fact, in the House of Lords record that His Majesty's Speech is given with the paragraph included. I can assure the House that I should not have raised the point were it not one of substance, and with your permission I will read the paragraph for which, for greater accuracy, I have obtained a copy.
    Mr. SPEAKER:We are all familiar with it. The hon. Member raised the question yesterday, and I ask him what is his new point?
    Mr. DENMAN: It is surely desirable that the records in this House and in the other place as to what exactly was contained in the King's Speech should be identical. At present there is direct conflict, and I wanted, if I might, to refer to this paragraph, and to emphasise its importance.
    Mr. SPEAKER:The importance of the paragraph is not a matter for a point of

    313
    Order. What is the point which the hon. Gentleman wishes to bring forward? What is it he wishes me to do?
    Mr. DENMAN: I ask that the paragraph may be inserted in our records, and I desire also in a few words to state why it is of importance that this paragraph should appear.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I have nothing to do with the merits of the question. As to the point of Order, I understand that the hon. Gentleman wishes me to insert something into the King's Speech, and put something into the mouth of His Majesty which he did not deliver. Is that the point?
    Mr. DENMAN: Whether His Majesty delivered it or not, there is a direct conflict of evidence. "His Majesty's Speech to the Lords was as follows," and there follows this paragraph:
    "I have summoned representatives of My Dominions and of My Indian Empire to a farther Session of the Imperial War Cabinet, in order that I may again receive their advice on questions of moment affecting the common interests of the Empire."
    That paragraph was read by the Lord Chancellor in another place, and by yourself in this House, as being part of the King's Speech.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I think the hon. Member is mistaken as to the Lord Chancellor. I am afraid that was not read by the Lord Chancellor in another place. It was read by me, and I explained the circumstances under which it was read yesterday.
    Mr. BILLING: On a point of Order. Surely the King wished his Speech to be read in another place, and anything that transpired afterwards was out of order?
    Mr. SPEAKER: I explained the circumstances fully yesterday, and no new point arises.

    DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS. [THIRD DAY.]

      FOOD SUPPLIES AND DISTRIBUTION.
      Mr. LOUGH: I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add the words:
      " But this House regrets that the continuous fresh Orders in Council interfering with the regular course of trade and industries has unnecessarily diminished importation and production and done much to increase the distress prevailing in many parts of the country owing to the shortage of food and other vital necessities."
      314
      I notice a comment on our proceedings yesterday that they were a little marred by the introduction of a slight party element. Let me assure the House I am not going to raise any party question to-day, but I am going to make an appeal to all parties on what is purely a. business matter. I can; assure the Government that if they can see their way to accept the conclusion's which I suggest they will be doing a great deal to strengthen the position of the Government. The Amendment contains three statements. It first refers to the daily stream of new Orders in Council being put forward by the Food Controller among other Government Departments. In the second place there is the statement that the issue of those Orders is doing a great deal to embarrass the great industries and importation and production on which the country at present depends. In the third place there is the statement about great dissatisfaction and resulting famine among many classes of the people. After I put down the Amendment I got a bundle of those Orders yesterday which it would take a week to read and many weeks to understand. I therefore adopted the sample expedient of weighing them and I found that the Orders from the Food Controller weighed nearly half-a-pound. There were eighteen of them. I do not wish to suggest that they were all issued fresh yesterday morning; we saw about some of them in the newspapers in the way in which they are now issued. They are issued in a furtive manner, without any previous consideration by this House, or by the important classes with whom they deal. They are thrust upon us in the most extraordinary way.
      Of these eighteen Orders I find that two of them deal with milk and about a dozen others deal with milk, two of them deal with margarine and one Order deals with edible offal. That is a matter of which I had n previous experience, and I examined that Order with more care than any other. It referred to livers, lights, tripe, guts and other things, and fixed prices for all those extraordinary commodities ranging from twopence to four shillings. There was an Order about fish and one dealing with intoxicating liquors and public meals and one about sheeps' heads and two or three about meat or cattle sales, and restricting still further the production of feeding-stuffs for cattle, which are bad enough at present. There is an Order of seven pages dealing with.

      315
      the Sugar Commission, a matter which I thought had been settled by the present Chairman of the Commission, and an Order of nine pages dealing with sugar rationing and an Order about coal. That was one day's post of the issue of Orders. I wish the House to realise that each of those Orders is a law binding on the unhappy people of the country, on whom most harassing sentences are being imposed for breaches of many of them, which are brought to their notice for the first time when they are brought before the Courts which deal with the charges. These restrictions affect classes of people on whom the nation is most dependent. I am glad to say, and that is one of the reasons why I appeal with confidence to the House, that there is a great change of public opinion with regard to what is going on. I desire to found myself, although there may be some who will criticise me for doing so, on a most excellent article which appeared in the "Times" last Saturday morning. The "Times" has got a vast load of responsibility to bear with regard to the Food Controller and all his experiments. A glimmer of sense has at last broken in on the "Times," and at the end of the article in which it defended the new Order about meat rations are the words which I am going to read to the House, and I hope they will give effect to the excellent principles which are there laid down. This is what the "Times" says:
      " We are not satisfied that the energies of the Ministry of Food are sufficiently concentrated upon the larger aspects of their task… there is a danger that attention may be too much diverted to minor matters …The real necessity is a widespread awakening to the paramount importance of larger food production. This is á matter which the Ministry of Food has very seriously neglected. We need a great crusade in favour of food production and development of every kind… They talk so much on comparatively trivial subjects that they are losing sight of the really big issues."
      4.0 P.M.
      That is the statement. I could not say anything more sensible or more expressive than that. The mistake that the Food Controller is making is in going into too narrow detailed regulation of prices and rationing, while he is not thinking of the great matter of increasing the stream of supply and production in every part of the country. I suggest to the House that this is not a casual matter in the policy of the Food Controller. I say it is in deference to a policy which has been laid down, and which has
      316
      at last been stated for us with the greatest clearness. This policy was indicated by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food in Manchester last Saturday. My hon. Friend there said:
      "The middleman and a certain type of dealer or merchant who merely bought to sell again—"
      Mind you, that is the crimes—he buys to sell again—
      "have been thrust aside… The critics of the Ministry might grow in number—"
      I think they will grow in number; they are growing in the Press, and I think they will grow in this House—
      "because an expansion of its work would mean even greater interference with private interests, and with business and trade as it has been normally carried on for the purpose of profit."
      That was the statement of my hon. Friend, and I have only to make just one other short quotation. The Leader of the party to which he is attached made a statement in a similar sense the next day in an interview in the "Observer." The right hon. Member for Barnard Castle said:
      "The Labour party's programme necessitated that the nation should take no step back from the policy of controlling the great industries and services they had taken in hand during the War."
      I am not here to find fault with the candid expression of my hon. Friend's opinions. On the contrary, I praise him for it, but I say to the House and to the Government that a great momentous issue has been raised here, and that some member of the Government—a member of the War Cabinet for choice—ought to be here to state whether the policy expressed by the Parliamentary Secretary is really the policy of the Government. Let me look at it in two respects. It was at a meeting of two important societies in Manchester that this remarkable speech was made. And what was the crime made against the merchants and traders of this great country? The great crime is that they bought to sell again. What do the co-operative societies do? Do not they buy to sell again?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Mr. Clynes): They sell to the consumers.
      Mr. LOUGH: To whom do the merchants sell? Do they sell to people who burn the stuff? Goods are bought to sell again, and to make this a crime will be to' strike at the foundation of every class of trade carried on in this country

      317
      at the present time. I direct attention to another point in my hon. Friend's statement. The next sin of anybody is to carry on trade for the purpose of profit. There is the attack plainly made. I wanted that funny word, "profiteering," defined. My hon. Friend has done it. There is nothing here of fabulous profits. It is any transaction which is carried through at anything but a loss. If it is carried through at anything but a loss it is a criminal transaction, and the Government declares it is only in favour of loss and failure as the foundation of all business. I want to know from my hon. Friend if he accepts that interpretation?
      Mr. CLYNES: Certainly not.
      Mr. LOUGH:I say he is on the horns of that dilemma. If he will commence to study this economic question he will find that even in his ledger there are only two columns—one is profit, and the other loss. If you have not profit, you must have loss; and if you have loss, the great commercial prosperity will vanish away. You must carry through a transaction at some profit or else it cannot be carried through safely. I would be glad to make a convert of my hon. Friend. I want to keep the whole House in good frame on this matter. My hon. Friend is beginning already. He says he does not mean loss, but he does not tell us what he does mean. I say you have nothing to choose between profit and loss. If you have no profit, and are not allowed to have a profit, you must have loss, and that will incur national disaster on the widest scale. I think I have made good to the House that we have got a definite programme laid down in the clearest language by the hon. Member, and I suggest that is the programme of the Ministry. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture is going to do it, but I want this programme either endorsed or disavowed by a Minister. What about the First Commissioner of Works? What about the Postmaster-General? What about the Comptroller of the Household? What about all the business men who are in the House? I wish we had a few of them here. Are they prepared to accept these definitions that have been laid down in such careful language by the hon. Member? If not, they ought to be here to repudiate them, and to tell us what they actually mean.
      318
      I suggest the whole proceedings of the Ministry of Food are giving practical illustrations of this revolutionary doctrine and that the merchant is being swept away. When the Minister of Food sees a merchant approaching in the distance he rings the alarm bell, and when the unhappy man comes in he is put into the porter's lodge while they discuss what official will see him, and when at last he has received his interview he is gratified if he escapes without being cast into the oubliette. On the other hand, when a Pressman comes they say: "Here is a member of the Press," and the porter bows low and says that His Lordship will immediately receive him, and Lord Rhondda is willing at any time to give half an hour's interview to any respectable member of the Press. I suggest that a more disastrous doctrine for the people of this country to adopt could not be enunciated. We are an island nation, and ail the prosperity we have enjoyed has been owing to the efforts of two classes, namely, the enterprise of our importers who have gone to every part of the earth and have raked the whole earth to get the provisions from every clime to bring them here to enrich our people. The prosperity of this great class is being undermined, their business is proscribed, and then, having dealt a fatal blow to the great class of importers, they have turned on the home producer, and every home producer is so harried and attacked that even the simple beverage of a glass of milk will soon be a great rarity in this country, which was once the home of plenty. I suggest that the programme laid down, of which I have given sufficient examples already to the House, is an impossible programme, and that it will not do for this House to leave it to run its course and let the Press put an end to it, but I would implore Members of this House to treat the matter seriously, and consider what is being done with regard to this matter. So much, then, for the extreme Orders, and the nature of the Orders and the principles on which they are founded.
      I will give one or two examples of the effect that the Orders have produced on importation and production, and I want to guard myself. I believe that this conspiracy at the Ministry of Food— this conspiracy against the life of the nation—has been carried so far that whenever we make a general address, as I am trying to make, one runs the risk

      319
      of wearying by mentioning a particular business. They say, "This is a grumble about tea," or "This man has lost something over butter, or he is interested in meat, and he is simply coming here grousing and grumbling at a time when every man ought to be willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the country." Although I mention something I know about—tea or sugar — I do not do so in any selfish interest. The steps taken have not injured me, so far as I know, and I would like to assure the House most honestly and sincerely that I have endeavoured to view the matter from a broad public point of view.
      Look at the question of tea. Until this Ministry came into power, tea was as plentiful and cheap in this land as when war broke out, allowing for the increased tax and increase in the freight. Could more be desired? Here was the most ruinous war ever heard of, and tea was here in abundance, and at the old prices. That was the situation the Ministry found when they came in with their revolutionaries, of whom we have one or two on the Front Bench opposite. They immediately prohibited the import of tea. Why? Because they were misinformed as to the quantity of tea in the country. Some said there was enough tea for two years; others said for nine months, but a great mistake was made, and the importation of tea was stopped. The result was that the stock of tea ran down from 130,000,000 to 30,000,000 lbs., and the House may calculate when I tell them that for every million you have a working day's supply. Ten thousand chests are used in this country every day. Perhaps the House will excuse my mentioning that detail, because it shows what a mighty work is done for the community by this class, which is now despised and persecuted. They brought the tea in, distributed it, and kept everything on the old basis, and that appears to be the crime for which they were interdicted by these new lights of the Ministry. No tea was to be allowed to be brought in for eight or nine months, until at last stocks fell so low that the cup of tea began to disappear from the breakfast table, and queues began to form, and then there was a change. When large numbers of American soldiers were being brought over and shipping was wanted more than ever, the Government began to bring in the tea neglected last year.
      320
      I would only mention one other point in connection with this matter. There was a great charge made against the tea trade about a million pounds of China tea remaining in the country. It still remains in the country. People who stay at home think a million pounds is a great deal of tea. A million pounds! Those people who talk that way do not know anything when they mention a matter of that sort. You really want to take the merchant into your confidence. He will tell you what it actually means. This million pounds was nothing. It is only one day's consumption, if the consumption were confined to it. It was all that was left of 30,000,000 lbs. of China tea that existed when this precious Ministry came into power. What did they do? We cams to the last moment, and they suddenly decided that this tea was not to be sold at any price about 2s. 8d. per 1b. But it cost a good deal more than 2s. 8d., and the people who held it could not sell it at the price. It is now held up, and is going bad every day because of the folly of the Ministry. I want to bring one other example in regard to this matter before the House. When a number of Members of Parliament met the Food Controller we were told by him that he recognised now that he had made a mess of China tea, and that he was going to bring in some. What did he tell us? He said that it would be sold at a higher price. Mark that! The Food Ministry would not allow honest people to have tea in the country; they were not to sell it at any higher price. When they themselves bring it in they will sell it at 4s. or 5s. per 1b. That is what they have been doing all along. They have not lowered prices, but have raised them. I said that I wanted to make my case good, because in my old age I have got to doubt my capacity to persuade the House. I told the House at an earlier stage that the Press had taken up these matters. A very remarkable thing has occurred. I mentioned the "Times" a little time ago. Now I am going to mention the "Daily Mail." [Hon. Members: "Oh!"] I do not want any groans at the "Daily Mail." I pronounce it. especially when it agrees with me, a great organ of public opinion. I quoted the "Times" of Saturday. I am going to quote the "Daily Mail" of Monday. In the "Daily Mail" of Monday we find a long article headed "Food," by Mr. Lovat Fraser. [Hon. Members: "Oh ! "] Some hon. Gentlemen

      321
      seem to object to the name. Others appear to admire it. I know nothing of Mr. Lovat Fraser. I never had the pleasure of reading anything he wrote except this article. Upon this article I say he is a man of extraordinary common sense. I say that for two reasons.
      First, he went to the Ministry of Food. He admits it in the first part of the article. He received that welcome which the Press always receives. He did not, however, allow his common sense to be undermined; so though he pays the Ministry some compliments at the beginning of his article, he begins to talk sense when he gets about half-way down. He gives us a bit of information in regard to tea which has been refused to this House— and important information it is! What was the old method of legislation in this country'? Whenever a revolutionary project was brought forward, or any great change suggested by a Ministry, it was always very soon and very candidly told to the House. The Ministry said what they were going to do. Why? In order that the House might think it over, and in order that the people of the country might know it. What does the Minister of Food do? He boasts of the secrecy with which he makes revolutionary changes. Nobody would have known this that I am going to read if this journalist had not wormed it out of the Minister of Food. This is what he says:
      " The proposal to cast all the tea in the land into one common blend seems to be almost incredible."
      I was suspicious of that, but this is the first time I have had the matter confirmed.
      " It gives the clue—"
      Mark the words—since I am only mentioning this as an illustration—
      " It gives the clue to the great defect of the Ministry's policy—"
      Mark that. This intelligent Ministry of Food!
      " which is that it lacks flexibility. The Ministry's tea scheme is just the kind of inhuman—"
      Mark the words again: the language is now getting strong—
      " is just the kind of inhuman expedient which you would expect from the Sydney Webb's."
      That is the worst he could say!
      " Mr. Sydney Webb is the sort of man who would like to cut down all the trees in the land because they are not the same shape and do not look as though they came out of Noah's Ark. The theorists of the new State will shout with joy at the thought of every kind of tea, Caravan, and the sweepings of the Ceylon go-downs, Kuisow and Kangra, Souchoung and Formosa, Hyson and Orange Pekoe and Darjeelind—in one swift mixture blent."
      322
      I would not say that. Nothing would clear me from the charge of being interested, but Mr. Lovat Fraser may say it. The sentiments are splendid—
      " The Ministry's tea scheme perfectly symbolises the ideal of State Socialists, which is that the earth shall be ' flat, and flat for evermore.'"
      This is a casual article produced by a journalist. You have got this description of what the Ministry are going to do with tea. What they are going to do is the height of folly. It will do nobody any good, and it will do a good deal of harm. It will be one addition to the wretched policy they have perpetrated in regard to tea. I would ask this House, even at this late moment, to exercise its mighty power and put a stop to this sort of thing. I have quoted Monday's "Daily Mail." The paper follows it up—for it always does things scientifically—on the Tuesday with a leading article. That article is headed, "Fixing Prices too Low: Result, Scarcity." That is just what I say. It is as great a mistake to fix prices too low as to fix them too high. It is the most delicate thing in the world to fix prices. Here you have an ordinary journalist, Mr. Lovat Fraser, and the writers of the "Daily Mail" teaching us those good old economic principles which we might have learned from Adam Smith, if we took the trouble so to learn. I suggest that it is little short of a crime to deprive the people of this country of tea in the way the Ministry have. They have created a famine. They have created queues when there was abundance of tea. You have only to restore the control of the merchant over this great article and within six weeks you will have pre-war conditions prevailing and pre-war prices, and abundance in the country until the end of the War, however long it may last. If that should appear to the House a very strong statement, I am willing to mention another article, sugar. I am glad to mention it, because the House will see how fair I am. I desire to compliment the Ministry on its dealings in regard to sugar. The position of sugar in the last six months has been the only bright spot in the Ministry's dealing with food. I give the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Chairman of the Sugar Commission (Colonel Bathurst) credit for the great work he has done in this matter. When the Prime Minister asked him to take up the question of the shortage of sugar the position was as bad as it is with tea, and with everything else. He

      323
      replied to the Prime Minister, in his cheerful way, that on one condition would he attend to the matter. The Prime Minister did not like any condition, and inquired, "What is the condition?" "That you bring in the sugar," was the reply of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. The Prime Minister did not like that kind of talk, but he had to deal with a man of some experience, who said, "No, Sir, if I have to deal with the matter, you must bring the sugar in." The reply was, "Oh, very well, I will order the sugar to be brought in." It was settled. The sugar was brought in. There were stocks then of sugar for only three days. We have now three months' supply of sugar in the market, and everybody has plenty of sugar.
      HON. MEMBERS: No, no!
      Mr. LOUGH: Anyone who knows the situation will confirm what I say. A friend of mine went into his grocer's shop the other day and the grocer said to him, "Do not forget your sugar." He answered, "What sugar?" The grocer said, "I have all those half-pounds standing there for you; they are yours." My friend replied, "I have plenty at home." "But you will have to take it," said the grocer. Everywhere there is plenty of sugar. If sugar could be brought in, so could other things—if Ministers liked ! The whole thing is a gamble with the food of the people. What Ministers have ordered to be short is short. What they wish to bring in, they have brought in. We heard from the Food Controller the other night—those Members of this House who went to listen to him—that there, was three times the stock of sugar in this country that there was a year ago. There is abundance, yet tea could not be brought in, nor the materials for margarine. Burmah beans have to be banished from the land, and other things. Why was there an exception in the ease of sugar? Simply because there was an honest man at the head of the Commission who said," I will not go into the Ministry to be a puppet, and to take my salary for doing nothing" —though I believe he takes no salary; all the best men do not." I will not be there unless you bring in the sugar." The same thing has taken place in regard to rice, beans, and other vital articles that come to this country.
      324
      I want to turn for a moment to home production. I hope I will not anticipate the remarks of my hon. Friend who will support this Amendment, and who has an Amendment in somewhat similar terms on the Paper. The little experience I have had in regard to home production has been gained in Ireland. I understand that my hon. Friend who will support desires to speak mainly about England. What took place in regard to the great article of beef, which I will take first; then I will have a word about milk. Beef is a simple commodity which it takes three months to produce. What did the Ministry do? The Food Minister three months ago fixed the price of beef for January at a figure at which it could not be produced. It was merely a conspiracy to create a famine. He has created a famine. If he had not done what he did, there would be plenty of beef to-day. If he will remove his meaningless restrictions, plenty will be restored within six weeks. Three months ago he fixed the price of beef at 75s. per cwt.; it cannot be produced at that price now. His low prices have led to starvation. He said he would reduce the price to 67s. in November, and 60s. in January— the lowest price in the dearest month ! In a month of the greatest difficulty and the greatest scarcity he said. "I will reduce it to the lowest price." Another thing. The Government through him ordered immature cattle to be killed. What are immature cattle? They are cattle ready for the stall. There were 20,000 tons of beef lost by the slaughter of immature cattle at the order of the Food Ministry. In my own Constituency I have one farmer who told me that he was preparing to feed 245 bullocks, and had 600 tons of turnips ready for them. He calculated what the cost of feeding the animals would be. and then found that if he had to sell them at the official price he would lose £10 per head, or a total of £2,450. He did not bring in a single one. There was never such a conspiracy against the lives of the people tolerated as this one. What did Lord Rhondda say on one occasion? He said," I am a farmer." I take leave to doubt that! He is one of those fancy farmers that we have in England who keep some prize cattle, managed by his steward, and he thinks he is farming because he goes out occasionally to look at them. He is not a farmer in the sense of that great community who have done so much

      325
      for England, Scotland, and Ireland for centuries, and who have to live by the thing. Lord Rhondda said," Nothing will induce me to raise the price of beef." He always pretends to be a strong man, but something did induce him, and it was the kicking he received in the Press that induced him to alter the price, and he said, "Well, now, if I alter it in January, I will move it to June." He thought that because January wag winter and June was summer that he must be right, but everybody knows that June is the worst month for beef, because in June feeding-stuffs are scarce, and you have no grass. That was what this practical farmer suggested. He pretended to chuck up the sponge, but he has not done so. He said, "I will allow the present price of 75s. to stand all the year," but that is no use. May I point out that only last week, at one of the largest cattle markets In the country, 86s. a cwt. was paid?
      We are going to be asked to consider a Bill inflicting pains and penalties upon those who break these Orders, but I say that those Orders fixing prices, as far as farmers are concerned, have been repeatedly broken in the public interest. If those laws had not been broken, and if they had not been broken almost every day, we should all hare been starving now. I will give the right hon. Gentleman the name of the market to which I refer if he likes; it is the largest fat tattle market in the United Kingdom, and this week prices there have ranged from 82s. to 86s., which is 10s. above the price fixed by those wretched people in the Food Control Department. What is the Food Controller doing now? I have mentioned the Order dealing with turnips and limiting the price in Ireland. The price has been fixed at 25s. per ton. With increased wages and with a horse costing nearly 30s. a week to keep you could not lift the turnips for 26s. a ton. That is an impossible price. An Order has been issued fixing the price of onions. A friend of mine told me the other day that he had a 3-acre field in which he was going to put in onions, but after seeing that Order he said, "I am off onions." Every step the Food Controller takes you would think is conceived to create famine in the land.
      I will now take the case of milk. Milk takes twelve months to produce, and it has to be very carefully arranged on account of the risks and the price of feeding-stuffs and their scarcity. We had
      326
      a series of Orders dealing with milk twelve. months ago, and there were two Milk. Orders issued yesterday. This is the reason that the supply of milk is exposed to such great risk. The price has been fixed at 2s. a gallon in this country and 1s. 8d. per gallon in Ireland. At that price it is extremely difficult to produce milk, and it must be remembered that this price has to be reduced to 1s. in May—that is, it is to be less in May than in June and July, according to the new Schedule. Now everybody knows that there is no grass in May and there is no real flush of milk till the end of June and July, and therefore, if there is to be any difference, it ought to be cheaper in July than in May. But the Food Controller is always making these experiments and restricting the supply of our vital necessities.
      Take butter. It requires 2½ gallons of milk to make a pound of butter, so that the cost price of butter is now between 4s. and 5s. per pound. The Food Department has fixed the price of butter at 2s. a pound. There are now 30,000 casks of butter in Copenhagen which I could get over here, were I allowed, but I should have to pay for it like the Germans. The Germans have sense in matters in which we are foolish, and the result is that they have thousands of tons of splendid food, such as bacon, butter and eggs from Denmark and Sweden, which this country in its folly has rejected, and which is not allowed to be imported because of this wretched experiment of the Ministry of Food. I might give one or two illustrations, but I will not go further on this point, as I think I have said enough to justify those articles in the Press.
      I make a solemn appeal to hon. Members. Let this House use its own good sense and say whether in a great War and in a time of great scarcity you are going to harass the importer and fight with the producer in this way. Remember what is taking place outside. This Parliament is in its eighth year, and some hon. Members think it will last for ever, but let me tell them that it will not. There may be a great many hon. Members here who do not intend to come back, but I appeal to them to have a sense of patriotic duty, and I appeal to them to listen to the agitation which is going on outside. If they do so, they will hear the mutterings of the storm of revolution. You can hear it in the Press

      327
      and amongst the people, and if this House is not careful those forces will be lashed into activity in order to check the work of a Department which has proved itself totally incapable of dealing with the great task entrusted to it.
      Captain WRIGHT: I beg to second the Amendment which has been moved by my right hon. Friend, who, if he will allow me to say so, has once more delighted the House with his knowledge and common sense and his keen sense of humour. I do not propose to cover the same ground as the right hon. Gentleman. The points I wish to make will be confined to those which are mentioned in the Amendment which I have put on the Paper, and which relate simply to the question of the increased production of home-grown food, and to the present system of dual control of that production by the Ministry of Food and the Board of Agriculture. The right hon. Gentleman has given many instances of the effect of the Orders that have been issued by the Ministry of Food upon the food supply in our various markets. Lord Rhondda has, I think, earned a reputation which is not altogether enviable, in fact, his policy has invented a new word, and if any English soldiers in the hospital or elsewhere happen to lose a box of matches, they say it has been "Rhonddaed." We have seen in "Punch" the cartoon of the Food Controller producing 1s. 9d. and the rabbit disappearing; and it is a fact that since the Order limiting the price of rabbits was issued they have almost entirely disappeared. I think that is sufficient justification for the cartoon. It is obvious that rabbits cannot be sold at that price, because farmers have to pay 1s. 9d. for the man who traps them.
      I wish to confine myself to the question of the increased production of home-grown food. The importation of foreign food has been brought down to a low figure, and we are far more dependent, and we shall be more so as time goes on, upon the food which we ourselves grow in this country. On the admission of Lord Rhondda himself in the House of Lords, the fixing of prices by the Ministry of Food has a tendency to restrict supplies and to increase the demand. He admits this at a time when of all things it is necessary to increase supplies and to restrict demand. If the Food Controller had last year devoted himself to restrict
      328
      ing the demand by a system of rationing we should be in a much better position than we are at the present moment with regard to the supplies of essential food. The original Meat Order is perhaps the best instance of what may be called the folly of food control. I would point out that, on the admission of Lord Rhondda himself, that Order was never approved of by the President of the Board of Agriculture. It fixed a scale of 75s. for September, going down to 60s. in January, the high price being at the time when meat was cheapest to produce, and the lowest price at the time when it was most expensive to produce. What the object of that Order was I do not know, and I have not any idea, but I know that it was issued in spite of the protests of agricultural representatives from all over the country. Deputations went almost daily to the Food Controller, but he turned a deaf ear to them, and that Order was issued. It was pointed out to Lord Rhondda what the result would be. It was shown to him that the effect would, in January and February, be that there would be hardly any home-grown meat in the country.
      Lord Rhondda said "the full effect of this Order will be discerned in the months of January and February," and never was a prophecy more fully borne out, because the full effect has been that in January and February in every market town there has been practically no meat at all upon the market. He was told that would be the effect, but nevertheless the Order was issued. Three months later he saw the mistake, and changed the Order; but it was too late, because the trouble had been done in September and October. It was simply asking the farmer to send' all his animals into the market in September and October, and that is what actually occurred. The worst of it is that our stocks and herds have been largely reduced owing to that action. Lord Rhondda has issued figures to show that, by this means, only a small reduction has taken place in the number of our herds. But if you analyse the figures you will find that the number of two and three old animals on which we depend for our more immediate supply of meat is enormously reduced, and the reason why there is only such a small general reduction shown is that there are so many more calves in the country—a result of the original Order or appeal by the President of the Board.

      329
      of Agriculture, addressed to the farmers, not to slaughter their calves. There is a very serious position, and we shall have to wait a long time until we get proper meat supplies. Another point arising out of the figures put forward by Lord Rhondda is the comparison between the compulsory census taken jointly by the Ministry of Food and the Board of Agriculture in December and the voluntary census taken in the previous June. Anybody who has any acquaintance with farmers knows that the voluntary census forms very often are not filled up, and consequently, the December census really does not give a true indication of the state of affairs.
      My contention is that the whole policy of fixing prices has restricted the supplies of home produce, and the remedy which I suggest to the House and the Government is that the matter of home production should be left to the Department which does know about agriculture. I suggest that the Board of Agriculture should have the duty of fixing the price to the producer, and I am absolutely certain we can trust the President of the Board of Agriculture and his expert advisers who know their work to fix those prices in a manner which will be fair both to the producer and to the consumer Agriculturists are not out to make unfair profits. They are asking that they shall have prices fixed which take into consideration the cost of production, with some profit on the top of it. They ask that they shall not have prices fixed which, in their opinion, be it right or wrong, do not remunerate them in a fair way. I suggest further that after the President of the Board of Agriculture has fixed his prices for the producer, and for the producer only, it shall then be the duty of the Ministry of Food to take care of the distribution and rationing and to fix the prices to be asked by the wholesaler and the retailer and to be paid by the consumer. The right hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment has shown that the Ministry of Food has far too much to do—more than it is able to handle with satisfaction—and if the suggestions which I make were adopted by the Government it would be relieved of a considerable part of its work, and if I may say so respectfully, it would be better able to look after the distribution and rationing of food.
      330
      The farmer is a man of slow mind. He is slow to form opinions, but when once he has made up his mind it takes a lot to induce him to change it. He has lost all confidence in the Ministry of Food Control. He is critical of anyone who comes to him and talks about farming, or who seeks to regulate agricultural affairs. Once a man has made a mistake the farmer will never believe in him again. Everyone admits that this Beef Order was one of the greatest mistakes that has ever been made, and that it is responsible for the position in which we find ourselves to-day. In addition to the making of mistakes, there has been a kind of atmosphere of suggestion that the farmers are profiteers. That is an imputation justly and keenly resented by the farmers. I do not think there is any class in the country which can show a better record than the farmer with regard to what it has done during this War— and done under the greatest difficulties. The farmers have been short of labour. They have been short of machinery and implements. They have been short of fertilisers. They have been short of everything they want to carry on their industry. But, in spite of that, the farmers of this country have done what I believe the farmers of no other country engaged in the War has done—they have increased the supply of home-grown food during the period of the War. They are at this moment engaged under the Board of Agriculture and under the war agricultural committees which represent that Board in ploughing up 3,000,000 more acres of their grass land. They are doing that in spite of the attitude of a considerable number of right hon. and hon. Members of this House towards the Corn Production Act when it was before the House; they are doing it in spite of the fact that they thought that in proportional representation they saw some chance of getting better representation in this House in the future than in the past; they are doing it in spite of the fact that by the Representation of the People Act the number of seats for Members who represent agriculture has been reduced. In spite of all these things, the agriculturist is doing his best and is taking upon himself the risk that if the cry of cheapness to the consumer is to be the only consideration in the future with regard to food, then the expense to which he is now being put in ploughing up his grass lands will have been lost,

      331
      and he will certainly be faced in years to come with the great cost of again laying down these arable lands to grass. They are doing their best to help the country in its time of need.
      As the Amendment which I have on the Paper is much narrower in its scope than the one moved by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Islington (Mr. Lough), and as my Amendment is particularly concerned with the relations between the Board of Agriculture and the Ministry of Food, I ask that some reply may be given to my suggestion as to the administrative change as between the two Departments by someone who can speak for the Government as a whole; not merely by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Food Minister, but by someone with authority. I put a question to the Leader of the House the other day founded upon a resolution which was passed by a federation of all the war agricultural committees throughout the country, which raised the two points I have laid stress upon. I will read the resolution, as it is very short—
      " With the importation of foodstuffs so greatly reduced, if cheapness to the consumer without regard to the cost of production is to be the sole consideration, the effect on home production must be disastrous.
      Further, the Committee consider that the dual control of home production is detrimental, and urge that the stimulation of production and the fixing of the prices to the producer for his produce should be left entirely to the President of the Board of Agriculture, and that, on the basis of the prices go fixed, the distribution of all produce and the fixing of prices for the wholesaler, retailer, and consumer should be alone left to the Food Controller."
      That is a deliberate opinion arrived at after the resolution had been circulated to every war agricultural committee in the country, and copies of the resolution have been laid before the Prime Minister, the Food Controller, and the President of the Board of Agriculture. I ask the Government to consider whether an arrangement of the sort I have suggested cannot be put into force and the question of encouraging production be left to the Department which knows about the subject—the questions of distribution and rationing to be in the hands of the Ministry of Food, which has at the present time far too much to do and has not the knowledge which justifies its interference with production.
      Major TRYON: I wish, at the very beginning, to say that I cordially agree with a large number of the very admirably-expressed criticisms of the Food Con
      332
      troller made by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Lough). I only differ from the right hon. Gentleman in his conclusion, as I take it the whole purport of his speech was that restrictions of every kind should be swept away. I entirely agree with the hon. Member who seconded the Amendment, because he advocated the retention of some form of control and urged that it should be. in the hands of a Department specially qualified to deal with the subject. I agree, too, that production should be encouraged.
      Mr. LOUGH: Perhaps I may be allowed to say—I did not want to detain the House too long—that I guarded myself against the suggestion that I was opposed to every form of restriction. because in the early part of my speech I urged that the restrictions should be directed towards increasing production rather than towards worrying interference with it.
      Major TRYON: I think the right hon. Gentleman will remember he began his speech with criticisms, which produced much laughter, on details of the various regulations with regard to prices. But how are you going to regulate the prices of food if you do not go into details? You must necessarily, when dealing with a matter of this sort, go into details, and, therefore, if the right hon. Gentleman objects to the detailed classification of food, he necessarily disapproves of all Regulations that apply to the food question. After all, there is another side of this question which has not been touched upon up to the present, and that is that before the War there was a very great scarcity of food in this country. I remember a speech by the hon. Member for the Attercliffe Division (Mr. Anderson) on that subject, in which it was pointed out that there was unquestionably a very great shortage. I do not believe we shall be able to get the people of this country to accept in a patient spirit the hardships which are before us unless they feel, as I think they have a right to feel, that the food is evenly shared all round; and I think it possible there is some danger to this country unless we can create the feeling that the rations are properly shared.
      5.0 P.M.
      If you are going to criticise the proposed Regulations, you must remember that without those Regulations it is not possible to secure a proper distribution of food,

      333
      and for that reason, and almost only for that reason, I am opposed to the right hon. Gentleman's Motion. I agree, however, with the Seconder of the Motion that you must encourage production, and that, after all, the proper solution of food scarcity is an increased supply of food. That is common sense. The remedy for scarcity is food and not food tickets, obviously. I cannot help remembering that this demand has been put forward, and legitimately put forward, by the working classes and by their representatives. It is owing to a Labour demand, and I think a just Labour demand, that this principle of rationing is being put into force. I cannot help remembering, also, that Labour is represented, and, if T may say so, most ably represented, by the hon. Member (Mr. Clynes), who is, I believe, the right-hand man of the Food Controller. I do not wish to go into too political and party questions. I will safeguard myself by saying that I believe you must have Regulations. If you are going to sweep all Regulations away, are you going to stand the enormous rise in prices which will occur all over the country? You have now huge sums being expended, sometimes well and sometimes badly; you have a diminished supply; the prices of commodities will go up to an unheard-of extent; wages will go up, and rightly, to meet that; and the increase in the capital cost of the War to this country will be augmented to an extent upon which we have never calculated, and which I venture to say never entered into the calculations of the right hon. Gentleman.
      What are the facts? We have an Island which used to grow in the old days three times the amount of wheat which it grew just before the War, and it is from causes for which the right hon. Gentleman himself is largely responsible that this agriculture has gone down. You have encouraged, as Rome did, what you thought was cheap wheat, and the result is scarcity and dear food; and no one is more responsible for it than the right hon. Gentleman. I have noticed in this Debate that, with the exception of my right hon. Friend, there is one thing which all the speakers on the Address have done. In every case there have been violent attacks on the Government by hon. Members who have been largely responsible for the scarcity and the difficulties which the Government have to face. I need hardly remind the House that we have had a Cabinet Minister speaking of Cabinet Ministers
      334
      making mistakes which occurred during his own period of office. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of sugar and the scarcity of it which at one time existed. I can remember the days when he and his party actually asked for taxes on sugar produced in this country to prevent the springing up of the production of sugar here. It was known that industries were springing up in the Eastern counties for the production of sugar. The right hon. Member and those who supported him, and the "Manchester Guardian," demanded taxes in this country to prevent sugar being produced here.
      Mr. LOUGH:I never did that. You cannot quote anything from me to that effect.
      Major TRYON: I am sorry if I misrepresented the right hon. Gentleman or misled the House, but I have a quotation from the ''Manchester Guardian," and both he and the "Manchester Guardian" are typical and eminent representatives of Free Trade principles. I cannot help remembering—though I mention it in no spirit of reproach—the right hon. Gentleman's opening words. He was positively insulted at having been given a, card which held out a prospect, if he filled it in, of getting a certain amount of offal. I think if it is wrongly filled in you get six months', but that if you fill it in properly you get a certain amount of offal. I cannot help remembering a day when that would have been regarded as typical of the kind of food you got in protected countries. But. I do not bear any malice in that respect, because I want to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman and those who hold his economic views on the suggestion that it is desirable on light, sandy soil to grow as much rye as possible, as the growing of rye produces such excellent bread—that we ought to grow as much rye as possible because of the excellent and nutritious quality of this kind of food.
      Mr. LOUGH: I never said that.
      Major TRYON:I was not suggesting that the right hon. Gentleman did, but I am suggesting that he is a Free Trader. I wish now to support the right hon. Gentleman on one or two points that he made. Take the case of pigs. In the country, as everybody knows, there are cottages where people live and keep pigs. As long as they grow the pig and kill it themselves—if they escape the Food Hoarding Regulations and keep it—the

      335
      price does not very greatly matter to them, but with the present low price fixed for the sale of pigs, and the enormous cost of food for surplus pigs beyond what you can produce from the scraps from the table and the house, I believe it is the case—and I am sure hon. Members for agricultural— districts will correct me if I am wrong that the production of pigs is being very gravely discouraged. What has happened is what always happens. In the agricultural districts when it comes to scarcity they fare better because they are producing, and the towns suffer more because the towns necessarily live on the surplus of the agricultural districts. If by putting the price of the sale of pigs too low you discourage their production it is obviously the towns that suffer. Then, as to the production of poultry. The history of poultry in this matter has been most extraordinary. We have never been able to ascertain whether poultry ought to be killed or preserved, but I think it is a great fault to throw any difficulties in the way of maintaining poultry at the present time because they have been fed all through the winter, when they do not lay, and it is just now when they will be a very profitable source of food supply. I think, therefore, every effort ought to be made to keep them going now. I should like to say one thing which perhaps may be new to the House. I do think that maximum prices are necessary because otherwise the cost of living will be enormously increased, but the history of food control and the attempts to regulate prices do not give one much confidence. It has been tried in the past, time after time, and in every case it has failed. It is a somewhat distant date, but we all know that in the days of ancient Rome they relied, mainly for political purposes, on food supplies from overseas. The supplies for Rome were kept out by enemies of Rome, whom—as we do to-day —they described as pirates. Then Rome endeavoured to keep herself going by the subsidised production of corn—which is what is going on here now. Then in Rome they did what we have done here, they appointed a Food Controller. I will not follow his career beyond mentioning that they began by putting up a statue to him, and ended by his decapitation.
      I have only one other thing to say. This Debate has been illuminated by many happy expressions from the right hon. Gentleman opposite of a humorous
      336
      nature which we all appreciated, but I know that he and all of us realise that this is a desperately serious subject. We have an island with its sea communications gravely imperilled, and we must feel that production is the vital thing that is going to save us. We believe that some restriction of excessive prices is necessary, but you must guard at every point against these Regulations checking production, and I would like particularly to suggest that we should, if possible, consider the question again of the children. It is a very serious thing to limit the amount of food granted to growing children. Whether additional supplies could be available or not I do not know, but I think it is a great pity, if it can be avoided, to discriminate against the children who are growing, and who are granted such a small supply of meat. I would remind the House that the policy of the Government on this subject is not altogether sound, because in the case of soldiers the young and growing soldiers are granted additional rations. If that is so, I think it may be proved to be a very grievous mistake to cut down as much as they have the rations for the children. I would urge this additional consideration, that whereas grown-up people may suffer temporary, and even grievous, discomfort from a shortage of food, such a shortage of food for children means the permanent disablement of the most precious thing that we have got in this country.
      Colonel MEYSEY-THOMPSON: I have listened with the very greatest possible interest to the extremely able speeches that have already been made on this subject. The very forcible and humorous speech of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lough), I am sure, commanded the sympathy and attention of the whole House, while the speeches of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who seconded his Motion (Captain Wright), and the hon. and gallant Gentleman who supported him (Major Tryon), will carry great weight, I am sure, both in this House and in the country. I was very much struck with the concluding remarks of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down when he pointed out that the question of our food supply is of vital importance to this country, and to our ability to carry on the War. There is no doubt that the question of production is of far more importance than the question even of distribution. Some very foolish person questioned that statement when I made it the other day, and I

      337
      pointed out to him that, of course, if there were no production in this country, no amount of distribution could relieve the present tension with regard to our food supply; and if, on the other hand, we had four times the production, the need of distribution would be very greatly done away with. I cannot altogether agree with every point that was put forward by the Mover of this Amendment, although with most of his contentions I am substantially in agreement. I should like to, point out that in this I hold no brief for the farmers, but, representing, as I do, one of the largest industrial constituencies in the country, it is my duty to see that there is the largest production of food possible in the country, in order to protect their supplies, and to see that they are deprived as little as possible of their necessary food. The point I want especially to emphasise this afternoon is a point which is felt very deeply by the producers all over the country and which very nearly and very greatly concerns the consumer. It is this point, that every single Order that has been issued by the Food Controller with regard to the food production of this country has diminished the production and not increased it.
      I should like for a moment to consider what some of those Orders have been, and what the result has been on production here. Let us take some instances. There is the question of sugar, referred to by the right hon. Gentleman. We were told there was so great a shortage of sugar last summer when people were applying for sugar in order to preserve their fruit that it could not be granted. The right hon. Gentleman says that there is plenty of sugar. If that is true, the Food Controller was certainly wrong in withholding sugar and allowing an enormous amount of fruit to go bad. When he did issue an Order releasing a very considerable amount of sugar, it was too late, and an immense amount of fruit had already gone bad. I would like to take the question of potatoes. No potatoes, especially those of certain grades, were allowed to be sold by the farmers unless they had obtained a permit, but the permits in many cases were so delayed that hundreds of tons of potatoes which otherwise might have been usefully employed in the country went bad and were wasted. Other potatoes that were put on trucks after being released were
      338
      frost-bitten owing to the delay at the depots, and were lost as food to the country.
      The other day, as we all know, 1,200 tons of wheat were sunk through being taken oversea instead of overland. I know that the answer will be that there is a shortage of transport, but we know that in many instances supplies are being brought very long distances overland. They are being brought from Scotland to Leeds, and locally grown supplies are taken away from the Leeds area and distributed in the South. Surely that is extraordinarily bad management of the transport of this country. If it were better managed, and if supplies for each large town were drawn from the immediate area and not from a distance, the shortage in trucks would be very much relieved, and it would be possible to move all our supplies overland instead of running the risk of bringing them coastwise. Imagine the irritation that is caused to farmers, who are liable to be very seriously fined if they give a handful of wheat to their poultry, or if they use offals, which may be declared afterwards not to be offals, in feeding their pigs, to read of 1,200 tons of wheat being sunk and wasted altogether. It also causes great irritation to the farmer, who is told that he must plough out grass land in order to grow wheat when he sees it wasted in this way. The Government are very much to blame for throwing this wheat away. The meddle and the muddle of the Food Control Office is causing the greatest irritation, both to the producer and to the consumer. The Orders for ploughing out grass land were issued in October last, which was already late, but it did enable a considerable extra area to be brought under crops this spring. Supplemental Orders to plough out grass land did not reach the producers until the third week in January. Any Order then to plough out grass land, and especially land on which slag had been put, simply meant an absolute waste of the nation's resources. It is quite impossible for that land, being ploughed out so late, to produce efficient crops. The produce of milk and meat from the land would have been enormously in excess of the scratch crop that you are likely to get by ploughing out the land so late. I know what I am talking about, because I have farmed for forty years, both in New Zealand for a living and in this country. I am sick

      339
      and tired of being told about calories or units of heat which you get out of books when I know from practical experience what can be done, what is capable of being done, and what mistakes are being made. Lord Rhondda, I suppose, knows something about coal. Is he aware that the calories or units of heat in a pound of coal are greater than in a pound of wheat? Can he feed the country on coal? Coal contains all the elements of food, but, unfortunately, you cannot digest it. Coal is made to be burned and wheat is grown to be eaten. The people who dictate the policy with regard to agriculture in this country are absolutely ignorant of real, practical farming. It is perfectly pitiable that at this time we should be wasting the food and the production of this country at the dictation of people who do not understand what there are talking about.
      Mr. O'GRADY: Lord Rhondda is a practical farmer.
      Colonel MEYSEY-THOMPSON: Is he?
      Mr. O'GRADY: He says so.
      Colonel MEYSEY-THOMPSON: The meat shortage and the milk shortage now is entirely the fault of the Food Controller. On 15th February last year, just a year ago almost to a day, I brought up the whole of this question and set out at great length what must inevitably happen. I spoke in this House about the third week in August last year—I think I spoke about half or three-quarters of an hour—and I went into full details pointing out that this 60s. order in January must inevitably cause a famine in milk and meat in January this year. No notice was taken of anything that I said or wrote at that time. The result has absolutely justified every word that I then said. I do not go into all this for the purpose of destructive criticism. I do not know Lord Rhondda. I have no personal animosity against him. I do not want to rake up all the mistakes that he has made, but I see that the same mistakes are being repeated now, and. the result will be disastrous to the food supply of this country if they are not corrected, and corrected immediately. I should like to make a certain definite suggestion. In the first place, you must have a constructive policy. It is no good haphazard orders being brought out one after the other contradicting one another. Last autumn we were told that we were to kill cattle as fast as we could. Cows
      340
      and heifers were killed, and now there is a shortage of milk. Calves were even killed, and cattle were rushed to the market. Do hon. Members realise the effect of killing immature beasts? If you take a beast such as we have in July or August, it is capable of laying on one or two hundredweight additional meat by the late autumn fed on grass alone. If you kill the beast two or three months too soon, you are throwing away hundreds of tons of meat which could be reared on grass alone. It is therefore a sheer waste to kill them. If you encourage the killing of heifers and cows, and if you plough up too much grass land so that they cannot be kept, you reduce your supply of milk. It is said that you can obtain more produce from rotation crops than you can from permanent grass, and that you can feed more cattle in consequence and have more meat and milk. I can assure the House from my personal experience that you must have a certain amount of grassland in proportion to arable land, and that if you do not preserve the balance a number of cows and heifers will not be kept, and the supply of milk will suffer accordingly. That is a practical point. I know myself of an instance where in January an Order was issued to plough out land which had been slagged in the autumn. The President of the Board of Agriculture has told us that it is very difficult in many instances to improve the grass land of this country, because slag is short, difficult to get, and not good in quality, and because the means of transport are difficult. Good God, is it not criminal to plough out land which has been recently slagged and waste that when you cannot get fresh slag to put on other land? I would issue an Order that no land slagged within the last three or four years should be ploughed out now, because otherwise you are wasting it at a time when it is impossible to get a fresh supply of slag. How do all these mistakes arise? They arise—and this question has been brought forward already—from the dual control. It results in endless mistakes, and seriously embarrasses the President of the Board of Agriculture. The first duty of the Government is to see that for the purposes of production the President of the Board of Agriculture and the Food Controller are one, and he should be a man who understands agriculture, and not a man who is entirely ignorant of it. People say, "What are you going to do? What could he do, even supposing you

      341
      gave him a free hand?" The chief need at the present moment which is felt on all hands is to consult the producers and the consumers. I would consult the mayors and other influential citizens of all the large towns, and ascertain how they think they could best supply their towns from their own area. I would decentralise very largely. I would let the produce be sent always to the nearest centre, and so save unnecessary transport. You say it has been done. I know the way that it has been done. I attended a meeting upstairs last week, when Lord Rhondda came to consult the Members of this House. He made a statement which, with all due respect to him, was so confused that I do not think anybody could understand it. Members were invited to ask him questions. If any Member wanted to explain why he was asking a question he was told that he was making a speech. The meeting was absolutely useless. I have had a good deal of experience in organisation, especially during this War. and will only give the House one instance. I was asked by the War Office to raise certain units of Artillery, which were extremely urgent at that moment, and I was told by the War Office that every one of the Lord Mayors and Mayors applied to had turned the thing down and would not attempt to raise them. I went to the Mayors and the other influential citizens in each place and asked them how they considered that the units should be raised. Most of them told me, in the first instance, that they could not be raised and that they were not going to undertake the job. I asked them why, and they said they had a large mass of papers sent down from the War Office which they could not understand and they were afraid to tackle the job at all. In the end, when I had explained the matter to them, in every instance they took it up. I was successful in raising five brigades of Field Artillery and six heavy batteries in the very places where they said it was impossible to do it.
      It is entirely a question of organisation. If the Food Controller, or, better still, the President of the Board of Agriculture, would go to the towns and really consult them. the difficulties would largely disappear, and the towns would be more efficiently and less expensively supplied with food than they are at the present time. I should then consult Sir Eric Geddes, or someone of that kind who is an expert in his trade, as to the best way
      342
      to regulate the traffic. We all know that the railway transport in this country is in a most hopeless confusion at the present moment. Trucks are hung up all over the place which ought to be used for food traffic. If you have a real consultation and not a sham one, the difficulties would largely disappear. Then what you have to do is to create a feeling of confidence in the country both on the part of the producers and of the consumer. The consumers are irritated because they think they are not getting the. supplies which they could have if the food control was. better organised. The producers are uneasy because they never know what fresh Order is going to be brought out. They are afraid of rearing pigs now, because they do not know whether they will be allowed to eat them when they rear them. They are afraid whenever there is a suggestion of a new Order coming out and they rush beef and mutton into the market and there is an extraordinary waste, a want of confidence on their part and a great feeling of irritation. All this, I am quite certain, could be reduced to a very large extent if there were better organisation of control. The only way to get that is that the food control with regard to production and the Presidency of the Board of Agriculture should be merged in one person. I suggest he should be a person who understands the question, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Agriculture has the confidence of the whole House and of the country. If this policy of meddle and muddle continues, I do not believe we shall win the War. If it is at once altered and the matter put on a proper basis, we shall have taken a substantial step towards winning the War. No hesitation is possible. The question is urgent, and I beg the Government immediately to give their most earnest consideration to the speeches which have been made this afternoon and to act on them quickly and thoroughly without any further loss of time.
      Major E. WOOD: I listened with considerable attention to the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Meysey-Thompson), with a great deal of which I find myself in agreement. I feel some sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman who represents the Government at the moment, as he has had to listen to what in effect constituted a severe attack upon one of his colleagues for whom, I imagine,

      343
      he is only partially and indirectly responsible. The hon. and gallant Member for Brighton (Major Tryon) made one remark in the course of his speech that would carry the assent of all Members of the House—namely, that the problem we were considering this afternoon is one that is extremely serious, extremely difficult, and in which criticism, if I may so put it, ought to be tempered with sympathy, and one with regard to which it was the duty of all Members representing particular interests and feeling, with whatever strength, to give the utmost of their assistance to the Government and to refrain, as far as they possibly could, from embarrassing criticism. With that I agree. It has been made quite clear that the problem the House is considering is a double one. It consists, firstly, in the encouragement of production, and, in the second place, in the purveying to the consumer of something to eat at a reasonable price. I cannot follow the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lough), who opened the Debate even so far as he would wish to lead me to the conclusion that regulation and control were almost wholly bad. I agree that in a sense they are wholly bad, but he would think they were much more inevitable than I should be prepared to assent to. Therefore, the problem is in what way you can be reasonably sure of securing a moderate price for your consumer while encouraging the production on which it depends. It is clear to everybody that you are not likely to succeed in purveying an article to your consumer, even at a fancy price, unless you have been successful in solving the first part of your problem, which is encouraging production. It is in that connection that I would like to reinforce the plea of, the hon. and gallant Gentleman who spoke second in this Debate (Captain Wright), and who has a considerable title to speak for agricultural opinion, at least in the Midlands, as I know, with regard to the almost essential need of some clear definition of function between the two Government Departments that are at present concerned with this problem.
      I would ask the House to approach it from this end. If the House admits, as it generally does admit, that one of the main factors in the whole matter must be and always will be production, then the fixing of the price to the producer can only rest upon the cost of production. If you Attempt to depart from that basis, and if
      344
      you neglect the cost of production in fixing the price that is to be paid to the producer, the result will be what it has been, namely, the disappearance of the article from the market. If, therefore, the House generally accepts that the cost of production should be the basis of the price fixed for the producer, then I would submit that my hon. and gallant Friend had considerable ground for suggesting that the right authority to fix that price was the Board of Agriculture, leaving to the Food Controller the subsequent duties of distribution and of fixing wholesale and retail prices for the later stages on the part of the consumer. It might well be asked, what is the remedy if the cost of production is so great that to do justice to your producer you have to fix as the price to him, such a price as makes it impossible to purvey at a moderate price to the consumer? In reply to that I would most unhesitatingly say that, rather than run the risk of cutting off production at the source, I would adopt, as a temporary war measure, what is undoubtedly a vicious expedient in itself, namely, an expedient we have already adopted in regard to our bread, that is to subsidise in order to be able to place the article on the market to the consumer without turning off the tap of production by making it impossible for the producer to grow it at a profit.
      I want to explain in a few sentences why I think that this administrative question, as it is, the question of the allocation of power between the two Departments, is of first-rate and vital importance, and why it is the Board of Agriculture which should be entrusted with the function I have mentioned. It is essential that the work, which is strange and novel to the farming and agricultural community, should be done by people in whom they have confidence. The Board of Agriculture is in touch in a variety of ways, which will be familiar to hon. Members, with the farming opinion throughout the country. The Board of Agriculture is in a position to estimate the various factors entering into the cost of production, upon which I think most opinion would agree that the price and control must be based. As to the time required for each agricultural operation, the reasonable margin of profit the farming community may expect to make, the risk they run, the capital necessary to run farms, and therefore the reasonable return the farmer may expect; all these things are the A, B, C of the daily life of the Board of Agriculture, but

      345
      they are following the instructions of another Department which should be concerned with a wholly different subject.
      Lastly, and not least important, the President does possess in a unique degree the confidence of the farmers That is an immense asset for him in endeavouring to secure the adoption by farmers, patriotically, of a policy designed to further the national interest. The Food Controller, Lord Rhondda, through no fault of his own, is not similarly placed. I have no wish at all to discuss, because I am not qualified to enter into them, all the technicalities of the various ways you ought to be able to sell or buy meat or pigs or anything of that sort. But as a general principle I am convinced that if we are going to get this thing working smoothly and successfully, it is before all things necessary that you should enlist for your policy the co-operation, the sympathy, and the support of the average working farmer. We have heard some talk from uninformed quarters about farmers being profiteers. That has been officially denied on the highest authority. The Prime Minister has said they are not, I think Lord Rhondda has said they are not, and everyone who knows anything about the subject knows they are not. But anyone who knows the farmer also knows that he is very suspicious of the complexity of varying Orders which are thrown at his head weekly and daily and which he imperfectly understands, and I think this House could do no one thing which would more reassure agricultural opinion and do more to lay the foundation for a sound condition of things three months ahead than if, on behalf of the Government, the announcement could be made that some such policy as has been suggested to-night of a more satisfactory delimitation of functions between the Board of Agriculture and the Food Control Department could be adopted and asserting that in future the Government was going to take the cost of production to the grower as the basis on which they were going to fix controlled prices for what he grew, and make it perfectly plain that if their policy led to the price to the consumer being too high in the opinion of the Food Controller they would not hesitate to call upon the general taxpayers so to reduce those prices as to bring the articles of food within the reach of the poorer classes, and thus avoid the mistake of turning off the tap of production, which would have the
      346
      result that the poorer classes, even if they were able to buy them, would have in. many cases nothing to buy.
      Major HUNT: I should like to bring to the notice of the Board of Agriculture a question of milk production which I brought before the Food Controller and which I understood him to say had more to do with the President of the Board of Agriculture. The farmers in Shropshire came to me about the matter and they said they were losing a very large percentage of their best milkers because when they sold them—they admitted that they picked out the best—they sold them in the market to the town dairies. According to their account something like 70 per cent. of the best milkers were sent to these dairymen. who always fattened and killed them, and would not allow the farmers to buy them back again. In that way they said they were not only losing their cows, but they were losing their best cows, and they asked me if I could not persuade the President of the Board of Agriculture or the Food Controller to stop these cows under ten years old, if they were sound for milking purposes in every way, from being killed, and let the farmers buy them back. I understand that the town dairymen find it cheaper to feed very highly and milk at the same time, and to have their cows sold as beef when they are dry. In these days, when so many things are controlled, I do not think there would be any very great hardship if these cows were not allowed to be killed if they were sound and under ten years old. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider this matter. The farmers are very strong on the point indeed, especially the point that these cows are almost always the best milkers.
      I hear on all sides from people who go amongst the working people in London that these new food tickets for meat, butter, and so on, are absolutely hopeless. They cannot make anything at all of them, and unless rationing is put off till something better is arranged you will have food riots in London, because people will not be able to get food. How is a poor working woman with six children to go to the butcher and sign her name every time? The thing is impossible! It cannot be done. I hope it will be reconsidered, because I do not see how you can help having trouble and riots if people are unable to get meat. I do not wish to be controversial, but the matter is so im

      347
      portant that I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider it, and try to find out from the working people themselves whether it is possible for them to follow the Regulations. The tickets alone are enough to puzzle anyone, with a whole lot of numbers all crossed out.
      The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Prothero): The whole question was raised by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lough) in a way which I am sure has given the tone to the subsequent discussion. The suggestion made by several speakers is that the President of the Board of Agriculture, as the head of the Department responsible for food production, should also be the person who is to fix prices to the producer, leaving to the Food Controller all the prices regarding distribution. There are, of course, obvious disadvantages to the proposal. In the first place, the head of a producing Department necessarily has interests which are in some degree, at first sight at all events, antagonistic to those of the consumer. Where they unite is that unless the thing is produced there is nothing to be consumed. But at the same time there will be in the minds of many people that necessary antagonism, and therefore some difficulty in appointing the head of a producing Department to fix prices for the people in whose interests he is acting. There is a further difficulty. I am only the head of the Board of Agriculture in England and Wales, and I should very much doubt whether Scotland would accept the prices that I might fix for Scotland. Equally, I doubt whether Ireland would do it, and that is a very serious practical drawback to the suggestion.
      It is not my province to defend all that the Food Controller has done in the past, but the position is very different now from what it was, say, six months ago. The producer in this country has got a price for wheat, barley, and oats, which offers him a reasonable profit, and he has a price now for beef, which similarly offers him a reasonable profit. He has got a price for potatoes. I hope it will satisfy him and that we shall have even a bigger crop than we had last year. He has also got a price for milk, which within certain limitations satisfies him. If corn, meat, milk, and potatoes are fixed on fairly reasonable terms right away to the end of this year the attack—for it has been an attack— which has been made on the Food Controller is a little late in the day. I should
      348
      find it very hard indeed to say that I wag satisfied with some of the prices at the end of last year, but neither am I absolutely satisfied—I have not got the price I should like for milk, for instance, but that may come. Many things have come in the course of the twelve months since I have been at the head of this Department. Things which I thought I was never likely to achieve have been gradually attained. These are two difficulties in the way of the President of the Board of Agriculture being entrusted with the task of fixing the prices of production. The other is a reason which ought to be considered by those hon. Members who have attacked the action of the Food Controller, who occupies what we must all admit to be the most difficult and delicate position a man could possibly be put into. He is treading an altogether untrodden path, and that there must be mistakes made is inevitable.
      6.0 P.M.
      May I come to a few of the prices with which I am more concerned, and which have been singled for some comment? Though I do not profess to give you the motives of the Food Controller in each instance, perhaps I may throw some light upon them. Take the case of butter. It is quite true that English butter has practically disappeared from the market, except what I may call week-end butter. When a farmer cannot get rid of his Saturday milk he may make it into butter. Now the price not only affects the consumer, but acts in the direction of the producer, and what the Food Controller, in fixing that price, virtually says to the producer is: "I want your whole milk more than I want your butter. Your whole milk is so difficult to procure and so essential to the child-life of the country that I want you to produce it and not butter.'' You may use the same argument with regard to the price of cheese. The producer loses money upon making cheese at present, just as he loses it upon making butter; but, again, the Food Controller's argument is, I assume, "What I want is your whole milk, and I want it more than I want your cheese and butter." At the same time he wants the cheese more than the butter, so as a consequence the producer loses less on his cheese than he does on his butter. That is an aspect in regard to the fixing of the price which is rather ignored, and which I am sure has to a certain degree influenced the Food Controller. Some

      349
      thing was said about the price of pork. A similiar statement might be made as to the price of pork. If you take the price as it now stands, it does not pay the producer to produce the pork if he feeds his pigs on the system which has been very generally adopted for many years.
      Mr. LOUGH: He loses money.
      Mr. PROTHERO:Yes. The fact is this, that for many years past the natural food of the pig has been absolutely neglected. It has been put into a stye and stuffed with meal of various sorts, barley and maize, with the very best sorts of millers' offal, and with cake. That feeding has been tremendously expensive. At the present moment human beings compete for breadstuffs with the pigs in respect of barley, maize, and the better qualities of millers' offals. When you mill wheat more closely, what was formerly the millers' offal passes into the human bread. It comes to this, that at the present moment the pig has 5 lbs. of meal and it makes with it 1 lb. of pork. All this is material for breadstuffs. Some people say that it consumes more, but I do not believe it does. That is to say, five people are deprived of bread so that one person may have I lb. of pork. That is wrong, and if it were necessary to feed pig in that way it would be better to do away with the pig; but it is not in the least necessary. If you turn the pig to natural use and make him a forager and a scavenger and give him the waste products which are unfit for human food, and also give him a smaller quantity—say, 1 lb. instead of 5 lbs.—of human food, then the position is completely altered. Then five people lose one-fifth of their bread supply and they get one-fifth back in the shape of pork, the ration of meat, bread and pork is so much better, and the nation is the gainer.
      Colonel MEYSEY-THOMPSON: There has been some misapprehension on this subject. All the large farmers feed their pigs in the farmyard, and the greater part of the food consumed by the pigs are the waste turnips and other things which have been thrown out in order to clean the tumblers for the beasts' food. We have given the pigs very little of the food of the people.
      Mr. PROTHERO:That is my argument. If everybody would adopt the hon. Member's plan, then the pig is the most economical animal in the world. You can produce that pork at a cheaper price than
      350
      the man who feeds it on all this meal. If the Food Controller's price can be justified it is on that ground, that he means to tell the pig-feeders all over the country, "You must alter your mode of feeding pigs if you are going to make them pay." That is the point, and I think it is right. Then there is the price of milk. If you take the price of milk all over this country, you probably find thirty different prices and thirty different costs of production. The worst of the Food Controller's position is that he has to deal with flat rates. Supposing he takes any particular flat rate, fifteen will suffer to whom the flat rate is not enough and fifteen will gain by it, because the flat rate is more than they used to get. His difficulty is that he has got to keep the milk producers still in the trade and yet work a flat rate which shall not give an extortionate profit to those who produce the milk most cheaply. That is one of the difficulties which confronts this most unfortunate of Ministers in his most difficult and delicate task.
      Something was said by the hon. Member for Handsworth (Colonel Meysey-Thompson) about ploughing up grass land, and he characterised it as almost suicidal. Of course, for a person of his experience I have every respect, but it must be remembered that the Orders to plough are issued by practical men in his own county, men of local knowledge and experience, and, though there may be a conflict of opinion, it is perhaps upon the question in the particular case that he quoted of grass land being ploughed, and there may be some other side to the story which I do not know. Our real trouble with the milk supply is not the summer supply. There is always a surplus of milk on the summer supply. The great difficulty is the winter supply. Our concentrated foods have fallen off to such an extent that at the present moment we are not able to get anything like the quantity of concentrated food that ought to be raised for milch cattle. We have heard of the town dairyman who is dependent almost entirely upon the food which he purchases for his cows. If we cut off, as in fact, we are cut off, from the greater portion of our concentrated food, what is to become of the town dairy? If, again, we are to be cut off from our supply of concentrated food what is to become of the milk producer who produces milk exclusively on grassland and what is to become of the meat producer who produces it upon grassland in the winter. That is the great

      351
      difficulty that I have had to face in framing any policy of agriculture in this tremendous crisis. There is very little doubt that in the summer we shall lose some of our milk, in the summer also we may lose some of our meat, and we shall lose it in the very cheapest form in which it can be produced. I admit that fully, but both the milk and the meat are produced on grassland, and when the winter comes and when grassland is no longer forthcoming and the dairyman or the grazier can no longer buy artificial food from abroad we shall go short of winter milk and winter meat unless you do what we did in the seventies, and that is to grow all the crops that we want on our own land and to grow it in the form of forage crops and so supply the concentrated food of which we are deprived.
      Colonel MEYSEY-THOMPSON: What I want to point out is that we must maintain the balance of ploughed land and of grassland. I have at the present moment one hundred in-calf cows and heifers running on grassland.
      Mr. SPEAKER: It is rather unusual to carry on a dialogue. The hon. and gallant Gentleman has had his say. He was given a good hearing, and he might accord the same facilities to the Minister.
      Mr. PROTHERO: I quite agree that you must maintain the balance, and I have said publicly that the maintenance of the balance of the farms is one of the things that have to be considered. The point is that you must plough up considerable quantities of your grassland in order to make up for the winter food that you are losing by the loss of concentrated food. That is of the essence and lies at the root of the ploughing up programme which we have adopted. Another reason why we want to plough more grass land is because arable land feeds a very much larger number of people than grassland. But quite apart from that there is the very material question of tonnage. Supposing we are able to raise from the ploughed up land an extra million of tons of grain, essential grain, that is necessary for our population, we are able to set free a very large amount of tonnage. To bring that million tons of grain to these shores you would want 350 ships of a carrying capacity of 5,000 tons dead-weight each. Supposing you had left that land as grassland and that you had produced upon it the amount of meat which it could pro
      352
      duce, the amount of meat that it would produce, if it is fairly good land, is something like 75,000 tons. That could be carried to these shores in forty ships of the same carrying capacity. If then by our programme we are able to set free 320 ships to bring to these shores the American Army and its equipment and its war material to help us on the road to victory, we shall have done a very great thing. That also is at the root of the land policy which we have adopted.
      I do not know that there are any further material points with which I can deal. My hon. and gallant Friend alluded to the case of the dairyman who bought these cows and after they had served his purpose during the winter months they were slaughtered. That has always been a practice and a rather disastrous practice. The town dairyman has continually to renew his cows and when he does so he has at present to pay a tremendous price. I am glad to state that my hon. and gallant Friend s constituents are making a very good thing. The price of a dairy cow now is anything from £60 to £70 or even £80. It is the town dairyman who is suffering, and I think that it is much more likely, owing to the present state of things, that the dairyman will be able to sell back the cows at the end of the period, because formerly when they sold them as now to the butcher and bought a renewed cow the difference between the price he got for the animal from the butcher and what he paid was not so great as to make the transaction unprofitable, but now if you have got to pay from £60 to £80 for a cow when it is alive, and you are only to get the reduced price of cow beef which was allowed by the Food Controller, the thing will correct itself, and the town dairyman will find it a great deal better to sell the cow back than to kill it. I am afraid that is a very small and technical point to make to-day, but it is an answer.
      One word further I would like to say about poultry. Pigs and poultry are two of the most economic of our domestic animals. Neither sheep nor cattle are in it with them, nor yet the cow unless it produces a very large, yield of milk. It is all a question there again of grain and feeding. You want every head of poultry and every pig in the country, provided you give up the old expensive way of lavishing upon them grain which is wanted for human beings. Of course this question of the food supply of the country is to my mind the gravest one

      353
      which we have to face. have felt it so now for a considerable time. I should like to say that throughout the country I have spoken to agriculturists on both sides of England and I had the greatest encouragement at all these agricultural meetings. We have asked the land-owners to make very heavy sacrifices, sacrifices of the capital value of their land, and we are asking farmers who have led easy-going comfortable lives on grass to take all the hard risks and liabilities and responsibilities and expense of increased arable farming. They have accepted those risks and accepted those losses of money universally in the most patriotic way, and I believe that throughout the length and breadth of the country farmers are working as they never worked in their lives before, and are bearing all this added burden without complaint.
      Mr. CAUTLEY: I desire to take this opportunity of telling the right hon. Gentleman, in reference to the position of the farmer, that, so far as the prices for milk are concerned, they are, in the opinion of milk producers in my county, extremely unsatisfactory. We also differ entirely from the views put forward by him as to the price for pigs. As to the ploughing up of grass land, we approve of the policy generally, but we think that that process is being carried to an extreme. I would like the House to understand under what conditions the farmer is now carrying on business. Both the Food Controller and the President of the Board of Agriculture have a very prolific printing press, and in the last year or so—I am speaking now up to last November — no fewer than 130 different Orders in Council have been issued regulating the conduct of the farmers' business down to the most minute particulars, and since November there have been further Orders: I cannot give the exact number, because they are so numerous. Speaking, if I may, for the benefit of those engaged in town industries, of whom mainly the House of Commons consists, I trust that those engaged in agriculture will pardon me for explaining, what is to-day common knowledge, that practically the whole of the products of the farmer—hay, straw, corn, horses, cattle, pigs, poultry, milk, butter, and cheese are all controlled, controlled as to the price at which we have to sell them, and, so far as live-stock are concerned, they are controlled as to how we are to feed them, while so far as the other articles which we have to sell are concerned, they
      354
      are controlled as to where and when we shall sell them. There is no industry in the country which is so impeded by these restrictions, no industry in which the people carrying it on are so harassed as the farming industry. It is simply throttled. The President, who is a friend of agriculture, knows that. If that is so, how can you get the best production out of the farms of this country? How can you get the food produced when you are harassing the farmers in every direction?
      Let us look for a few moments as to how it is working. Take corn. The prices of corn have been fixed by this House, after a great deal of opposition, and in my opinion those prices are fair, and have encouraged the production of corn. Look now at the Orders made by the Food Controller, and the result of these Orders, apart from the price fixed by the Act of Parliament. To-day we get 75s. a quarter for our wheat, and for our damaged wheat that is not fit for human consumption we can got 90s. Is that a reasonable thing? I want to buy my seed wheat to sow, and I have to pay, even when the Government sell it, 95s. I am a small farmer. I have oats, and I have horses to feed. When I thresh I have more oats than I have accommodation for in my granary, and I have to sell half the oats which I have threshed at 46s., the controlled price. In a few months, when I want to buy oats for my horses from a neighbouring farmer, I am not allowed to do so; I can go to a corn merchant, and I can buy oats from him, and I have to pay 60s. or 70s. a quarter for them. Those are the conditions under which the farmer has to carry on his industry. I want some seed oats. For the benefit of town people I may say that it is not advisable to sow the same seed that is grown on a farm every year, and I want to change my seed corn. I have to buy seed oats to sow on my farm, and under the Regulations which have been made I have to pay 60s., 70s., and up to 80s. a quarter, though I am compelled to sell my own for 46s. I was pleased to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that he desired to encourage poultry, but when I asked a question the other day he did not give the same answer. I asked him what were we to do with what was called tail corn. Tail corn is the damaged corn that comes from the threshing machine after the good corn is taken out by the machine. I got the answer that if it was fit for human consumption I must not use it either for pigs or poultry. but if it is not fit for human

      355
      consumption, then I can use it. Anticipating that answer, I asked in the same question, "Who is to decide the point whether it is fit for human consumption or is not?" and I got the reply that the Board of Agriculture is the person to decide.
      Mr. PROTHERO: I beg your pardon. Do you say you asked the question of me and not of the Food Controller?
      Mr. CAUTLEY: It was not a matter for the Food Controller.
      Mr. PROTHERO: I believe that you asked the question of the Food Controller.
      Mr. CAUTLEY: It was the President who answered it.
      Mr. PROTHERO: No, I did not.
      Mr. CAUTLEY:My recollection is that I asked the question of the President, but I accept the right hon. Gentleman's statement. I cannot charge my recollection. I thought that it was the President, but, whoever it was, that was the answer I got. The point of my observation was not that the President gave that foolish answer but that every farmer in the country— because everybody who grows corn has tail corn—is in the position that he is liable to be summoned and fined or imprisoned for an offence against the Order, or he has to send up a sample of his tail corn to the Board of Agriculture to get an answer back as to whether this corn is to be used for one purpose or the other.
      Mr.PROTHEROdissented.
      Mr. CAUTLEY:In the same question I asked whether it was the policy of the Board of Agriculture—I feel certain for this reason that it was the Board of Agriculture—that poultry keeping was to be encouraged or not? and I got a non-committal answer. It is not a year ago since everybody was encouraged to keep poultry. It was said, "fill up your backyards with poultry." A number of small people, agriculturists and otherwise, did so. They bought the apparatus, they bought a few pullets to start with and began poultry keeping. Then we are told "we have no corn, and you must not feed your poultry even on damaged corn." Look a little further at the conditions under which we are carrying on this industry. I will not repeat what has also been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire. I have already said it
      356
      myself, in a less forcible way perhaps, at the end of last year, as to the ruinous effects in regard to the production of beef. The Cattle Order reduced the price from 72s., in the summer months, to 67s. and 60s. And mark this, while that was going on, and it has been going on ever since — and this applies to the whole of the articles I am speaking about for the moment—while they were cutting down and fixing the sale prices of the articles produced by the farmer, the Food Controller did absolutely nothing to control either the price of the store stock the farmer had to buy or to control or limit the prices of the feeding stuffs and concentrated foods which the farmers had not got themselves, but which they had to obtain and use. I appeal to every business man in this House whether any manufacturer could carry on his business if, before he manufactured his product, whether cloth, cotton, or iron, he had to fix the sale price, and yet nothing was done to control the price of the articles or materials he employed in his manufacture!
      That is the position, however, in which the farmer has been placed, and is placed now. But very late in the day, after the Food Controller had recognised that a mistake had been made in the fixing of prices last year, he fixed other prices which the President of the Board of Agriculture, out of loyalty to his brother Minister, says give a fair profit, but which I tell him, speaking for the county which I represent, and which has not rich feeding land, and which is not specially adapted by nature to the raising of cattle, that these prices do not give a fair profit, and that they are not encouraging and stimulating production. But having fixed these prices, the Food Controller then does take some steps, though as usual too late, to limit the price of feeding-stuffs. I think that was only done about a month ago, or a short time before that, and he fixed the price of cotton cake and linseed cake, with the result, as has happened in nearly every article he has touched down to rabbits, that they disappeared almost directly from the market. I see one Gentleman, a Member for Liverpool, present, and I think he will bear me out that there was a large meeting held of the seed importers and cake importers in Liverpool, at which they were unanimous in their resolution that what I have described was the effect of the Food Controller's

      357
      prices. When the price of pigs was fixed by the Food Controller the fattening of pigs was rendered impossible, and the importation of seed was also rendered impossible. Sharps, middlings, and offals from wheat have absolutely disappeared; bran is very difficult to obtain, and barley meal, on which pigs feed, has equally disappeared. Foodstuffs having been rendered impossible, and grass land having been taken which was used for feeding cattle, we are then told by the President, out of loyalty, as I say, to his colleague, that the feeding prices as fixed are satisfactory, though our means of feeding are worse than they were last year, and the prices are practically no better. Let us now look at milk.
      The shortage of milk in this country has been due, and I say it without hesitation, to the Food Controller. He fixed prices a year ago, and I would like to call the attention—I am glad the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food is present—to words which the Food Controller is stated to have used. I did not hear them myself, but it is reported that the Controller in one of his speeches said, "I do not care a hang for the producer; I am going only to consider the consumer." I do not suggest. I do not want to say—I do not want to do anything unfair—that these are the exact words, except about the "hang"—I think that was correct—the Food Controller used. He fixed the prices a year ago, and they were totally inadequate and did not pay for the cost of the milk produced. All that time the prices of foodstuffs were steadily rising, wages were steadily rising, and every item of the cost of milk production was steadily rising. The price of beef was also steadily rising, because that was uncontrolled, and numbers of cattle out of the dairy herds were taken and killed and turned into beef because it paid the farmer better than it did to make milk. That was the first origin of the shortage of milk. This last winter reasonable prices were fixed—I think they are reasonable. When we come to this summer the prices are actually lower than they were last summer. The difficulties of production in every trade have increased this year from what they were last year, and I venture to say that not one person in this House will contradict me when I say that, yet the Food Controller and the President
      358
      of the Board of Agriculture—I am sure he cannot believe it—actually tell me that the summer prices are fair. We are now in milk production allowed 1s. 9d. per gallon during the winter months. Nobody in the farming industry will dispute that the month of April, if not the most expensive, at any rate is as expensive as any month in the year for milk production. In April there is no grass, in April the haystacks are depleted or have disappeared, and any article of food, either hay or roots, has to be bought by the farmer at prices which have enormously increased. The price for milk in April is 1s. 6d; in May and June it will be 1s. per gallon—it was 1s. 2d. last year; in July it is to be 1s 2d., and in August and September 1s. 3d., and they work out in those five months at less than they did last year. I ask anybody here—and we have all more or less some knowledge of this matter—whether this is likely to encourage production?
      There is only one other item I wish to deal with, and as it is one which contains a vital principle, I would like to say a few words about it. We heard what the President of the Board of Agriculture had to say about the production of pigs. He did not intentionally mean to mislead the House—perhaps he did not mislead it, but I think he did—when he referred to the question of pigs. The right hon. Gentleman said that 5 lbs. of meal are necessary to produce 1 lb. of pig. This is the misleading impression which he gave to the House—that each pound of pig meant 5 lbs. of meal to produce that pound of pig. But that is not what happens at all. What happens in the production of an animal is that it costs a good deal until after it is weaned. While it is delicate and in need of care the animal costs a good deal for a few weeks. After that it is fed on the refuse of the farmyard, on any turnips or roots that may be on the farm. It is only for the last six or seven weeks of the pig's life that it is fed on meal stuffs, just to finish it off, as it were, and to make the pork. But it is quite a mistake to suppose that of the whole weight of the pig, each pound has been made with 5 lbs of meal. If that were the fact a very different result would be shown in the animal. But the point of principle I want to call attention to is, that the pig is the best fat-producing animal you can have. It produces meat more quickly than any other animal in the farming

      359
      industry. It is a matter of common knowledge that the one essential thing to the health and feeding of the people is plenty of fats. We know that fats are consumed, and are more highly prized in Germany than anything else. Yet in this country by the fiat of the Food Controller, we are depriving ourselves of the best supply of fat that we could possibly have.
      I have already in this House objected very strongly to arbitrary powers being given to the Food Controller, or to any single individual. I object strongly, and still more strongly, to the excessive powers given to one Minister, and I urge, as a matter for the consideration of the House, whether it is advisable to leave a question of policy like this to be decided by the Food Controller's voice, and whether we should not have some better evidence, either of a scientific character, or by some practical committee, as to whether it is in the public interest that we should have driven pigs out of existence by the order of the Food Controller. There is no doubt of the truth of my statement that the pig is driven out. It is impossible, and I defy the President of the Board of Agriculture to deny it, to make a profit on the prices fixed. It is quite true that you can feed pigs on house scraps and finish them off with a little bit of meal or cereals at the end, but that does not provide the pork, fats or bacon that the people want to get, and I think it is a serious matter for consideration whether it is advisable that all these strong powers should be given to the Food Controller. Another observation I should like to make, and it is more directed towards the Food Controller, is this: I tell the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food that the Ministry adopt a wrong line with the farmer. I urge, as I have urged before, that the essential thing before considering prices is to get production. It is no use going into a restaurant, and ordering steak and onions as advertised for 1s., and then to be told there is none. You must have production. The attitude adopted by the Food Controller towards the farmer has not encouraged production. First of all, the prices are not sufficient; and, secondly, his attitude has not been sufficiently sympathetic, and it has not been encouraging. What is the good of the Food Controller fixing these descending prices and at the same time saying, "If you do not send
      360
      your stock to the market we will go and commandeer it"? The obvious result was that the prices fixed were so bad that they made the farmer sell, and he said, "I will not have any more." I do beg of the Food Controller to pay attention to this matter. The President of the Board of Agriculture adopts a totally different line and he is getting the farmers to work wholeheartedly with him. He appreciates the difficulties and approaches them with a different attitude. Both as a landlord and a tenant farmer, and as one who has farmed his own land. I have been amongst agriculturists, and if prices are such that a reasonable profit can be made you will have every farmer doing his best to assist you, but they are not going to do this, and will not do it, unless they see something for their trouble and for the work they put in. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to bear this more in mind and endeavour to get the farmers to work with him as the President of the Board of Agriculture has done.
      Mr. CLYNES: My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Agriculture has touched all the points I think it is necessary to touch upon with regard to the side of the question relating to food production, and whilst I may have to touch on one or two matters very slightly under that head I propose to limit my remarks mainly to the other questions of policy as criticised by most of the hon. Gentlemen who have already addressed the House. All the speakers have complained of the numerous Orders which are being issued from day to day from the office of the Ministry of Food. My right hon. Friend who submitted the Amendment discovered that the Orders arriving at his office on one particular day weighed nearly ½lb. All that only illustrates the complexity and vastness of the task in the hands of the Food Controller. Those Orders are not issued as part of the daily entertainment of the officials at the Ministry of Food and of its various heads. They are the necessary expression of the variety of work and of the multitude of problems which the Ministry has to deal with from day to day. It seems so simple, say, to fix the price of bacon, but you take a side of bacon and experts will show you that it consists of at least ten different cuts or qualities, and undergoes several different processes in its stages of treatment before it finally reaches the table to the consumer. Every one of those differing and varying processes and changes must

      361
      be provided for, if your policy of fixing prices and controlling supplies is to be made effective. It is because, that is the character of the work of the Ministry that those Orders are numerous. Supposing you drew up a simple leaflet and came down—I do not say it offensively—to the intelligence of hundreds of thousands of people who are parties to these food problems as well as we are, what would we find? We would be asked why it was that we had not provided for this contingency and that contingency, and how it was that in the issue of the Order every single feature of the problem had not been covered by the documents issued from the Ministry of Food. It is due to the large numbers of foods and the variety of character that the number and weight of those Orders accumulate. Let me further illustrate that side of the question. When we proposed to fix the price of fish there were seventy different kinds of fish which had to be investigated, with all the circumstances as to catching, landing, transport, treatment of the fish after landing, preserving, and other details; and those alone could have been covered by the number of Orders issued.
      The hon. Member who has just spoken complained that in some quotation which I used recently in public I expressed the policy of the Food Controller as being that of not caring what interest he hit or what damage he inflicted on the food producer if he could make his task a success for the consumer. That is a misquotation, and the statement has been misquoted in another place and in many different parts of the country. What the Food Controller did say, and what I have represented him saying, is this, that he did not care whose private interests suffered if he could make this task of the Food Ministry a success for the consumer. Hon. Members will readily see that this is a public service, and that the producers and the consumers must be taken in the mass as all being consumers, and that the food producer has no right to expect to be placed in a privileged position as compared with any other worker or the producer of any article in the country. My hon. Friend who spoke last, in extending his complaint, said that the poor farmer is controlled and conditioned in a way which is in no sense comparable to any other person or industry in the country. The very contrary is the fact. Instead of the farmer being at the head of the procession of controlled industries in this
      362
      country he comes at the very rear. Your building trades, the engineering trades, the general trades, the cotton trade, and all the principal industries which stand next in size and importance to that of agriculture were controlled from top to bottom from the beginning, and long before any kind of order or control reached the farmer at all. Why, a man could not have repairs effected to his house, or build a dwelling-house unless he got the necessary permission from the proper authorities. People were not permitted to secure petrol, or even the necessary conveyances in connection with any one of those other industries, unless by permission. It is for the reason that we are at war that you cannot leave even agriculture as an industry free to do what those in it might like to do. The farmer has not been prejudiced in this matter. In the engineering trade and the cotton trade and the building trade nothing whatever can be done except by order of the Government, and all the old freedom of business has been, absolutely taken away in those various industries.
      7.0 P.M.
      My right hon. Friend who moved the Amendment also quoted something as part of what I said with regard to eliminating the profiteer and the unnecessary middleman or dealer. What I have said repeatedly at Labour Conferences, where I had to face a large number of critical delegates who had insisted that we are not going far enough and that our policy has been too kind and too friendly towards the interests of the producers and the farmers as a whole, has been this, that we are most anxious as a Ministry to encourage the production of all articles of food, and to see that farmers and food producers are paid fairly and reasonably for their work and labour. I emphasised as well as I could at those conferences this fundamental fact, that you can fix prices so low as to repeal the very thing which you want to attract. I have been in some Labour quarters strongly condemned for taking the side of the capitalist and the farmer for offering this argument which, as I say, forms the very foundation of the policy upon which any Ministry of Food must base its work. But whilst we must encourage production and not fix prices so low as to be unfair or unprofitable so as to secure food, yet it is a necessary feature of our policy that men who need not be in the business and who cannot in war-time render useful service should be no longer retained. Therefore,

      363
      We have pursued the policy of leaving, as it were, in the stream which separates the producer and the consumer only those stepping-stones which were absolutely necessary for the crossing. I mean by that, that the sort of merchant or importer or dealer who can remain casually in an office and work through a telephone or telegraph, and by order of purchase or sale cause food to pass from hand to hand, not necessarily along the line of any direct passage, but along whatever line he can compel, for the purpose of increasing prices, it has been our business to deal with. That is what I have said in all quarters, and that is what I have said frequently in this House. The Government has had to take the place of the private trader and the merchant and importer. Control must be real. It is no use having a form of control that will leave everybody substantially where he was, free to get whatever profits his own private processes can exact, and when hon. Members talk about the rising discontent due to the fact that somebody dislikes the shape or form of a rationing card, and when they tell me about coming near to revolution because the public has to submit to certain inconveniences, I say that the talk about revolution, the signs and symptoms of serious discontent were revealed to us when that class of person, the man who merely bought to sell again, as I say, was seen to be making enormous profits, and thereby causing an immense increase in the retail price of the articles of food. It was the revelation of the enormous profits that were made that caused organised Labour to threaten the Government with serious consequences unless this policy of control in prices was undertaken by some food controller. I am aware well enough of what is the main cause, and what was the cause earlier on, of the discontent manifested in Labour quarters. That discontent arose, as I say, because of the revelations of those great profits, and because when the business of food supply was left entirely to the food wholesaler, importer, and retailer, without control, and when prices were determined by what is known as the law of supply and demand, a level of prices was reached which became absolutely intolerable, and which the public showed it would no longer silently stand. So that this business of food production has received only its
      364
      necessary meed of interference of control like any other business or trade during the term of this War.
      The Government has taken the place, as I say, of merchants and importers, and to some extent even of wholesalers and dealers. This Government is dealing with other Governments, and it is saving an enormous amount of money to the consumer, and preventing prices going up and up merely because a condition of scarcity exists. Take one or two simple illustrations. Very little was added to the cost of production for producing an egg or a chicken. The cost might be, at most, say, 20 or 25 per cent., but a penny egg jumped up to 4d., and a chicken, which you could get for 2s. 6d., could not be bought for less than half a guinea. The increased cost, therefore, of some of these articles cannot be traced to any serious extent to the cost of production. On the other hand, the Ministry of Food in fixing any price has always given first consideration to that important underlying point of the cost of production, and it has consulted people with all the available information acquainted with any article of food and the details of the business. The Food Controller has not settled his points by tossing a coin in the air; he has not settled these matters on any process of guessing what the price should be. Not merely weeks, but even months of time have often been taken up by the Food Controller in securing the best information on which to reach a conclusion before settling any one of these important matters. I know of no occasion on which the price of an article has been fixed, with regard to which other Boards like the Board of Agriculture had to be consulted, when we have not received the assent of the Board of Agriculture or of any other State Department to any price which has ultimately been fixed. Take, to illustrate what I mean, what was done in the case of meat. As a matter of fact, that principle of a scale of meat prices was fixed and agreed to before the present Food Controller assumed office. It was fixed after lengthy and frequent consultation with the various interests that were concerned; and I must ask again, if it be true that that price operated in a way to cause the farmers to rush their cattle on the market at a time when prices were high, whoever saw those great quantities of meat which would certainly have been the result of that line of action? We cannot recall any period during the term of office of the

      365
      present Food Controller when meat has been so plentiful as to cause the price to decrease. And if it were true that this course of action had been taken by the farmers, that action would certainly not be one in support of that proper claim they are making to be regarded as quite a patriotic section of the community. The prices, then, have not had the effect which has been alleged by those who have criticised the operation of that policy.
      Captain WRIGHT: May I ask the hon. Member if the fixing of the scale price of January was with the approval of the President of the Board of Agriculture?
      Mr. CLYNES: I said the Board of Agriculture. I do not want to commit my right hon. Friend personally, but I assume—
      Mr. LOUGH: Certainly he is responsible. He is the Board.
      Mr. CLYNES:Certainly my information is that the principle of the scale received the assent of the Board of Agriculture.
      Captain WRIGHT: May I ask whether the Food Controller did not himself state, some three months after fixing those prices, at the meeting of the representatives of the Royal Agricultural Society and Central Chamber, that the President of the Board of Agriculture had not agreed to those prices, and that he was absent when it was decided?
      Mr. CLYNES:Certainly I am not aware of that statement. If that statement be correct, it is in direct collision with the information I have recently received, and I no longer press the argument I was adducing.
      Mr. LOUGH: Ask the President.
      Mr. CLYNES:I say my information was to the effect I have already stated, and if the question which has been now put to the House is well founded, I repeat that I no longer press the argument, and my Noble Friend the Food Controller must accept responsibility for what was done in this instance. Towards the close of the speech of my right hon. Friend a great deal was made of the effect of our policy of fixing the price of an article like butter, and it was alleged by my right hon. Friend that Germany, for instance, was able to get butter from Holland and Denmark, whilst we could not, owing to some peculiar trick in our manner of fixing prices. My right hon. Friend is very much misinformed. The fact is with regard to maximum price, that that maximum price is the same to the retailer, and is an
      366
      average price based upon the average price of butter which we are able to import, so far as we can secure it, and so far as our ships can bring it from all parts of the world. It is untrue, then, to suggest that the import of butter from markets where the price is high is stopped because of our maximum price. As a fact, we are importing from France all the French butter that is available at what is the market price in France. The same applies to Holland and Denmark. I cannot for the moment give the market price. But whatever is the market price is the price at which we are securing as large quantities as we are permitted to buy by the Governments in those countries, and we are bringing as much of those articles as our shipping facilities will permit.
      Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Is it sold at a loss?
      Mr. CLYNES: There is no loss to the Exchequer. The loss may occur in that pooling of interests whereby, say, a consumer might get an article slightly inferior to another article which a consumer might obtain for exactly the same price. In that way, by this process of pooling the interests, and averaging the price, there is no loss to the Exchequer, and there is no check whatever on our power to purchase in any foreign market in the world. We are buying, as a fact, all the Dutch and the Danish butter that the Government of those countries will allow us to buy at exactly the same market price that is obtainable by any other competitor. The quantity of butter we can get through is limited by only two considerations—the amount of shipping available and the amount of butter, whether it is Colonial, whether it is Allied, or whether it is neutral, that we may be able to obtain by the consent of any Government or by the market conditions. Now a word or two about tea, the article that at great length my right hon. Friend dealt with in the, earlier part of his speech. He complained that the effect of our Orders in respect of tea had been enormously to reduce the supplies of tea, and to be a contributory cause of the food queues.
      Mr. LOUGH: I said that for six or nine months nothing would induce the Government to bring in tea, and I contrasted it with sugar.
      Mr. CLYNES: The answer to my right hon. Friend is this: So far as there was any reduction in the importations of tea,

      367
      that reduction applied only to the months of July, August and September, and was due to quite special and outstanding shipping difficulties which prevailed at that time. And, as a fact, the Orders had not had the effect alleged, as was shown by this fact, that the first Order issued was in October, 1917, and if you compare three months about that period with any preceding three months, it will be found that the increase in the importation was actually over 51 per cent. Other conditions have contributed to the reduction in our tea importation, but it has not been due to the Order to which my right hon. Friend referred. He further criticised the proposal which has been before the Ministry of Food for a considerable time past to simplify, if I may so claim it, the whole situation with regard to tea. We have found that tea varying in quality, differing in many other respects, has been offered at different prices to different classes of consumers, but whilst the price of the most inferior tea was fixed at 2s. 4d., many a poor woman went into a shop and found she could only get tea at 3s. 8d. or 4s. The Ministry has been engaged in devising a method for offering tea to the public at one price only. We are, therefore, about to offer a price for tea, an average retail price of 2s. 8d. per lb. Of course, a reasonable time will be allowed to retailers to get existing stocks off their hands. This price of 2s. 8d. will not show any profit to the Government, but it will show a substantial reduction on the retail price of the last seven months. It will accomplish what some experts among the traders in the tea trade have alleged was quite incapable of attainment and an impracticable thing. By the processes of blending we are assured that it is not only possible, but quite a reasonable thing, to standardise and so arrange the tea as to give confidence to the purchaser and to bring down the average price. I do not know whether or not every sort will be put together, but I do not think even if that were done the consequences would be as dreadful as my right hon. Friend has pictured when he compared the blending of tea with the process of blending some six or seven different Kinds of champagne or wine.
      The Food Ministry is constantly faced with the difficulty of overcoming deeprooted prejudices and personal and trading interests. Whilst I said long before this
      368
      job of food control was undertaken that the big profiteer was doing great harm to the national interests, I have now to admit that in the place of that big profiteer a large number of lesser profiteers have appeared, increasing the difficulties for all consumers and making a great deal of trouble for those of us who, have to conduct this business of regulating food prices and arranging distribution. We see the small shopkeeper, in some instances, has not been above a manœuvring which would enable him to sell a rabbit, not as a whole article, but in parts, in order that he might exact a higher price for the whole weight or quantity. We have seen that, whereas beforetime he never thought of charging anything for the skin of the rabbit, he now demands 3d. or 4d. for it. That is only one instance of quite a large collection of instances that could be adduced to show how difficult it is to exact obedience from the masses of traders as well as from the consumer.
      I am afraid that many of my Labour Friends, who, in this House and in the country, have sought to solve this difficult problem by the simple process of rationing everybody for everything on every day and at every meal, will find when they get some of this rationing process applied to them that they will not much like it. We have been trained in this country to exercise a very considerable measure of individual freedom. We do not want to be interfered with very much. But public opinion has created this Ministry. Parliament has accepted the general policy of controlling prices. Prices, I assert, in the process of control, have not kept out important food that we otherwise could have got. If my right hon. Friend went on his knees and told me that if we left this job to private traders, importers, and merchants, they could get more food into this country than the British Government can get I would not believe him. I would, of course, believe that he believed what he said. I am certain, however, that the power of the Government, aided by its Navy, can accomplish for our people at least as much as any body of private merchants. Our great task, next to that of prices, and the securing of supplies to as great extent as possible, is that of satisfying the public that we are fairly and equitably sharing out what we have got. That is the branch of the question that we have now reached. In connection with that branch the processes of rationing are being developed. I am glad to inform the

      369
      House that nearly the whole of the local food control committees and municipal bodies are responding admirably to the suggestions made to them to begin the process of rationing in regard to foods that are short under the scheme that was issued as a model scheme in December last from the Ministry of Food. We ask for the continued support of the House, which, I must acknowledge, I have received in abundance. Work of this kind could not have been carried on without the sympathy and support which each Member of the House has extended to the Ministry of Food.
      We have reached a point where really the patriotism and endurance of the civic population is to be tested. We shall have to go short in respect of some articles of food. The citizen will have to submit to what he asked us to impose upon him. The average man said to the Government, "Let the Government tell us what to do and we will do it; let the Government see that we are rationed and treated equally so far as there may be a shortage of certain articles." To secure equity and to give confidence that process of rationing is being developed. All I can say is that I hope, with the services and the loyal cooperation of the various local food control committees, we shall succeed in convincing even the very poorest people that they are going to have an equal chance with their richer brethren; that men. women and children, and not money, shall be the consideration which determines the apportionment of the foods which are available.
      Colonel YATE: We all sympathise with the hon. Gentleman to whose speech we have just listened. We thoroughly realise that he is sharing out what he has got, as he says. After the very interesting and most conclusive speeches to which we have listened to-day I think the House cannot help coining to the conclusion that there ought to be some change in the present system of dual control of home-grown food. I hope that the right hon. Gentlemen the President of the Board of Agriculture has not said the last word on that subject, when he said that the drawback to that suggestion was that he only had powers over England and could not do anything for Ireland and Scotland. I can only speak for my own agricultural Constituents. The President will remember that he and I were present at a great meeting of agriculturists at Leicester the other day. The chairman of that meeting was the Lord Lieutenant of the county. He
      370
      pointed out to that great conference of agriculturists how urgent was the question of the abolition of the present system of dula control. It was pointed out, too, that though the two interests of the producer and the consumer were antagonistic to a certain extent, in the long run they were allied, and it was suggested that the whole of the Orders relating to agriculture should be left entirely in the hands of the Board of Agriculture. That suggestion was received with enthusiasm. I ask, and I hope, that the Government will consider this question, not in connection with the distribution or the rationing of foods or of imports, but simply in connection with home-grown products. I suggest that the present system of dual control of home-grown products should be changed, and that the whole thing should be brought under one authority. I hope the Government will consider this, and see whether that cannot be done over the whole of the United Kingdom.
      Sir HENRY CRAIK: I have listened with that interest with which we always listen to the statements of the Secretary to the Food Controller. The hon. Gentleman always speaks in a reasonable, a thoughtful, and a conciliatory manner. At the same time, I am bound to say that he did not carry conviction to me. The hon. Gentleman in the beginning of his speech dealt very fully with a question— which was not really the essential question— about the complaints of the large numbers of Orders issued. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Islington (Mr. Lough) no doubt made a very serious point of that; but, after all, that is only the fringe of the question. It is not the number of Orders that we are speaking of. It is the question as to whether they are right or wrong, and whether these Orders are doing the good that they ought to do. I have listened to the arguments brought forward to-day, as I listened to the statement put forward to Members of this House the other day by the Food Controller. I am not persuaded that Lord Rhondda is on the right lines, or that he is doing what is really good for the country. One reason that I have for this is what we know to be the case: that there is no unity of action between different Departments of the Government. It is no use hiding the fact. There are two dissonant voices in a matter of such vital importance as this, when it is highly important that there should be one voice. It is all very well for the hon. Gentleman

      371
      to say, as he did say, that they are not subserving any private interests. There is not a single Member of this House who wishes either that private interests or the interests of any small class should stand against the large general interests. It is not in that respect that we complain about the Food Controller. It is because we think his actions have been ill-considered, haphazard, and empirical; not that they are injurious to the interests of any class in particular, but to the interests of the country as a whole. We suggest that he is running us into very serious danger, which may lead to very serious disaster.
      A comparison was made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Food Ministry which did not, I think, carry conviction. He compared ordinary industries with farming. I look upon this simply as a question of political economy, and I fail to see the relevance of the comparison, The hon. Gentleman said that every trade had to be regulated as well as agriculture. The Regulations in the building trade refer to the amount of labour which may be employed and the amount of money that may be spent upon building at the present time. There is no Regulation fixing the profits of the builder to any particular amount. If that were so there might be more reality in the comparison. Besides, it is necessary that if we are to see the reason of rationing that we should consider the great masses of traders, and the fact that any industry, be it the building trade or agriculture, is and must be moved by the ordinary business instincts of the country. No man can be expected to carry on any business or pursuit if the result of his labours is a loss and not a profit. The hon. Member, with all his reasoning, never showed us anything to disprove that agriculture has been called upon, in some cases, to work at a loss. To ask any commercial industry to work at a loss is simply to ask it to come to an end, and it is hopeless under those circumstances to expect that it will continue. What we ask is that the Food Controller should bring us some assurance that his action would be guided not simply by the plausible pretext of lowering prices, but that he will keep in view the necessity of increasing the productive resources of the country. You can only do that through the industries concerned. If the Food Controller or his representative here thinks that he may
      372
      disregard the necessity of increasing production, then his action may lead to very serious disaster. We have to limit the quantity consumed and not the prices paid. This is not the time to take artificial means for cutting prices. This country has plenty of resources, but it is far more important that you should increase production and limit consumption. These two things are matters upon which the absolute salvation of this country may depend. You must increase your production and restrict your consumption. Some of the methods pursued by the Government at the instigation of the Food Controller, in order to produce a cheap loaf at an enormous cost, have given rise to serious doubts as to whether calm and considered wisdom have been regulating our action in this matter. I confess myself as an impartial observer, and as one anxious to give loyal and undeviating support to the Government I cannot hide from myself the fact that uneasiness is caused by the present action of the Food Controller, and this is deepened by the fact that there appears to be a wide divergence of opinion on some of these questions between the Ministry of Food and the Board of Agriculture.
      Mr. HUGH LAW: I cannot agree with what has been said by the hon. Member opposite that it is undesirable to regulate prices. I am not here to put forward any such plea, as the hon. Gentleman who spoke for the Ministry of Food seems to think, that farmers desire that they should be free from Regulations. I do not think that farmers make any claim of immunity from burdens which are placed upon other classes of the community. What the farmer has a right to claim is that the Orders which are issued shall be clear and unambiguous and that pledges which are given shall be kept, otherwise you may get a very serious state of affairs indeed. I will take one illustration of this general proposition The hon. Gentleman will remember the guarantee which was given this time last year with regard to the production of potatoes. A statement was made by the Prime Minister which contained a promise guaranteeing a certain payment to the farmers for the potato crop, and it was made without any sort of condition whatsoever. Two other pledges were made by Ministers relating to the same matter which contained a condition as to the quantity in which the potatoes were to be placed upon the market.

      373
      What happened? Not only large but small farmers, I expect in this country and certainly in the West of Scotland and the West of Ireland, did in fact increase their production of potatoes very largely, relying upon that pledge. I can only suppose that the Treasury got frightened and said they were going to have too much to pay because, first of all, they disregarded the Prime Minister's pledge altogether and they said, "It is only the Prime Minister, and he does not count." Then they seized upon a condition contained in the other version of the guarantee that the potatoes were to be placed on the market in 4-ton lots, and they then said, "We will not pay in respect of lots of 6 or 4 tons." Then they said that the small men could have them in 4-ton lots, and in Ireland, and I expect elsewhere, co-operative societies made arrangements to hold them, and put them on the market in the quantities required. Then the Food Controller said, "I not only must insist upon those conditions, but, I make a new condition that they shall not only be placed on the market in 4-ton lots, but they must have been produced by each separate grower in those quantities." That has struck a very serious blow at the production of potatoes in many parts of the country.
      The policy pursued has been unjust to the individuals and most impolitic. It is highly desirable that small growers should place their produce on the market in small quantities, and the co-operative societies were a ready means of encouraging what is a very desirable development. Moreover, the country wants all the potatoes it can get and nothing can be more unwise as well as unjust that, after men have engaged upon work relying upon the pledge of a responsible Minister, they should find in the end that that pledge is broken. I do not know what is going to be done this year— I will say no more about the past— but I do beg in the interests not only of the men themselves, but in the interests of the country, that whatever is done this year should be put forward in a clear statement. I am not complaining about prices, but I beg that whatever statements are made shall be so clear that, to begin with, the Department concerned shall know what they mean, and that has not always been the case; and, secondly, that whatever pledges are given shall be kept in the spirit as well as in the letter, and that you will not allow anybody from the Treasury to go behind the pledged word of the Govern-
      374
      ment and thus defraud men of that to which they are clearly entitled in the plain meaning of your own words.
      Mr. LOUGH: After the very ample and satisfactory reply which has been given on behalf of the Government, I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

      POPE'S PEACE NOTE.
      Mr. McKEAN: I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add the words:
      "But respectfully represent to Your Majesty that the dual action of Your Government in, firstly, having sent to the Peace Note of His Holiness Pope Benedict XV., dated the 1st August, 1917, no reasoned reply such as its importance and ordinary courtesy demanded; and, in the second place, by the cognate policy of Your Majesty's Government in adopting and endorsing without exception or reservation the terms of the secret treaty with Italy, signed by Your Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on the 26th April, 1915, including Clause 15 thereof,. which imposes unjust and impolitic restrictions on the potential activities of the Holy See in regard to any steps it might take with a view to ending the present calamitous War or arranging the consequent terms of peace, is calculated to seriously impair the military and naval efforts of Your Majesty's Forces by spreading demoralisation among Catholic soldiers at the war front and Catholic seamen and officers in the Navy, and to weaken the morale of their friends and co-religionists at home, and calculated at the same time to prolong indefinitely the suicidal struggle that is causing the loss of so many precious lives and devastating so many otherwise productive lands by precluding the intervention of the greatest influence on earth for the purpose of effecting a just and enduring peace, and by excluding from the deliberations of the peace conference the representatives of the Holy See, to render the terms of settlement that will there be arrived at less safe as a guarantee for future peace of the world and devoid of the high and solemn sanction they would have derived from the approval of him who is the traditional peacemaker on earth."
      I have no doubt that it will seem very ungracious on my part to begin my re-

      375
      marks by an emphatic but a respectful protest against the arrangements made in accordance with which my Amendment is taken at this hour of the evening. I do not know exactly to whom to direct my protest, nor am I particularly concerned to inquire, but it is directed to whoever is responsible for the arrangement of business in this House. Any person of much meaner intelligence than you are possessed of, Mr. Speaker, or the other parties who are responsible for this arrangement, must know that by the very nature of my Amendment and on its merits it ought certainly to get, if not the premier, certainly a most prominent place in the order in which these Amendments were taken. If any proof is wanted of the claim I make in this matter I can furnish it. The issues with which my Amendment deal have been made the subject of public pronouncements within the last week by their Eminences Cardinal Logue in Ireland and Cardinal Bourne in London, and the position which I take up with regard to these issues is almost identical with the position taken up in those pronouncements.
      What is the essence and gravamen of my charge? The acts I take exception to, the acts to which their Eminences and other members of the Hierarchy in England and Ireland take exception to, are the acts of the Government. They are not acts of irresponsible people, but they are the acts of responsible Ministers. This country is ruled under Parliamentary forms. Every Member of this Parliament, unless he puts on record his dissent from the acts of the Government, is indirectly and constructively responsible for those acts. I happen for the time being to be a Member of this Assembly, and if I did not rise here to-night to express my disagreement with the acts of the present Government, and the acts of its predecessor, I should be constructively responsible for them. If I stood absolutely alone among the Catholics in this House, or amongst the Catholics of England, Scotland, and Ireland, I should still decline to sit in this House or to be a Member of it and to be responsible in any degree or to any extent for the conduct against which I rise to protest— conduct on the part of His Majesty's Government. My Amendment deals with two subjects; but, before addressing myself to them, may I make one or two preliminary remarks? Had there been a larger number of Members present, I might have
      376
      been told this is an inopportune moment for raising such a question. I might have been reminded that we are in the midst of a great war, and it is not right to distract the attention of the House or of the country by raising these irrelevant issues. But I submit that the issues I seek to raise are not irrelevant. On the contrary, they have an intimate and most important bearing on the conduct of this War.
      I go further, and say that it may be possible in the considerations I shall place before this House and before the country there may be found a solution to a problem which it has hitherto been impossible to solve. That problem is the successful conclusion of the War— the bringing of the War to a successful issue. The solution of it has not been found in Debates either in this House or outside. No one speaker has really gone to the root of the problem, and perhaps even a humble individual like myself may be able to indicate some new line, which, if followed, might lead to a more successful issue. This is, I know, an unpopular subject. I have always noticed that any subject which has the least reference to religion is very unpopular. I do not share that view, and I think it speaks badly for the British Parliament that it entertains such objections to discussing that class of subject. Religion is so important a matter that any aspect of it must always be interesting to the better and higher class of men. May I, before submitting any comments of my own, read the opinions of some personages whose thoughts are more important and more valuable than mine could be. I would read what the Catholic Bishop of Northampton, a very intellectual man, has said on this subject, and these words will show that if I stand alone here there are outside people who think as I do, and think very strongly. Such people are to be found all over the world, although they may not have given expression to their thoughts so far. Bishop Keating, speaking to the Catholic Society of the University of Liverpool, towards the end of last month, said:
      "Was it wise to damp the enthusiasm and heroism of Catholic regiments and seamen? Was it wise to play into the hands of Sinn Fein Irishmen, of pacifists in England and of Bolshevists everywhere? Catholics had a right to express in the strongest possible way their feelings to the No Popery campaign carried on so recklessly and so long. Did not those people recognise that the Pope was a sacred person, the Vicar of Jesus Christ?"

      377
      I want to release the Noble Lord (Lord Robert Cecil) as soon as possible. I am very grateful to him for being here. I have certainly no fault to find with him. On the contrary, I feel a great debt of gratitude to him. I do not blame the Noble Lord or his chief at the Foreign Office in regard to the matter which constitutes the subject of my Amendment. The only fault I have to find with them is their lack of initiative and of independence. Their own intelligence must have shown them that a great blunder in diplomacy had been made, but they had not the independence and courage to admit that the position was untenable and indefensible, and to advise the Government to retire from it. I am confident that the Noble Lord, a man of singular intelligence and of great skill in all the matters with which he has to deal, a man who is bound to rise a great deal higher in his career, must recognise that a mistake of the very first order has been made— a mistake that really constituted a grievous surprise for the Catholics of the whole world. If he wants to be considered a man of great moral courage he must have the courage of what I cannot help thinking are his convictions, and he must admit that the matters with which I am immediately concerned, dealt with in a secret treaty, constitute a blunder of the first magnitude.
      8.0 P.M.
      The first count in the indictment I prefer against the Foreign Office in particular and the Government in general is that they vouchsafed no reply of any sort which the circumstances demanded to the last Peace Note to the Pope. Let us examine that position for a moment. If any Member of this House doubts that a slight has been offered to the Head of the Catholic Church all over the world, let him make the case his own. Suppose that he had written a latter to, say, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and had merely received in reply a formal acknowledgment, not dealing at all with the merits of the matter. Would he not feel snubbed? If he would, as I feel sure he would, is there no insult to the Head of the Catholic Church in giving no detailed reply, but merely a formal acknowledgment to his communication? I understand the Noble Lord has put on record somewhere— I do not know where— that the British Government excused itself from replying to the Pope's Peace Note on the ground that it had adopted the reply of the President of the United States. Is not that a very extraordinary position for
      378
      the Government of a great Empire to take up? Might we not go further, and leave-it to the President of the United States to answer all our correspondence? It is-a most absurd and most impossible position for the representatives of a responsible Government to assume. If anybody wants proof that the attitude I take up-in this matter is the right one, I can give-it. If it was right for the British Government to reply vicariously to the Pope's Peace Note, why did not President Wilson take up a like position? The Pope sent his Peace Note, not to the United States, but to the King of England, and asked His Majesty to send it to the President of the United States, to the President of the French Republic, to the King of Italy, and to other people. The President of the United States might very well have said, "This Peace Note has not been addressed to me, but to the British Government, and I will let the British Government reply, and if I approve of the terms of their reply I will adopt it." But since the President of the United States thought it incumbent upon him to send a detailed reply, surely the British Government was equally under an obligation to reply. If it was right for the British Government to have its correspondence with His Holiness, the Pope, conducted vicariously, why did not the King of the Belgians take up the same attitude. His Majesty did not say, ''I adopt the reply of the United States," but he replied himself to the Pope's Peace Note. Every representative of the Catholic Church who has dealt with this subject has dealt with this. "No Reply" in the sense in which I am dealing with it to-night and in the sense in which I have dealt with it from the beginning. I submit that this action of the British Government and of the Foreign Office in not replying to the Pope's Peace Note was a characteristic act of the British Government. I will tell the House what I think to be the characteristic of the British Government. I have been in this House now for nearly sixteen years, and, although I have said very little from these benches, perhaps I have thought a great deal, and seen a great deal. I will tell the House what the characteristic of British Governments, as I have seen them in this House, is. It is weakness, cowardice, lack of individuality, lack of the power of thinking for themselves— a certain official slavishness; that is really what explains the situation. One set of Ministers succeeds another. They

      379
      assume that those who went before them were divinely inspired people, which is a very erroneous impression indeed. At all events, in this spirit of official loyalty they will never correct a mistake of their predecessors. Let us have some initiative, let us have some independence, let us have some strength at last on the part of the Government. I think I can explain, too, why they did not reply. It was through terror of the Press. We know how subservient this Government is to the Press; it is dominated by the Press; its actions and its policy are dictated by the Press; and I say this much— a very good thing indeed. I hear a lot of people in this House making uncomplimentary remarks about Lord Northcliffe and the Northcliffe Press, and I am not afraid to say that I think England can never repay Lord Northcliffe and the Northcliffe Press sufficiently for its services during this War. I have known nothing more wonderful than the prescience and the courage of the Northcliffe Press, and all I can say is that I hope Lord Northcliffe will come down some day to this House with his big sweeping brush and clear the whole place out. That is what we want in this House. The whole Government machinery worships the machine. I think that the members of the Government must have some picture of the Government machine, and that they say their prayers before it every night.
      As I say, the characteristic of British Governments is utter lack of initiative, utter want of moral courage. It was the outcry in the Press, I dare say, that accounts for no reply having been sent. The Press, with one howl of execration, received the Pope's Peace Note as a German-inspired document. If you crystallise their attitude towards it, that was their attitude— that it was a German-inspired document. I will examine very briefly the Pope's Peace Note; and, mark you, it well deserves and will well repay examination. I say that a nobler or a more statesmanlike document has hardly ever appeared in the English language than that Peace Note. I will examine it very briefly, and we will see whether it was German-inspired or not. I quote practically from memory the substance of the Pope's Peace Note, and what were its terms. They were these. First that right should be substituted for might in the relations between States, and in the settlement of their disputes. Secondly, that arbitration — a corollary of the first— should take the
      380
      place of a recourse to arms. Thirdly, that there should be complete freedom of the seas. I take it that the claim for complete freedom of the seas was the ground for calling it a German-inspired document; but let any man here turn to the message of President Wilson to Congress early in the month of January and he will find the very same thing— the freedom of the seas. Where, then, does the excuse of it being a German-inspired document, come in? Let us examine some other of the terms of this Peace Note. Another of its fundamental principles was this: that there should be mutual condonation for damages brought about by the War, that there should be mutual restoration of territories conquered or occupied during the War, and that territorial questions such as those as existed between France and Germany, on the one hand, and Italy and Austria, on the other, should be settled in a conciliatory spirit. Mark you also, that these questions should be settled by reference to the peoples of the nations, and to the questions of equity and justice. I ask any fair-minded man here, and I ask the fair-minded section of the public outside— because I should not be speaking here to-night only that I know that although I have a small audience here, please God I have a large audience outside— to appreciate these facts. I have paid a compliment to one section of the Press of this country, but I hurl back at the Press the accusation, the utterly false accusation, that this was a German-inspired document. It was nothing of the sort.
      There is just one thing more that I forgot to say about no reply having been sent to this Peace Note. It is a very remarkable thing that a Socialist deputy, an ex-Minister in France, thought that there should be replies sent. M. Albert Thomas, the ex-Minister of Munitions, put it on record in "L'Information," the French journal, that he was surprised that the British Government sent no reply to the Pope's Peace Note. I have referred to the Press, and I have to say one or two things more about the Press. I know nothing more discreditable than the attitude that the British Press has taken up with regard to the Pope and his acts during this War. But, of course, there is no item in my Amendment dealing with the Press, and, therefore, I do not propose— and, besides, the acts of the Press are not actually the acts of the Government, although we know, as I said before, that this Government is absolutely under the

      381
      thumb of the Press and that there never was a Government that was so thoroughly under the thumb of the Press as the existing Government— to deal at length with that subject. Nevertheless, their whole position with regard to the Pope and his acts during this War is a position that they cannot maintain or defend. It is not merely in the newspaper Press that the Pope has been attacked; and, mark you! we cannot separate the two counts in my indictment from this universal campaign of calumny that has been carried on. It has reacted on the Government, of course, as I have already shown. There was a pamphlet published among the publications issued from the Press by a non-Catholic, and here is the position the non-Catholic took up. He said:
      "From the great palace on the Tiber the Vatican has power to issue an Encyclical that would make the lords of war tremble with fear."
      He said:
      "If the Pope spoke out, it is quite conceivable that the War might be appreciably shortened with a corresponding saving of scores of thousands of lives."
      He goes further, and says:
      "The voice of the Pope could be a trumpet-call of hope and inspiration to the hearts of millions, but alas, that voice, so eagerly listened for. has not been heard. The Pope has kept a sphinx-like silence, a strange silence in the presence of the convulsion of the nations, and the vast moral issues concerned."
      Let us see if the Pope has been silent. The Pope was elected on the 3rd September, 1914, and on the 8th September he issued an exhortation to all the Governments of the world. I should like to read that, because it would well repay me, at least I should like to read parts of it, and indeed the same remark applies to every single pronouncement the Pope has made on the War. If hon. Members have some time to spare I would advise them to get a book in which they will find copies of all the Pope's utterances, and I say that no man in our generation has ever given utterance to such noble expression. How do the Pope's pronouncements differ from all other pronouncements? We have had many wonderfully able pronouncements on this War. President Wilson's messages have been most statesmanlike productions, but there is one thing they lack which you find in the Pope's Peace Notes. What is that one thing? In President Wilson's messages— in the one that was published two days ago— you find greatness of the head, but in the Pope's Peace Note you find not merely greatness
      382
      of the head, but greatness of the heart. The heart of the man speaks out in words of statesmanship in the Pope's Peace Notes. In the same year he issued the usual encyclical which the Pope sends out after his election. I will read one or two sentences from it. I am sure that it will pay hon. Members to listen to them. He says:
      "The dread image of war overshadows the world and absorbs nearly every thought. The strongest and Wealthiest nations are in conflict. … There is no end to the ruin, no end to the deaths; each day sees the earth flowing with fresh blood and covered with dead and wounded. Who would think that the nations, thus armed against each other, belong to the same human family? Who could realise that they are brethren, children of the same Father in Heaven?"
      Further down he says:
      "Therefore, we earnestly beseech princes and rulers that, moved by the sight of so many tears and so much blood, they delay not to bring back to their peoples the life-giving blessings of peace. We beg all those who hold in their hands the destinies of nations to give heed to that voice. If their rights have been violated, they can surely find other means and ways of obtaining redress."
      At Christmas the same year, replying to an address of the Cardinals, he dealt with the subject again. At the Consistory, on 22nd January, 1915, he strikes the same note. Then, on 28th July, 1915, after a year of war, he sent out one more appeal "to the peoples now at war and to their rulers." I will read one or two sentences.
      He says:
      "Thinking with unspeakable regret of our young sons who were being mown down by death in thousands, we opened our heart, enlarged by the charity of Christ, to all the crushing sorrow of the mothers, and of the wives made widows before their time, and to all the inconsolable lamentations of the little ones too early bereft of a father's care."
      Then he goes on to adjure the rulers of the nations in these terms. [Interruption.] If you want to talk, you can go outside and talk. You ought to have some manners.
      "In the Holy Name of God, in the Name of our Heavenly Father, by the Sacred Blood of Jesus, the price of man's redemption we conjure you, whom Divine Providence has placed over the belligerent nations, to put an end at last to this horrible slaughter, which for a whole year has dishonoured Europe. It is the blood of brothers that is being poured out on land and sea. The most beautiful regions of Europe, this garden of the world, are sown with corpses, and, with ruin everywhere, havoc and death.…You who bear before God and man the awful responsibility of peace and war, give ear to our prayer, to the fatherly voice of the Vicar of the Eternal and Supreme Judge to whom you must render an account of your public undertakings as well as of your individual actions."

      383
      Again, on 5th December, 1915, he spoke of the subject in different terms, but striking always the same human note— the note of the father whose heart is bleeding for the lives of his children. Again, reciprocating the Christmas greetings of the sacred colleges, he once more returns to the subject. On 25th May, 1915, he ordered three days' strict fast to be observed by Catholics. That brings me to what he has done. I will sum up what he has done. This writer, the non-Catholic, says:
      "In the catastrophe that has burst upon the world, what has the mighty Church of Rome done? What is she doing?"
      Since he throws down the challenge, I will take it up. We will see what the Pope has done, and we shall be able to compare what he has done with what any other Power in the world has done. What has the King of Spain done? What has the King of Sweden done? Practically nothing. Now we will see what the Pope has done. He arranged for the interchange of prisoners rendered unfit for further military service. That was the first thing he did. At the opening of the Reichstag Bethmann-Hollweg expressed the thanks of the German Government. He said:
      "I wish to add a special word of gratitude to his Holiness the Pope, who conceived the idea of the exchange of prisoners, and who has given evidence of his unceasing interest by many charitable acts."
      That was the first thing he did. The next thing was this: He had an arrangement effected in favour of wounded and sick prisoners of war not wholly unfit for military service, with a view to rendering their condition less grave and to facilitating their recovery. He was thanked by the British Government. It was a wonder they did it. It was an act of grace such as they do not often perform:
      "The English Government hastened to convey to the Holy See its thanks for the efforts thus crowned with success."
      On 4th May, 1916, Sir Henry Howard, instructed by Sir Edward Grey, conveyed to Cardinal Gasparri the following Note:
      "The German Government having made known that it accepts the proposal for the reciprocal removal to Switzerland of invalided prisoners of war, English and German, His Britannic Majesty's Government hastens to express to the Holy See its warmest gratitude for having made this proposal. It was inspired by those great humanitarian sentiments of which His Holiness has given such frequent proofs during the course of the War. and His Majesty's Government is convinced that the action so
      384
      happily initiated by the Holy Father will be fruitful of benefits to many British prisoners of war."
      There are hundreds of thousands of military prisoners in the hands of the enemy. These, too, are kept in view. by the Common Father. He has issued instructions to his bishops and to his priests to give them every attention and not merely spiritual comfort and help, but temporal help. Where there was no one to help them and no one to give them pecuniary aid it was given to them without any distinction of creed from the limited funds of the Holy See. Another thing that the Pope did was this: He established a bureau of information for tracing missing prisoners. Up to August, 1915, they traced no less than 40,000 missing. The expense of that was very great. The Vatican bore it all. I cannot tell you all the financial aid that the Vatican has given to Belgium, to Poland, to East Prussia, and to Lithuania. It was 25,000 francs, and more in many cases. That, mark you, out of the limited funds of the Vatican. The revenues of the Vatican have been seriously depleted by the course of this War. In addition, at one stage of the War, massacres were proceeding in Armenia. They were stopped owing to the intervention of the Pope. The schismatic Patriarch, confessing his own inability to do anything, warmly thanked the Holy See for its intervention and for the relief sent to the survivors. I could put before you other acts of the Pope-Here is a message from Count Hertling, the Bavarian Premier, who says:
      "In reply to yours of the 26th ultimo (February), I have the honour to acquaint your Excellency that the efforts of the Holy See for a satisfactory solution of the question affecting the Belgian working-men have not been without success. According to reliable information from Berlin, the competent authorities are disposed to abstain from forcible deportations of working-men from Belgium to Germany, and to allow the return to their own country of all those who, owing to possible mistakes, were unjustly deported."
      I do not know whether any hon. Member has noticed this or not, but I have. At the beginning of this War we saw frequent reports in regard to the cruel treatment of prisoners in Germany. Did we hear anything about this cruelty within the last year and a half? To whom is that fact due? To the Pope. Yet we are asked what has the Pope done? What I ask is, what is it the Pope has not done? What other neutral Sovereign in the world has the same record of noble service to his credit in this War as the Pope has?

      385
      The Pope's power is limited; he cannot do everything You have prevented the Pope from doing very much. This brings me to the secret treaty with Italy. If any man blames the Pope for failing in any way, I ask him to remember the limited opportunities of the Pope. There was a time in the history of the world when the Pope was all-powerful. There was a time in the history of the world when the whole world recognised the Pope's sway and when the whole world was obedient to the Pope. Those were the days when the evils of war were reduced to a minimum and when wars were avoided. Now we come to see how the British Government circumscribes the power of the Pope and gyves and manacles him at the instance of Italy. To speak in parenthesis a moment, the Prime Minister appeared at a banquet some time ago at Gray's Inn, when he had a sneer at the Pope's expense. He asked whether we were to grasp the hand of the malefactor, and he wont on to say:
      "The Kaiser has told us so, Austria has told us so, and the Pope has told us so."
      and there was laughter. He laughs best who laughs last. We shall see whether the Prime Minister will laugh in the months to come. The Prime Minister is quite ready to grasp the noble hand of Italy— Italy that is so unselfish, so disinterested; Italy that has been so loyal to treaties, so faithful to her friends. The Prime Minister did not make any joke at the expense of Italy. He was quite ready to grasp her noble hand. Now we come to the treaty. I put several questions to the Noble Lord with regard to this matter. I will not say that the Noble Lord dodged. Whatever he did in the way of evasion I well know was official evasion, but it was evasion all the same. There is no getting away from the fact. We come to this clause in the treaty which I say it is impossible for this Government to stand over. I go further, and say that no success shall you have in this War till you retract the terms of Clause 15 of the secret treaty— never! You have not succeeded so far, and you never will. The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster said two or three nights ago— I forget his exact words, but the substance was this— that anyone who twitted the Pope with disrespect had to pay the price. Never was there a truer sentiment than that. I take one great case from history. Mind you, that underlying this there is a great, principle. I want to emphasise the words
      386
      of the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. Napoleon Bonaparte carried all before him till one fatal moment. What was that fatal moment? It was the moment when he laid violent hands on Pope Pius VII. and brought him a prisoner from Rome to France. From that time his star began to wane. Elba came not very long afterwards, then Waterloo, and the star sank in gloom behind the black rock of St. Helena. Let me read Article 15 of this Treaty:
      "France, Great Britain and Russia pledge themselves to support Italy in not allowing the representatives of the Holy See to undertake any diplomatic steps having for their object the conclusion of peace or the settlement of questions connected with the present war."
      That is one of the most extraordinary clauses ever inserted in a treaty. I asked the Noble Lord whether he did not consider it inconsistent that the Government should send an Ambassador to the Vatican and then go behind the back of the Vatican and sign this treaty, and ho said that there was nothing inconsistent in it any more than in sending an Ambassador to any other neutral Power. Mr. Speaker is rather sharp with some people and did not allow me to press the thing home to its logical conclusion, but I can do it now. Did the Government agree to a clause imposing these disabilities on any other neutral Power? No, they do not, and that is where the inconsistency comes in. Lest my views should have no weight I will read the views of someone else. Here is what Bishop McKenna, my own bishop, says about this Clause. He comes from the same place as the ancestors of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. McKenna). It will be well worth the Noble Lord's while to hear what a Catholic bishop, who is generally a man of some judgment, thinks about this secret treaty. Here is what he says:
      "His (the Pope's) efforts for peace and reconciliation among the warring nations so far have failed. The world to-day knows at least part of the reason why. The champions of justice and liberty have plotted that it should not be, had bound themselves by secret treaty' to support Italy in opposing any and every diplomatic step on the part of the representatives of the Holy See for the conclusion of peace, or in regard to questions arising out of the present war.' Then the Pope's aims and motives were misrepresented, his impartiality was impugned, and, worst of all, one of the signatories to the secret compact treated him with insult not very unlike that with which our Divine Lord, Whose Vicar on earth he is, was treated at the Court of Herod. The English Government, with a profession of respect and friendship on its lips, was guilty of the outrage of mocking him by sending an Ambassador to his

      387
      Court, while all the time they were bound by secret treaty not to listen to his voice nor allow it to be heard in the councils of Europe. Whatever flickering confidence in the sincerity of the lofty and altruistic professions of the Allies still lingered on in a not too credulous world was suddenly extinguished by the revelation of this astounding duplicity."
      Yet when I characterised this action by the very mild term of inconsistency the Noble Lord scouted such a construction. I could quote other views on the same subject to the same effect, people of distinction, whose opinion is much more valuable than mine. For instance, there is a very interesting little paper called the "Catholic Bulletin," published by one of the leading Catholic booksellers in Dublin. There is a very distinguished writer under the nom de plume of Scotus. He characterises this action on the part of the British Government as a piece of gross hypocrisy.
      Sir C. CORY: Divide!
      Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley): The hon. Member has occupied a good deal of the time of the House. Will he bring his remarks to the point that he wishes to address himself to in criticism of the Government.
      Mr. McKEAN: I was not aware that I had wandered away from the terms of my Amendment. I was dealing with Clause 15 of the Secret Treaty with Italy, which is referred to more than once in the notice that I gave. I object very strongly indeed to hon. Members coming in here—
      Sir C. CORY: Divide!
      Mr. McKEAN: You can divide if you like.
      Sir C. CORY: Divide!
      Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: If the hon. Member will be good enough to address the Chair the Chair will see that he has such a hearing as he is entitled to.
      Mr. McKEAN: Two hon. Members have been carrying on a conversation during a great part of my remarks, and I am not aware that they were called to order. I have therefore to take the matter in hand myself.
      Sir C. CORY: Divide!
      Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order, order!
      Sir C. CORY: Is it not competent for any hon. Member to cry out "Divide"? The hon. Member has spoken for over an hour, and I understand it is quite in order to call out "Divide." I therefore claim the right to do so.
      Mr. McKEAN: The meaner and baser sort of Member does that.
      Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: If hon. Members would leave that to the Chair it would be much better.
      Sir C. CORY: Do you rule, Sir, that it is improper to call out "Divide"? I have heard it done over and over again. I have had it done to me when I have been speaking, and I claim the same right as other people.
      Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I have given no such general ruling. It is entirely in the hands of the Chair to maintain order in the House.
      Mr. McKEAN: I am very sorry to have had any part in the incident that has occurred, but the fault is certainly not mine. I did not in any way provoke the hon. Baronet (Sir C. Cory). I said nothing to him. I was addressing my remarks to two hon. Members who, in defiance of good manners, carried on a conversation.
      Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Will the hon. Member be good enough now to resume his speech?
      Sir C. CORY: Is it in order for you to call hon. Members to order for speaking? I have had the experience of hon. Members speaking when I have been speaking and I want to know why any different method should be extended to me from what is extended to others? Conversation goes on at every sitting.
      Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I was not charging any hon. Member with anything improper. Will the hon. Member be good enough to proceed?
      Mr. McKEAN: I am most anxious to proceed if I am allowed to do so. If there has been any interruption the fault certainly is not mine, but that of unmannerly Members.
      Sir C. CORY: Divide!
      Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Will the hon. Member take the opportunity, which has

      389
      been very liberally given to him, of making his remarks pertinent to the matter before the House?
      Mr. McKEAN: I could read other opinions bearing upon Clause 15, and the construction put upon it by every one of the speakers or writers is exactly that which I put upon it, except that theirs is expressed in even stronger terms than mine. I want to know if the predecessors of the present occupant of the Foreign Office asked for the reason for this extraordinary Clause, which certainly requires justification, and I should like to know the justification for it.
      Sir C. CORY: On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The hon. Member is repeating himself over and over again. That, I understand, is out of order. I suggest that his speech ought to be brought to an end. He has said all that he is now saying many times before. There ought not to be repetition.
      Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That is a very good rule, and I hope that the hon. Member will observe it.
      Mr. McKEAN: I was saying that it is all a piece of blundering diplomacy and a very bad business. I want to show how it is bad business from the Government point of view and from the point of view of the country. Every humane man must in his heart desire peace, honourable peace. There would be great difficulties, apart altogether from the merits of the case, in bringing about peace even when both parties heartily desire it. Why will that be so? The difficulty in bringing about peace will be in bringing the parties together. One party will want one set of tenets which the other will never accept, and there will be a deadlock. The opposing parties are so powerful and so proud that it will be very difficult to bring them together. There is one force in the world that could bring the contending parties together, but that force has been excluded. I say, therefore, that it is very bad business. Not only that, but when the Peace Conference does come the Pope will be wanted there. His representatives will be wanted there. Difficulties will arise frequently. An impasse will be reached from time to time and things will get into a tangle. The one man who could reconcile the conflicting interests, the one man who could cut the gordian knot is the man whom the British Government, at the instance of the Italian Government, have
      390
      put out of court and make it impossible for him to play his part. When peace is concluded, and I hope sincerely that it will soon be concluded, there is one safeguard for the future peace of the world. What is it? It is the safeguard that has existed for over one thousand years. I could quote the opinions of Protestant after Protestant historian and writer who have assigned that power to the Papacy— the one great power that has safeguarded peace in every age is the Papacy, and the British Government has ruled out that power.
      I will show why on practical grounds my contention is well-founded. Suppose peace is declared to-morrow? What safeguard will there be for the maintenance of that peace? The safeguard for the peace of the world will be America. So long as you have America on your side the peace of the world will be pretty safe, humanly speaking. But there is one other condition that would make for peace in Europe and in the world. It is this condition, that you should detach from Germany, Austria. Austria commands the situation. If you are able to detach Austria in the future from her alliance with Germany, then, humanly speaking, you have taken one of the very safest measures for the future peace of the world. Do you think that by your anti-Papal policy you are going to secure the adhesion of Austria, a Catholic country? Never! I think I have proved to any reasonable man, and any intelligent man, that what I say is well-founded. There are certain things that require repetition, and there are some things of such enormous importance that you ought to repeat them, and I certainly do repeat with emphasis what I have said, that Clause 15, putting out of court the Pope, is the worst possible business from the Government point of view. I want to draw some practical conclusions from facts. Whether they are facts of history or passing facts, they have no importance except from the lessons that we learn from them. What are the lessons to be learned from them? Take the military situation. Is it as satisfactory as it was two years ago? The Pope has already been vindicated. If you had accepted the advice of the Pope two years or three years ago, you would have been in a far better position than you are to-day. Time has already vindicated the Pope, and time will still more vindicate him.
      I am very sorry to have occupied so much time. I had no desire to do so, but the

      391
      question with which I am trying to deal effectively is very important, and the issues are very great. I am trying to draw some practical conclusion from the facts, and I think it is of some use. You have still got to consider what is the one condition that is necessary to win the War. One of the first conditions necessary is to rescind Clause 15 and to renounce absolutely and for ever your anti-Papal policy. I tell you that until you can say to your French comrades that their anti-clericalism will no longer pay, you will not succeed. I am speaking to-night as a Catholic. I am not ashamed or afraid to profess my religion openly. I was forced to profess it, and I have had the courage to do so. It is no longer a paying game to bait the Pope. Anti-clericalism no longer pays. Of the Catholic Church your famous countryman, Lord Macaulay, in his wonderful and inspiring tribute has said—
      Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I really must ask the hon. Member to make his remarks relevant to the matter before the House. It is quite impossible to wander so wide of the subject. The speech must be made relevant.
      Mr. McKEAN: I always bow to your ruling with the greatest respect and deference. I am very sorry that my remarks were not relevant, but I was drawing to a close, and in those circumstances people sometimes do not observe the rules of relevancy too closely. I was going to notify that the policy embodied in these two acts— no reply being sent to the Pope's Peace Note, and Clause 15 of the Secret Treaty— will no longer pay. The Catholic Church has risen from the grave to which it was consigned without ever being dead. It is a growing power all over the world, and its power will grow, and it will make its power felt, and if my voice will reach outside this House of Commons I call upon my co-religionists all over the world to organise themselves and to defend the Pope and to defend their faith.
      Sir J. D. REES: I beg to second the Amendment.
      9.0 P.M.
      The MINISTER of BLOCKADE (Lord Robert Cecil): We have listened to a speech which certainly has been somewhat elaborate, and, I have no doubt, has proceeded from a very sincere and earnest belief in the cause which the hon. Member
      392
      has put forward, and I hope that he will not think me in any way impertinent if I suggest that had his speech been a little shorter it would have been three or four times as effective. I admit most fully the great importance of the subject which he has brought before us. The hon. Member appears to think that the Government is committed to some anti-Papal policy. That is an entire mistake. The Government, as everyone in the House is perfectly well aware, is trustee for the good administration of an Empire which contains many tens of thousands, many millions, of Roman Catholic subjects, and, quite apart from any personal feeling that one member of the Government or another might have on the subject, it would be failing in its duty if it launched out into action disrespectful or injurious to the Holy See. In answer to questions which the hon. Member has put before on this subject I have endeavoured to assure him, speaking on behalf of the Government, that none of the motives which he thought underlay the policy of the Government really had any bearing upon its action, and since he did not appear to be convinced by any of those asseverations, I do not know that I shall do any good by repeating them; but in case the Debate which we are now conducting should reach other ears than those to which it is directly addressed I say once again that the terms of the Secret Treaty, the action with regard to the Papal Note, and the other matters to which the hon. Member has alluded, were not in any way dictated by any anti-Papal feeling on the part of the Government, and were not intended as, and did not constitute in the opinion of the Government, any insult or disrespect to the Pope or to the religion over which he presides, and I hope that the hon. Member will assure his friends that that repudiation is made in absolute sincerity on behalf of the whole Government.
      If the hon. Member will not think me disrespectful I propose to deal with great brevity with the substance of what he has said, because although a great part of his speech was concerned with explaining the many services which the Pope has rendered during the War, and the importance and the strength of the Roman Catholic communion, and other matters, I do not think that those matters really have any bearing on the discussion in which we are engaged.

      393
      Certainly, I have no intention whatever of traversing them, and as I do not propose to traverse them I do not propose to make any comment on them either. I come to the two substantive attacks that the hon. Member made. He said that the Government did not deliver any reply to the Pope's Peace Note. What actually happened was this: We received the Note at the beginning of August last year. On the 16th August, or very shortly after that, a reply was sent to the Pope to this effect, that His Majesty's Government had received his proposal with the most sincere appreciation of the lofty and benevolent intentions which animated his Holiness, and His Majesty's Government would study them with the closest and most serious attention. I cannot think that there was anything disrespectful in that attitude. Shortly after that, on the 29th August, President Wilson made a reply in which he dealt at some little length with the contents of the Papal Note. It became necessary for the Government to consider whether they would answer or add anything to President Wilson's statement. I do not know whether they were right or wrong in their conclusion— and on that any hon. Member can form his opinion for himself— but they did arrive at the conclusion that there would be nothing gained by adding anything further to what had been said by President Wilson, and it was so stated. For that reason solely, and for no other, they did not give a further reply. I may point out that this reply was delivered on the 29th August, and it was not until September that the enemy Powers delivered any reply at all to the Pope, so that there was no delay in dealing with the matter.
      Mr. McKEAN: But they did reply in detail.
      Lord R. CECIL: Yes; I believe they did. But the fact that they replied in detail does not show that they paid very much more attention to what His Holiness said. However, I do not want to enter into that matter; I do not think that really arises at the present time, and, so far as the substance of the matter is concerned, I do not think we can carry it any further. The incident is altogether past. The hon. Member said that the Government in March or May, or whatever the time was, in the spring of 1915, entered into a secret treaty with Italy which contained a certain Clause. He has given a version of it to the House, based on some publica-
      394
      tion which, I believe, took place in Russia, and which was subsequently repudiated in this country. He suggested that it was owing to the existence of that Clause that we did not reply to the Pope's Note.
      Mr. McKEAN: I did not suggest that, but I read a quotation from a periodical.
      Lord R. CECIL: At any rate that has been suggested. It is really an entire mistake; it has nothing whatever to do with it; it never crossed our mind that we were in any way precluded or hindered from replying to the Pope's Note because of the existence of this Clause. Let me point out how clearly mistaken that view is. According to the hon. Member, the Clause appears to compel us to support Italy in preventing the Pope from entering upon any negotiations in connection with peace, or any subject connected with the War. The hon. Member quoted a number of cases in which the Pope had assisted in connection with the War. That has not only not been objected to, but it has been gratefully received by the Government, and there are many occasions in which the Pope has interfered in connection with this War, and interfered most benevolently, and in a way which has earned the gratitude of every person in this country. There are other cases to which I could refer, cases in which His Holiness obtained better terms for prisoners, the repatriation of prisoners, where he has rendered service in regard to hospitals, and in regard to the graves of our soldiers in Italy. He has also taken action with regard to matters of civilian relief, and so on. as to which we have had many diplomatic conversations in this country, and as to which we have always treated all his representations with the utmost respect, and we are grateful for the many things he has done to alleviate the condition of our prisoners and others who have suffered through the War. The idea that we were precluded by this Clause from allowing the Pope to interfere in any matter connected with the War is clearly and obviously untrue, and equally untrue in reference to the bigger matter such as the Papal Note. The hon. Member talked about the manacling of the Pope. I have tried to explain to him that the only thing that this Clause does is to say that if Italy objects to the Pope sending a representative to the Peace Conference we would support that objection. That

      395
      is the whole thing; there is really nothing die; and there is really nothing in the provision as to the Peace Conference.
      Mr. McKEAN: Why not? [HON. MEMBERS: "Order, order!"]
      Lord R. CECIL: The Peace Conference will be held between the belligerent Powers. They and they only will be entitled to attend there, and, therefore, to say that the Pope shall not be allowed to attend it. He would not be allowed to attend, and could only be admitted by general consent, and that would necessarily be the case whether this Clause existed or not. I can assure the hon. Member his objection is based on a misapprehension of what the Clause really provides, and if I were to quote its exact terms I am convinced he will see that I have interpreted it correctly. The hon. Member says, "Abandon the Clause." We cannot do that. We must really regard the Clause as part of the treaty. We cannot abandon a part of the treaty; we cannot pick and choose; this Clause as a part of the treaty must remain a part of it, just as do the other parts of the document, because this Clause is binding upon us exactly in the same way as the other parts of the treaty. I do not think that there is any advantage, if I may say so very respectfully, either for the country at large or for the hon. Member's co-religionists, in suggesting that this Government is guilty of disrespect or of insult to the Pope, when such an attitude of mind is absolutely removed from us all.
      Mr. WHYTE: I would like to add a word or so to what the Noble Lord has said on the subject. I had some part in the first publication of this treaty with Great Britain, and I should like to point out that the difficulties have arisen in regard to the interpretation of it owing to the fact that, in one case, the translation was made direct from the Russian into English, and, in another case, direct from the Italian into English, with the result that the two published forms vary considerably in the words used, and they vary materially, I think, in the reference to the intervention of the Vatican in the politics of the War. One form in which it is published suggests that the signatories to the treaty between the Entente Powers and Italy made in April, 1915, would resist all endeavours on the part of
      396
      the Pope to play the part of peacemaker, that is to say, to bring the belligerents together at the proper moment. The true interpretation is that we have pledged ourselves to Italy not to recognise the temporal position of the Vatican in the sense of permitting the Pope to appear as a recognised member of the Peace Conference. I think that explanation is due, because, as I have explained, the different interpretations of the treaty as published in English have arisen largely from it having been translated by different hands, in a sense different from the originals, and has so given rise to different interpretations.
      Amendment negatived.

      INTOXICANTS (MANUFACTURE AND SALE).
      Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add the words,
      "But humbly regret that, in view of the increasing need for economy in transport, food, and man-power, no mention is made in the Gracious Speech of any action to be taken to prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicants during the continuance of the War."
      I am sure that in every quarter of the House there will be the most sincere desire to respond to the appeal made in the Gracious Speech to display unselfish devotion in prosecuting the War to a successful termination, and to mute all our energies and resources for that purpose. I should like to see hon. Members even carry the matter further by following the personal example set by the Throne in the subject we are now debating. I approach this Amendment from the point of view of the duty which is laid upon each and all of us in this House to contribute to the best of our ability some criticisms of a constructive nature to the Government in prosecuting the War. It is because, regarding this question purely as a war problem, I believe that there is an enormous body of opinion in the country, and to a certain extent in this House, which is prepared to support further action on the part of the Government on the lines indicated in the Amendment that I have ventured to move it. There is, perhaps, another reason why the matter should be brought before the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cleveland (Mr. H. Samuel) raised certain matters affecting the question of the output of beer in his very able speech yesterday, and

      397
      received no answer whatever from the right hon. Gentleman who represented the Government on that occasion. I hope tonight that those who represent the Government will note that the question is one which demands an answer and is one which at the present moment is exercising very widely the minds and feelings of people outside this House and throughout the country.
      It has been recognised by the Government from the opening of the War that the activities of the liquor traffic undoubtedly constitute a public danger, and they found it necessary to take action. They took action in the direction of appointing the Central Control Hoard (Liquor Traffic). We believe that if at that time they had consulted the feelings of the country they would have received overwhelming support in taking much more drastic action in the way of prohibition if they had the courage to do so. Besides the appointment of that Board the Government recognised at a further stage the necessity of cutting down the materials which were being employed in the manufacture of intoxicants, though unfortunately at a rather late stage, as compared with the needs of the country. The Prime Minister, in his speech of the 23rd February, 1917, suggested to the House that it was necessary to cut down the output of beer. It was then suggested to reduce a barrelage of 18,000,000 to a barrelage of 10,000,000. The reasons which the Prime Minister gave then apply, I submit, with much greater force to-day and support even more strongly the plea now made for taking further action in the direction indicated in the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cleveland quoted a sentence or two from the Prime Minister's speech giving the principal reasons for reducing the output of beer. I desire to quote the full passage to the House.
      "It is absolutely impossible for us to guarantee the food of this country without making a very much deeper cut into the barrelage of the country, and we must reduce it to 10,000,000 barrels. That means that you will save nearly 600,000 tons of foodstuffs per annum, and that is nearly a month's supply of cereals for this country. That is the direct saving. The indirect saving amounts to something which is a good deal greater. One of our difficulties has been horse transport from America. This and the fodder for those horses have been a serious drain on our shipping, and it will undoubtedly release horses for use in France. That is saving transport, and large quantities of food for feeding purposes. It will reduce the barrel traffic on our already congested railways, and we are sadly
      398
      in need of locomotives and wagons for the Army in France."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd February, 1917, col. 1612, Vol. 90.]
      "There was no question," the Prime Minister added, "that that was one of the most effective contributions which could be made at the time towards the victorious ending of the War." I submit that what was then regarded as an effective contribution towards the successful prosecution of the War, would be to-day a much more effective contribution, considering the conditions under which we now stand. A year has elapsed and we are faced with a continuation of the submarine danger, and there is no doubt whatever that there is much greater congestion and difficulty in regard to transport than there was at that time. One would have expected that the Government, in consequence, would have at least given effect to the very limited proposals which they then proceeded to make. The House, however, is aware that, notwithstanding the hopes which that speech aroused, what happened immediately afterwards indicated that the Government were not even prepared to carry out their own proposals. Although a reduction in the output had been suggested to 10,000,000 barrels, we were faced in the following summer quarter with the suggestion that instead of a reduction there should be an increase. After the matter had been considered further by the Government they proposed during the summer season to provide harvesters and others with an additional supply of beer to quench their thirst. Some of us who represent Scotland at that time thought that what was good enough for the Scottish harvester, namely, oatmeal and water, was good enough also for the English harvester. After that increase we were surprised to find in the following quarter a similar proposal was made, not on account of the hot weather, but because we were entering on the winter period and because industrial workers, we were told, required to get a further quantity of beer through the cold winter months. Accordingly, the increase of a third was again permitted during that quarter. Following that precedent, in each successive quarter we have had the same increase of one-third in the proposed reduced barrelage without any substantial reason being brought forward for it.
      The result has been that during the year 1917, instead of being able to record a reduced barrelage of a little over

      399
      10,000,000, we had, with the first quarter on the old scale, a total output of 16,400,000 barrels, and the increased output still continues. That output on its present basis involves the country in the loss of 600,000 tons of barley and 60,000 tons of sugar. I think it is desirable that the House should recognise that that involves a very large food supply which might otherwise be made available for the country. Another suggestion has been made by those who support this policy that the output of beer should be limited to the use of industrial workers. In point of fact, each Order issued has made it clear that 20 per cent. of the increase of 33½ per cent. is to be made available for the general public. What is the result? Under our present system of voluntary bread rations— we have had the figures given to us by the Ministry of Food— the quantity of cereals required for the production of one gallon of beer (specific gravity, 10.46) is 2.48 lbs.; of one gallon of stout (specific gravity, 10.60), 3.12 lbs.; of one gallon of whisky (30 under proof), 17.41 lbs. I do not want to go into details, but I want to point out particularly what that means. The man who takes his two pints of beer a day is drinking his wife's bread ration, taking the figures with the hon. Member gave in the House, and which have been worked out by experts. In the case of stout the same consumption amounts to 4½ lbs. of bread per week. Is it right, even on the question of securing the fair distribution of our food supplies, that any one class at this time should be allowed to consume double rations'! That is a very relevant question, which many people are asking; also what action does the Ministry of Food propose to take to prevent this wastage of cereals? Because I do submit it is a clear wastage where you allow more to be consumed than is necessary for the sustenance of each individual member of the community.
      One reason has been given for the increased output of beer which, I believe, has weighed with the Government, and that is that it was necessary to meet the claims of our industrial workers. Reference has been made to an agitation which has been felt in certain parts of the country on this subject. I think the Government should very carefully read again the Reports of the Industrial Commissioners who investigated this question when they went round the country some
      400
      time ago, because I am bound to say, having studied those Reports carefully, I have come to the conclusion that there is no sufficient foundation in those Reports for the suggestion made that our industrial workers insist upon a larger supply of beer and other liquor to enable them to carry on their work. Let me remind the House for a moment that there were very much more serious questions involved in the investigation carried on by those Commissioners. Let me take the case with which I am most familiar, my own Constituency, which is one of the largest industrial constituencies in Scotland, and I make bold to say that the question of housing and the deplorable conditions existing there at the present time have done infinitely more to cause unrest than any possible suggestion in regard to liquor. We have been told by the Scottish Industrial Commissioners in their Report that the remarkable fact worth noting was that
      "in the whole course of the proceedings no complaint has been made from any quarter of the liquor restrictions being a cause of industrial unrest. No reference at all has been made to that subject."
      If we take the Report of the Southwestern area it also negatived the suggestion. The Welsh Commissioners stated in their Report:
      "We have received singularly little evidence of any resentment on the part of the men against the imposition of restrictions on the sale of liquor. Only one witness referred to the subject."
      I should like specially to call attention to the Report of the North-Eastern Industrial Commissioners, who said:
      "If it were demonstrated that a reduction of brewing was necessary in the interests of food preservation, there is no reason to doubt that all classes would loyally acquiesce in whatever diminution was deemed essential."
      I think that fairly represents the view of the workers. If the matter is explained to them on a food basis, there can be little doubt whatever they would all unite in stating their preference for bread instead of beer. We have had a good deal of exploiting of our industrial workers in this connection by the liquor trade. I should like to inform the House of one incident which has affected me very much in this matter, and that is that the only representation I have received from my Constituency, which embraces a very large number of steelworkers and miners, in favour of increased output of beer, was from the licensed trade association of the district. I thereupon informed the writer

      401
      that I felt it was desirable that I should ascertain the views of the worker's themselves on this question before acting upon representations received from that quarter. I instituted the most careful inquiries, and I am bound to say I have had no suggestion whatever made to me in my own district that there should be further liquor provided at the present time looking to the serious shortage of food supplies. If the licensed trade have approached the Ministry of Food and the Ministry of Munitions, I sincerely hope that they will first inquire whether they represent the workers themselves. We have heard in this House from the right hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas) the strongest repudiation of the suggestion that our workers would "down tools" in order to obtain liquor, and I am glad that he has been supported in this by some other Members who represent Labour, particularly the hon. Member for White-haven (Mr. T. Richardson), who represents the Durham miners, the hon. Member for West Monmouthshire (Mr. Richards), who is secretary of the South Wales Miners' Federation, both of whom have urged prohibition at the present time, and have also been supported by Mr. Straker, Secretary of the Northumberland Miners' Association. I feel that I can raise this question with something almost amounting to a mandate from the different Labour organisations in my district, because I attended a meeting in my district in which every Labour organisation was represented, and all of them strongly supported a resolution for war-time prohibition, having regard to the shortage of food. I, therefore, can speak with some authority so far as the workers in my own district are concerned.
      I pass to another point. We have been told by the Prime Minister that there are certain industries that must be stopped during the War. He has referred particularly to the building industry. He told us at Dundee they had practically stopped house-building, which was a beneficent industry. He said:
      "We have had to stop it. Why? It takes too much labour, it takes material which is essential for war purposes, it takes transports which you cannot possibly spare, and, therefore, if you permit house-building it interferes with the prosecution of the War. Therefore, to stop that is an essential war measure."
      Every consideration which the Prime Minister has applied to the building industry might be applied with much greater force to the liquor industry to-day. To stop the liquor trade is to-day
      402
      essentially a war measure. He went on to say in the same speech:
      "If you apply those principles to the question of drink, you will find that those principles will work out all right…No man in his senses could sacrifice the food of the people to any drink, however alluring it may be."
      Yet this is just what the Government are doing to-day. We are greatly concerned as to the question of the food of the people, because we have reason to believe that although we were informed the other day that the stocks of wheat in December were greater than what they were in December of the year before, we cannot rely upon the supplies coming into this country from month to month, and that our tonnage may continue to be seriously affected in the near future. I do not desire to exaggerate this danger in any way. This is a very serious question. I hope the Government will keep very carefully in view the statement which was made the other day by one of their own Ministers from that Front Bench with regard to the amount of tonnage which was being lost to the nation owing to the continuation of the manufacture of intoxicants. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Shipping informed the House just before it rose that, taking the saving on the present reduced barrelage of 15,000,000, a reduction to 10 per cent. of the pre-war output would save about 440,000 tons; a reduction to 6 per cent., about 495,000 tons; complete prohibition, about 575,000 tons. He illustrated his last figure by indicating that economy in tonnage might be roundly expressed as saving the employment of twenty-nine ships, each of 5,000 tons cargo capacity, making four voyages a year. I submit to the House that this is really a very important matter. We are told that it has been repeatedly referred to the War Cabinet. We are entitled, I think, to ask to-night: What is the reply of the War Cabinet? What have they got to tell the House and the country as to their attitude in this matter? We have been told day in and day out that the question of tonnage is the one essential problem with which the country is at the present time faced, and yet we are led to believe that this avoidable waste of tonnage is still going on continually. But let me take another point which raises another question beyond the actual saving of food which might be secured by prohibition. There is at the present time a large quantity of spirits being imported into this country from Holland and from France for export to Africa. That involves

      403
      transhipment. I do not want to mention ports, but when it comes across it is transhipped, put on to the railway, and carried to other ports, and thereafter exported to West Africa, where, I believe, it is sold to the native races. That trade is continuing during the War. I want to suggest to the House not only have you the waste of transport in connection with this trade, but an immense waste of man-power.
      I have here a communication from a gentleman who visited one of the ports where this particular stuff was being handled. What did he see? He saw large quantities of spirits. In one instance 75,000 cases of gin had come from Holland. These had to be transhipped, sent by rail to a certain port, and then shipped again to Africa. The following day he went down to the docks and watched some of the ships which were being unloaded. In particular, he watched one of them which contained 14,000 cases of gin, which required thirty men to unload it. He writes that the men themselves, he thinks, were ashamed of the use of the tonnage for this stuff when it was needed for other things. And no wonder! Here you have first the unloading, then the transhipment by rail to another port, then the reloading for carriage abroad. Surely at a time like this the Government ought to take account of these matters, especially in view of what we are told of the shortage of man-power. May I put a question to the representatives of the Government on the Treasury Bench, seeing I am on this question of man-power? Have they considered what the saving to the country would be in man-power alone if the Government were to put an end during the War to this traffic. We were told that before the War 500,000 men were engaged in this trade. I have no doubt that that number has since been considerably reduced. But what is the position of the liquor trade as compared with many other trades? These have suffered, and suffered severely, while "the trade" has been piling up its profits.
      Is this trade to be regarded as a food trade or as a luxury trade? The Prime Minister told us in. his speech of 23rd February, when he made his appeal to the House, that drink was a luxury which the people at this time ought at once to consider giving up. If it claims to be a food trade, are the Government prepared to examine this claim upon scientific lines? Are they prepared to
      404
      accept the views of the committee of the Royal Society that, so far as industrial efficiency is concerned, alcoholic liquor cannot be said to be of any advantage to the workers, as ail experience was against that, seeing that the drug element discounted altogether any food value attaching to it. I should like to ask, particularly the hon. Members who represent the Government; Will they be prepared to accept even the verdict of the Special Committee on Alcohol of the Liquor traffic Control Board, when it is made public, whatever that verdict may be as to the effect of alcohol upon the human organism? If they find that there is no advantage whatever in the use of alcohol, as a food or as regards industrial efficiency, will the Government be prepared to take action upon it? I venture to say that the experience of scientists and medical men has already been so clearly stated that we cannot have any further doubt on the matter. I am more anxious to bring the facts before the House than to argue the case. There is one fact of importance which, I think, the Government ought to take into account, and that is that we have been informed, on what I believe to be good authority, that our enemies, the Central Powers, have now altogether stopped the brewing industry. All I can say is that if in a matter of this kind we are not prepared to make the same sacrifice that they have made, then I do not think we deserve the victory at which we are aiming. I believe that that fact can be amply corroborated from later information which has appeared. Again, if we are not prepared to follow the advice given to the whole country from the Throne, and read out in the churches in May, 1917, in the form of a Royal Proclamation, then again we are lacking in that patriotism which we ought to display. We were informed on that occasion in every church throughout the land of the need of preventing the unnecessary consumption of grain, and in order to help to bring about the successful termination of the War, we were most earnestly exhorted to practise the greatest economy in the use of every species of grain, and so on. I do not desire to carry the argument further. Our brothers and our fellow subjects in Canada are watching us very carefully on this subject. They have made great sacrifices, and they are being asked to make them, that we may secure the advantage. The same applies to the United States of America. If we are

      405
      counting upon the continuation of food supplies from those countries, and their economising for us, while they themselves are living under prohibition, there will be some danger that we may not continue to have their sympathy in that measure which we otherwise might be able to claim. I sincerely hope that the result of the discussion will be to bring home to the Government that this is a matter about which the country is sincerely concerned. I believe that if the Government acted with courage even now, if they were to appeal to the great masses of the people of this country, they would find them willing to adopt a policy which would release large quantities of food, and hasten the successful termination of the War.
      Mr. R. HARCOURT: I beg to second the Amendment.
      He has given a number of facts and figures upon this subject. Both he and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cleveland on a former occasion quoted in parallel passages the very bold and sweeping declaration of the Government, and the singularly moderate results which have followed. I myself shall only attempt to emphasise those conclusions. I hope my hon. Friend will not think that I am guilty of discourtesy to the very interesting speech which he has delivered when I say that I myself shall contend that the ease is not in reality based upon argumentative figures in regard to tonnage and the like, important, interesting, and convincing as are those figures, because I understand that in effect the Government agree to these arguments. Let me commence by quoting, I hope correctly, though I am not a lawyer, the phrase habemus confitentum reum. They do not dispute the results which necessarily ensue. What they question, and what is exercising their minds, is the state of public opinion in the country. I prefer very briefly to deal mainly with the subject as regards the opinion actually expressed in the country. I myself returned from foreign service after a year's absence in October last, and naturally I was somewhat out of touch with popular feeling at home even in its broader aspects. I had a general impression that the War had diminished the number of public meetings, but I found that I was wrong. I discovered that in my Constituency and many other places large numbers of public gatherings had been held to call attention
      406
      to the obvious inconsistency, and indeed the absurdity, of a crusade in favour of food economy when foodstuffs were being used for products which, even if you assume they are wholesome and not deleterious, are at any rate not indispensable. I had nothing to do with the calling of those meetings. I was not asked to attend or to write messages to them or assist in getting speakers; in fact, they were quite spontaneous in their character and local in their organisation. Nor were they by any means attended by what the scoffers might describe as the usual temperance fanatics. The resolutions were carried with unanimity by persons not unfriendly to the Government in other matters, and I share those views.
      I thought it was only right that I should at any rate try to obtain the personal attention of the leaders of the Government in this matter, and after exhausting such Parliamentary opportunities as presented themselves I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister just before Christmas, to which he gave a reply which was published in the newspapers on the 4th January, and in that reply, although he dealt with the limitation of barrels, he did not go so far as many of us desire. I hope the House will believe that I am not seeking to curry favour in this matter, or merely making an electioneering speech, when I say that Scotland does consider that she has a special grievance in regard to this matter. It is not denied by the Government that Scottish opinion does demand far more drastic treatment. To discuss the claims on the part of Scotland to local self-government in this matter would be a little irrelevant, but it is undoubtedly the case, and I base my opinion upon the conversations of a number of soldiers in third-class railway carriages who did not know me from Adam, and that opinion is that many people think if separate treatment were given to Scotland it would be a very great advantage.
      The Prime Minister spoke of legislation by consent and of not going too far in advance of public opinion. It might prove an alluring topic to discuss how far the present Government follows public opinion rather than newspaper opinion. As regards public opinion the Government has nothing to fear in Scotland on this subject, and although my communication to the Prime Minister was very widely published, I have not received a single protest from my Constituency. Our case in a nutshell is that Scotland is being kept

      407
      back against her will, owing to the needless timidity of the Government in regard to this matter. It would be a waste of time to go into the question of brewing profits at the present moment, but I read in a city article the other day dealing with comparative values now and ten years ago that if I had invested ten years ago only the capital of my Parliamentary salary in this business I should have been literally a millionaire at the present moment. I see that the idle rich are exhorted to drink white wine in order that there should be more beer for the workers. I think in the advanced stage of rations to which we shall come you could easily enforce a system of prohibition at any rate on persons engaged in sedentary occupations just as you are going to enforce decreased meat rations.
      I have been speaking of the opinions of other people, but I should like to give a single instance from my own experience. The case against any further limitation is that you will cause unrest among what are called the workers, and that I suppose includes those who are engaged upon military service. My service was on the London aircraft defences and our efforts on the subject of temperance were almost sublimely simple. We had no speeches or deputations, but we enacted in the usual curt military fashion that no intoxicating liquor was to be permitted on any of the stations, and that the severest disciplinary measures would be taken against any officers or men who transgressed that order. I do not wish to press that analogy too far, but this is not a question of principle so much as a war purpose. I was one of those responsible for the enforcement of that order, and we never had the smallest trouble. You might go at length into the question of the comparative claims of food. I know we all receive a large number of circulars, and I received one the other day from the master bakers, arguing that cake and biscuits were more essential food than beer. One could multiply instances, and I believe that preference has been given in this matter to the brewer as against the miller in regard to the best grain in a recent Order.
      February and March are the normal months for hatching chickens. I do not know whether hon. Members read the "Poultry World" and other papers, but if they did they would find in one of those journals a heading, "Is the poultry industry to perish?: write to your M.P.s at
      408
      once. "I understand that the most drastic and severe indications have been issued quite recently affecting breeders by the Board of Agriculture. I have had a communication which states that the Board of Agriculture have been considering this question, and I am informed that on a small farm they have been advised to kill off all the cross-breeds, and to keep only 10 per cent. of the normal number for eggs. This breeder had asked if he could be promised enough grain which would entitle one to get sittings at this time of the year? I am told that the answer is doubtful. I have only time to cover a small portion of the field, but I think I have said enough to show the justice of this demand.
      10.0 P.M.
      Major DAVIES: I rise to support the Amendment. I should like to specially refer to the feeling with regard to this matter in the United States and in Canada. I think it is a perfect scandal that up till now the Government have taken no notice of the desire expressed by our Allies across the Atlantic that steps should be taken to prohibit entirely the manufacture of alcoholic drinks in this country, so as to economise the barley, sugar, and grape which are now used in this manufacture. It does not require much consideration of this question to understand the attitude which a large number of people in the United States take up on this matter. They have made and are making enormous sacrifices in order to provide food for ourselves and for the peoples of France and Italy in this great War, and only this morning we read in the "Times" that an officer of the Ministry of Food— Sir William Goode— speaking yesterday of the dependence of this country on America for food, said:
      "We were compelled to rely upon the United States and Canada for 65 per cent. of our essential foodstuffs. If we could roll Lloyd George, Lord Northcliffe, and the whole clever Geddes family into one superman— it would be an interesting experiment— and appoint him Food Controller, they would find that that incarnation of all the talents was still powerless to give the people of this country even a pound of meat a week unless he could get North America to provide him with the bulk of our vital foodstuffs and the money with which to buy it, to say nothing of getting the ships to bring it home. What he wanted them to realise was the amazing way in which the energies and the sentiment of the American people had been harnessed in a great national movement of organised self-sacrifice, so that we and our European Allies should have food enough to carry on the War and to keep up the health of our civilian population."

      409
      In addition to that we have an estimate that between 25,000,000 and 26,000,000 bushels of foodstuffs have voluntarily been saved during the last five months in the United States in order to make sure that our population and that of our French and Italian Allies shall have sufficient food to carry on with. It appears to me that these considerations should carry great weight with the Government, and I should very much like to know from the Under-Secretary for the Food Department whether the Foreign Office has called his attention or the attention of the Food Controller to this feeling both in Canada and the United States. Canada went in for prohibition not long after the War commenced, and when America came into this struggle she went on the water wagon at once without any hesitation. But now, after four years of war, we still in this country lag behind, and are prepared to squander our foodstuffs in the manufacture of beer and other alcoholic liquors. We remember how, at the commencement of the War, the Prime Minister went down to Bangor, and at a meeting there denounced drink as a worse enemy than even the peoples of the Central Empires. He has now been in office for twelve months, and I think the House is entitled to know what the Government has done during that period to get rid of this great drawback to the efficiency of the nation. There has been a policy of hesitation, delay, and vacillation. First, the Government curtailed to a certain extent the manufacture of beer and spirits, and then they increased it on account of pressure from certain quarters. Over and over again the country have been told that in order to be successful in this War we must have increased efficiency all round. Apparently the Government is not prepared to tackle this question, and I think the time has now come when the House of Commons should express in no uncertain voice its desire that some drastic action shall be taken. Failure to do so might even lead to a position of unpleasantness in our relationship with the people of America and our fellow citizens in Canada, who look with horror on the spectacle of their young men coming over to this country, after having lived under conditions of total abstinence during months of training, and then finding themselves in a country where the sale of liquor goes on unchecked. For these reasons the House should insist that
      410
      this question should not be played with any longer. This is a time when every ounce of food is of importance, not only for feeding the people of this country, but for feeding our stock, and we have a right to expect that the Food Controller and the War Cabinet should deal with this question once and for all.
      Colonel WALKER: It seems to me that in this Debate we have an example of those who, professing democracy, are really becoming autocrats. We have a man who sets himself up as a democrat showing himself autocratic enough to dictate to the majority of the inhabitants of these Islands that they should be teetotalers. That is against the will of the people as a whole. Anyone who chooses to dictate and overcome the feeling of the majority of the country is, therefore, acting in a very autocratic manner, and cannot claim when they follow that line that they are true democrats. This Assembly is supposed to be a democratic institution. We say that we govern this country by the opinions of the majority. Let us follow for a moment this line of argument that we should cease to brew. I have heard it said just now by one hon. Member that Germany was reported to have ceased this industry. I do not believe that. I would say that that rumour was very much like that which we heard the other day of the strikes, and that they would heartily welcome the idea that we should follow what is supposed to be their example, or necessity, and make all the people of this country pacifists because they could not get a glass of beer to drink, and would want to end the War on any terms whatever. That is the commonsense view from which to look at this question. That is the line at all events that I take, and I think the people of this country would be very unhappy indeed if they were deprived of those necessities that they like to indulge in after following their vocations. We also have it admitted by the Mover of this Amendment that beer is a food.
      Mr. MILLAR: I do not wish to interrupt the hon. and gallant Gentleman, but I certainly never admitted that beer was a food. I said that was one of the reasons put forward for providing beer, and in challenging that I asked the Government whether they were prepared to accept the Report of the Committee discounting that.
      Colonel WALKER: I for one, and a good many others also, believe that beer is a

      411
      very valuable food. We have had these questions argued out many times, and they have been verified by experts who have investigated for the Government. It is hardly necessary for me to go into all these details when, no doubt, the Minister who will answer on this Debate will be able to put forward all the necessary figures which will answer the Mover of this Amendment on that point. He, no doubt, would like to abolish all liquors of every kind, and make us indulge in tea drinking. Does he claim that tea has any food value? He admits that there is no food value in tea. Why then does the country spend such a vast sum of money in drinking tea? What possible value can it have for the country if it has no food value? Simply and solely because it is a stimulant. Does not alcohol also possess that quality? [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Alcohol has no stimulating advantages! None! Yet I think that the arguments that have been brought forward by the hon. Gentlemen, in moving and seconding this Amendment, would have had much more force if they had been indulging in alcohol themselves. We always hear that when a man has indulged too freely we know what his character is. In vino veritas. We know also that it has been the endeavour of many faddists of the same category as the Mover and Seconder of this Amendment to do away with the rum that is dealt out in the trenches to soldiers. That would be a very fatal thing to do, simply and solely because those who advocate that action do not recognise the extraordinary value that that spirit possesses. It is not as a beverage. Anyone who consumed rum as a beverage would find that it was not equal to the advantages of other spirits, but it has a great advantage in one particular, and perhaps some of the Members of this House are not aware of it. It is a very old tradition in our Navy that when on our sailing ships ropes had to be handled it was necessary to deal out rum to the sailors simply and solely because it had this wonderful advantage, that it goes to the fingertips. The power of that spirit is so wonderful in circulating the blood that the soldier is able to perform his duty of handling his rifle even in the coldest weather, and any man who has tried the experiment, be he teetotaler or not, knows full well by experience the great value which that spirit has had during this War. There are many other points in connection
      412
      with the use of all these alcoholic forces which have their advantages, and I am not one who would see them done away with merely for the sake of pandering to these extraordinary faddists.
      There has been a great attack made upon the trade of the licensed victuallers. A movement which is called the "Strength of Britain" movement has been systematically persevered with at great expense. It is more or less engineered and financed by the members of the cocoa group, the men who make cocoa. Large sums have been provided to uphold that movement. What is the true secret of it? The House will be astonished to hear that the idea really was started by an individual who was interested in acquiring spirit for the manufacture of silk, and it was entirely a trick, from what I have hoard, to get the help of all these teetotalers and to support them in this wonderful movement to do away with all the distilleries in Great Britain, so that the whole of the spirits which are manufactured in this country could be acquired and turned into silk. That is the origin of this "Strength of Britain" movement. I had no intention of interfering in this Debate or of making any remarks at all. I am not one of those who indulge very often in addressing this House. I prefer to listen and gather wisdom from others, but I have failed to gather that wisdom so far from the Mover or any of the supporters of this Motion, and I shall leave this matter entirely and with perfect confidence in the hands of the Minister who will reply to this Debate.
      Major HAMILTON: I have listened to a previous Debate on this subject some little time ago, and I must confess that then I was impressed by the speech made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions, whom I am glad to see on the Government Bench. He pointed out to the House on that occasion the very great danger to the country there would be, both in carrying on this War and in the natural desire which we in this House have for civil peace at home, if any action such as is suggested by the Mover of this Amendment were taken at the present time. I am sure that those who remember his speech, which was of the gravest possible character, cannot possibly agree with this Amendment. What are the arguments brought forward in favour of this Amendment? The hon. and gallant Gentleman who sits for Montrose Burghs
      (Mr. Harcourt) said that Scotland was

      413
      anxious to become teetotal, but was kept back against her will. I do not really know why the hon. and gallant Gentleman suggests that. None of us in this House can prevent either him or any other gallant Scotsman from refusing to drink either whisky or beer. He said that when he was in the anti-aircraft section in London an Order was issued that men when on duty should not take alcoholic liquor. He seemed to think that was very exceptional in the British forces. I have never known any officer or man in the Army who has been allowed to take alcoholic drink except in the front line trenches when he has had issued to him at the Government expense a tot of rum to keep up his circulation, which is very good for him. I do not think that in the anti-aircraft section in London a tot of rum is necessary except perhaps in very severe weather, and the hon. and gallant Member is not entitled to say, because a man in that section is not allowed to have any alcoholic drink when on duty, that therefore the whole country should become teetotal and that working men working in blast furnaces, which was one of the instances given by the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Munitions, should not be allowed their glass of beer. I am quite honest about it. When I was in the engineering shops working very hard as an engineer, I enjoyed my glass of beer. I enjoy it still, and I hope that I shall be able to do so for some time. The Amendment practically calls upon the Government to prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicants. I am not very well up in the amount of intoxicants now being manufactured, but I believe it is a fact that there is no whisky being manufactured in the country at the present time. I may be wrong—
      Mr. HOGGE: You are right.
      Major HAMILTON: The hon. Gentleman opposite, who I am sure knows, bears me out that whisky is not being manufactured. He sits for an important Division of Scotland and knows quite well that the industry is confined to Scotland. I am sure he is right. This is an Amendment moved by that good faction which we have always with us in this House like the poor— the faction of the teetotal cranks. I am not a teetotal crank, and I do not think it would be wise at this present time to totally prohibit the sale of beer. I am, indeed, deeply sorry that we have not a member of the Labour party to get up to-night in this House and support our
      414
      point of view. Personally, if I thought that it would help the War and the country I would— and I am sure all my friends would, too— would turn teetotal to-morrow. I do not think that it would help. The amount of beer that I have consumed in the last twelve months has not taken much beer out of the mouths of working men for whom it should be reserved. The hon. and gallant Member for Montrose Burghs seemed to be very much impressed by the fact that he had not heard from his constituency against the speech that he made, I presume, advocating prohibition. I must confess that I have heard from my Constituency. The teetotal crank is with us in our constituencies as he is with us in this House, and I have heard from the teetotal cranks in my Constituency begging me to go in for prohibition and for the stopping of the brewing of beer. The gentlemen who have taken the trouble to spend a penny stamp in writing to me are not the gentlemen who drink the beer. I may say that in my Constituency there is no drunkenness, and has not been since the War began. The small amount of beer now drunk in this country does not tend to drunkenness. The action which the Government has taken, and is taking to-day, has reduced drunkenness and over-drinking in this country. The working men who are called upon to work long hours should be supplied with their beer. If the Government like to prohibit the sale of beer in the House of Commons and in the Carlton Club, the Reform Club, the National Liberal Club, or any of the clubs in the West End, I do not think that any of the members of those clubs would object. I am certain that the brewers-would not object, because they have sufficient sale for their product elsewhere, and the working men want all the beer the Government allows to be produced in this country. We must be influenced by what we hear from our constituents, but we must also bear in mind that people who are very keen teetotalers— all credit to them— are always ready to write to their Member of Parliament and advocate their point of view, while the ordinary working man, who likes his pint of beer when he leaves his job, does not take the trouble to write to his Member of Parliament, asking him to see that he gets it. I believe that if he met his Member of Parliament in the street he might suggest that he was thirsty. That is possible, but my Constituents do not write to me asking me to make the speech I am making to

      415
      night. I am only making it because the Labour party are not here to put the working man's point of view.
      Mr. HOGGE: They never are.
      Major HAMILTON: I would ask the House to remember the very able speech made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Munitions about nine months ago on this subject, when he begged this House not to take any drastic action to prohibit the production of beer for the working classes of this country.
      Sir HERBERT ROBERTS: The House will probably know my views on this subject. I can honestly say that from the outbreak of War I have at all events endeavoured to look upon all these matters from a national standpoint. I admit that much has been done to curtail the consumption of alcoholic liquors in this country during the last year or two. I also agree with the last speaker that in spite of the very large amount of money which is spent upon drink even now, there is not much drunkenness, at all events it is not apparent visually as one goes about from place to place in the country. But I think everybody here will agree that it is unfortunate and not in the best interests of national efficiency that £200,000,000a year should be spent upon the consumption of drink. My hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Walker) reminded the House that we are a democratic country. We are. I am not going to refer to him or any of those who oppose my views on this matter of drink as fanatics, or cranks or anything of that sort. It is only fair that everyone should express the views which are his true convictions in the matter. I rather deprecate labelling one another in this way because one happens to hold divergent views upon a very important question of this kind. I have risen for the purpose of making a suggestion. We are a democratic country, and we can only carry what we deem to be a reform of this kind in the way of a still further prohibition of the consumption of drink with public opinion on our side. Would it not be possible for the Government to go this far in the direction of the Amendment, that any area of the country— the area which I know best is Wales, where the feeling is undoubtedly very strongly in favour of prohibition— should have a chance of showing by a decisive vote whether it would be prepared to adopt a measure of total pro-
      416
      hibition for the period of the War. That would not run counter to any democratic principle, but would be carrying out the wishes of the people so far as that area was concerned. At all events, a suggestion of that kind is worthy of consideration.
      Mr. CLYNES: The Mover and Seconder of the Amendment and those who have supported it have presented with great force and moderation a case which must be considered. I cannot as yet, in the absence of a Drink Controller, do more than state the attitude of the Food Ministry towards the problem which has been raised in this discussion. This is one of what I might call the odd jobs which at present seem to be unloaded upon the unfortunate Ministry of Food. I cannot answer for the Prime Minister, except to say that I recognised several of the quotations used by hon. Members in the Debate, and I long ago came to the conclusion that it was easy for any controversialist to quote something from a speech of any Prime Minister to defend any kind of case that he wishes to support. I have no doubt that the responsible heads of this Government, as of preceding Governments, have been conscious of the situation created by the consumption of drink, and by the importation of cereals for its manufacture, but problems raised in this manner cannot be arbitrarily decided and settled according to one's own particular point of view, and without taking fully into consideration not merely the aspects of the case, but the consequences which may be possible under any step that we may take. I accept the argument of the hon. Member who moved the Amendment, that he addresses himself to this question from the standpoint of it being a war problem only, but he and his friends have not rid themselves of the suspicion that they are seeking to use the conditions of war to give effect to the special views and convictions which they themselves hold on this highly controversial question, and I have known them to be arraigned in the same dock of complaint as the brewers and distillers. The feeling of many working men is that the extreme teetotal element in this country stands in the same position as the representatives of the brewing and distilling interest, and that they have both availed themselves of war-time conditions to apply effectively the particular point of view

      417
      which they may have. I am not saying that the workmen are right in that view, but I have still some little liberty to go amongst the industrial population, and some opportunity to visit the ordinary public-house, and still a means of ascertaining the point, of view of a very large section of the population on this highly controversial topic. We as a Ministry of Food have to a great extent an open mind on this question so far as it raises a great question of national policy. Our mind certainly is not closed to the appeal which is based upon the argument of what is essential for the winning of the War.
      There has been during a recent period, and during the last eighteen months, as the returns show, a very considerable reduction in the consumption of intoxicating drinks of all kinds. That reduced consumption is not merely due to the restrictions in regard to hours and the opportunities for taking beer. It is due to the weakness of the beer itself. Teetotalers, in my opinion, have reason for a great deal of satisfaction in the very character and quality or want of quality of the beer which is now being sold to the masses of the working men of the country. The reduction has had the very welcome effect of greatly lessening the number of convictions for drunkenness. All these things are very welcome features of that process of moral reform which may be effected either as a means of winning the War or as a means of keeping men and women as a whole at their industrial tasks at munitions or other incidental war purposes; but we can carry these purposes to extremes. My hon. Friend who moved the Amendment referred to the evidence adduced before the Industrial Unrest Committees which were specially created to investigate the underlying cause of industrial unrest last year. Before accepting my present position at the Ministry of Food I had the opportunity of serving on one of those committees, and for five or six weeks we sat, very often until midnight, taking evidence and investigating facts, to ascertain what was the feeling. It is true that no very strong protest was shown, in the evidence which we received, against the restrictions which had been imposed; but those restrictions rather applied to closing hours and certain other conditions than they could be said to apply to the arguments germane to this particular Amendment. The Amendment asks the Government to prohibit the manu-
      418
      facture or sale of intoxicants. The opinion I formed from my experience on that occasion was that, while workmen would submit to a great deal of inconvenience and would tolerate being deprived of much of the opportunity to indulge in the working man's social habit, and whilst they would not say that the hours should be extended from 9.30 to 10.30 or 11, not a single item of evidence that I can recall was adduced in support of the idea of absolute prohibition which is the aim of this particular Amendment.
      Mr. DUNCAN MILLAR: Will the hon. Gentleman accept the opinions from the industrial workers taken by plebiscite in the big industrial areas in Scotland— Govan, Clydebank, and other places?
      Mr. CLYNES: I am going into that side of the argument. While not proposing to speak for the Government, I want to express some views of my own derived from association with the classes of workmen who are so materially affected by this Amendment. The fact that was adduced by my hon. Friend as an argument for the Amendment, that the quantity of beer had increased from a previous lower barrelage, is, to my mind, an illustration of the danger that confronts us if such an extreme Amendment as this were put into force. For what was the reason of the Government having to concede that increase? It was an increase conceded in response to the very formidable demands which were expressed in so many parts of the country at the meetings at which it was said that the shortage of beer was an increasing cause of industrial unrest and discontent. The increase was not due to any secret machinations of the brewing interest. It was made at a time when the teetotal party in the country were carrying on a propaganda to the contrary, It was made because it appeared to the Government that this quite natural demand of so many workmen in this country had to be met in larger degree than could be done by the barrelage at the time. The question of how far shipping arises in this argument can assume many forms. There is a man who may not consume his quantity of sugar, as I do not, for instance. There are men who take very little bread or cereals in the ordinary form. Have they the right to say that they are entitled to their particular proportion of sugar and cereals in liquid form, or have we the right to prescribe precisely the particular way

      419
      in which they must receive their quota of these things? At a time when we are talking so much about liberty we should be careful about further diminishing it, and careful about further arousing the resentment of so many industrial workers on whose services we are depending for the effective prosecution of this War.
      I am somewhat in touch yet with the kind of work which is being performed, in a heavier degree than ever, by some millions of the industrial population of the country in mines, on railways, in munition factories, industrial and chemical works, gasworks, and other forms of exhaustive labour, by people who are toiling long hours in conditions of greater pressure than ever were known in pre war days. I saw miners in Manchester only a few weeks ago who came to us and said, "Here we are coming from the pit, soaked with dust and exhausted with toil, and the taverns are either closed or there is a very small share to go round among us. Our bread is carried down to the pit in the morning, and cannot be eaten by us and is often thrown away for want of the glass of beer to which we have been accustomed." I have seen photographs of great heaps of bread swept up in the huge working-class dining rooms, that are established in and attached to so many industrial establishments at the present time, because the men could not get the drink to which they are accustomed. I am not presenting any point of view as to whether it is good or bad, or right or wrong, but here are facts, and the question arises as to whether you cannot produce as great a wastage of food by absolute prohibition as you can hope to effect a saving of food by adopting that policy. Many workers in munition works, chemical factories, miners, and many others have this very natural inclination, and whether you regard it as a physiological or psychological question is an affair of Members of this House. I take it just as a practical problem of the moment, and I say that I feel absolutely certain that if the Government attempted to go to the extreme of this Amendment there would be an increase of unrest and very strong expressions of resentment, and the feeling that those whose shoulders carry the heaviest load of labour were again made the victims of this drastic step embodied in this Amendment. For that reason. while the Government will keep its mind
      420
      open to the realities and the arguments of this appeal, I think that it will not rashly commit itself to the extreme proposal of the Amendment. I am asked what I think of the evidence presented in any Labour quarter in support of the doctrine of this Amendment. I admit that it is not only possible but easy to get a particular verdict at a particular meeting for anything; that you can arrange certain meetings or conferences for certain purposes, and have your resolutions passed in support of almost any programme.
      Mr. CHANCELLOR: Does that apply to the Independent Labour Party?
      Mr. CLYNES: I am coming to the Independent Labour Party. I say of the national conferences representing the trade organisations in this country and in Scotland, that have met ever since the War, not one of them, whether they met separately in Scotland, or together in this country as representing the United Kingdom, has ever passed any resolution in favour of the doctrine embodied in the Amendment.
      Mr. CHANCELLOR: A resolution was passed last May by the Independent Labour Party.
      Mr. CLYNES: I am speaking of the National Party, representing millions of workers in various trade unions, and not the organisation to which my hon. Friend alluded. Bodies that represent in a way the mind of the trade organisations on the war issues cannot be expected to pass any resolution in favour of the adoption of this Amendment. I will only add this, that, as a member of the Labour party, I heard communications read two or three weeks ago from a body whose precise title at the moment I forget— I think it is "The Strength of Britain Movement"— suggesting that representatives of the Labour Assembly at Nottingham should accept an invitation to a gathering that had been arranged by that body. The Executive of the National Labour Party could not officially accept the invitation, and left it to any individual member attached to the movement to attend the gathering if he wished to do so. I know from experience and personal contact that no responsible national organisation representing labour feeling would accept the doctrine of the Amendment. The view in the mind of many working men on this topic of shipping is

      421
      expressed in this form. Hon. Members have pointed out that ships are engaged carrying in the course of the year some 600,000 tons of cereals for this purpose. How many ships, say working men, are engaged in carrying costly ornaments and materials for costly and expensive dress? It is still true that there is a great deal of importation and exportation of many things of an extremely costly and ornamental character.
      Mr. RUNCIMAN: Everyone of those articles have been prohibited for a very long time, and if any are admitted they are only admitted by licences granted by the Government.
      Mr. CLYNES: Exactly, but licences go a long way. The figures covering our transactions of importations and exportations show that there is a wide range covered by those licences. The workmen would want to know whether those articles, which are not at all indispensable, were absolutely essential to the winning of the War. Expressed in these terms, the mind of the working man should be fairly treated and listened to, because his mind is framed by his very hard experience. Take the point of view of the soldier who gets short leave from France and whose social habit has been to get into the nearest bar. Who would blame him, when we think of where he comes from and what he has to go through? Any hon. Member can express for himself the mind of the soldier who, having in that way done his bit, comes back and finds what he looked forward to as a feature in his short leave absolutely prevented by the Government of the day. I say, on behalf of the Food Minister, that those are points of view of the ordinary "Tommy" and of the ordinary workman which cannot be set aside by any argument, fundamental as it may be in itself, as to the great labour and cost and use of our shipping for this purpose. I would appeal to my hon. Friends not to press the view in this Amendment. If they do, I am certain, from pretty regular personal contact with the masses of the people who would be immediately affected, whose enjoyments are very limited indeed, whose luxuries are but few, and who look forward to their glass and pipe after the labour of the day is done, that you will be carrying this doctrine in war time too far. I ask the House to hesitate before taking a step which, if taken, would cause far greater trouble than it could possibly allay.
      Mr. McKINNON WOOD: We are accustomed to hearing discordant views from members of the Government, and I cannot help thinking that there is a startling contrast between the speech just delivered by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry, of Food, and the speeches which were delivered only a very few days ago to an assembly of farmers by the Food Controller and the Minister of Agriculture. In several of the speeches there has been a complete ignoring of the serious facts which confront the nation. I would appeal to the Government by quoting the words, which I must do from memory, of the Minister of Agriculture and of the Food Controller. Only a few days ago the Minister of Agriculture, addressing the farmers of the country, said that the next few months would be the most critical in the history of the nation. We were crossing, he said, the rapids, and unless we pulled together we should meet with disaster, and he warned the farmers that there were not foodstuffs to feed even the cows supplying milk for more than four months, and that after that time they must go on grass. And the Food Controller said in the most serious tones— and I think, from all I know of the facts, he was not exaggerating or talking in language of undue pessimism— that in four months the position of wheat would be very serious indeed. Those are the facts we start from. It is no use the hon. Member representing this as a question of teetotal cranks. It is a question of food supply. It is no use his bringing before us pictures of the soldier coming home and not being able to get intoxicants. The question is, when the soldier comes home, will he be able to get food?
      We had a Debate this afternoon which shows, I think, that agriculture is very well represented in this House, and, if I may say so, I think the case for agriculture was put with exceeding ability by speaker after speaker. But what fact emerged from that Debate? That all the representatives of agriculture were troubled about the feeding of animals. They thought the Food Controller was making a mistake about the feeding of pigs, and they put a case which, to my mind, was a very strong case. If you cannot afford to give barley to pigs, which, as representatives of agriculture pointed out this afternoon, in the shortest space of time produce the largest amount of useful food and fat, which is required especially for the young people of the country,

      423
      how can you afford to give it to the brewer's vat? That is the whole question. It is a question of our position. The Prime Minister put it very clearly, and my hon. Friend passed over the Prime Minister's remarks of a few months ago with a very cynical reference. He said you can find in the speeches of the Prime Minister statements to support any point, of view. I do not assent to that general remark. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is true!"] Why, if the Minister of Agriculture and the Food Controller are right, and if the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture is right when he told the people he had not food for more than one fowl out of twenty, this is not a question of choice; this is not a question of cranks or teetotalers; it is a question of food necessity, and I do not put it on any lower ground than that. One hon. Member opposite spoke of what had been' done in the United States and Canada. Another hon. Member spoke with doubt about what Germany had done. We know that last November Germany decided that the amount of barley to be given for malting should be reduced in Bavaria to 15 per cent. of the pre-war quantity, and in the rest of Germany to 10 per cent., and all the German papers are full of information that it is the intention of the German Government to stop the use of barley for beer altogether. Are we to be capable of less self-denial than our German opponents? That really is the question. Now what is the answer to it all? That you dare not propose it to the working classes. I dare say if things were as usual a great many of the working classes would object to the stopping or diminution of brewing. We are doing the very opposite to what the United States, Canada, Germany, and Austria are doing. We have been increasing the quantity of barley given for brewing this year. The Prime Minister laid down a standard of 10,000,000 barrels. The quantity has actually been 55 per cent. more than that. If you say to the working man, "Will you give up your beer?" I dare say he will say, "No." But if you say to him, on the authority of the Minister of Agriculture and on the authority of the Food Controller, that it is a question between food and drink— and for the life of me I cannot understand why in the world in the subdivisions of the present Government food and drink should be divorced from one another; why one man should control
      424
      cereals as applied to food and have nothing to say on the question of what proportion of the cereals should be given to drink— it seems to be an unfortunate division of authority— if, I say, you put it clearly and strongly to the working men of the country that this question is really a question as to whether we are to be short of cereals for food or whether by giving up beer or a proportion of beer— the hon. Gentleman did not suggest any reduction in the quantity; he said he had an open mind— I have no doubt what would be the answer of the working man. I have had a higher opinion than to suppose that the working man would prefer to the food of his wife, and children, and himself, the mere indulgence in a drink— which is unnecessary. It is not a question of teetotal fanaticism, it is a question of the shortage of food. For my part, I cannot help thinking that the figures given by the Shipping Controller as to twenty-nine ships of 5,000 tons making four voyages a year to carry the necessary quantity of grain for beer are figures we cannot afford to ignore, especially when we consider the sinking of ships this week, the figures being up again. It will not do if you tell the working men one thing one day and another thing the next, or different Ministers tell him different things. Tell him the facts. I accept the facts, which I think are correct, stated with all seriousness, and with a full sense of responsibility, by Lord Rhondda, and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture. If those facts are as stated, and we cannot afford to feed the pigs, or poultry, if you are going to be in a serious position in four months about wheat, then the answer from the Government Bench is not unsatisfactory. The House has a right to hope that the Government will take this matter into serious consideration, and follow the example of almost every other country engaged in the War, and reduce the quantity of cereals that are going to the production of alcoholic drink.
      Amendment negatived.
      Main Question again proposed.
      Mr. HOGGE: I beg to move—
      Mr. BONAR LAWrose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
      Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.
      Question put accordingly, and agreed to.
      Resolved,
      "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:—
      Most Gracious Sovereign,
      We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."
      To be presented by Privy Councillors and members of His Majesty's Household.

    SUPPLY.
    Resolved, "That this House will, upon Monday next, resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to His Majesty."— [Lord Edmund Talbot.]
    Ordered, That the several Estimates presented to this House during the present Session be referred to the Committee of supply.

    WAYS AND MEANS.
    Resolved, ''That this House will, upon Monday next, resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Ways and Means for raising the Supply to be granted to His Majesty." [Lord Edmund Talbot.]

    GOVERNMENT POLICY.
    Whereupon MR. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 13th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now Adjourn."
    Mr. HOGGE: I am sorry that the Leader of the House has not kept the agreement which I made with his party Whips. I was perfectly prepared to move the Amendment I had down on the Paper and to agree to finish my speech before eleven o'clock, and I rose at two minutes to eleven in order that my Amendment should be got on the Notes. The Leader of the House has frequently said that if hon. Members of this House are not satisfied with the Government the proper
    426
    course is to move a vote of "No confidence." I have no confidence that the Members of the Front Opposition Bench will ever move such a vote, for although yesterday they "got over the top," in speeches, in "No Man's Land" they sheltered themselves in the shell holes made by the Leader of the Opposition. I think the Leader of the Opposition will do me the credit of believing me when I say that I have never been afraid of stating my opinion regarding this Government. I have been prepared during the whole period of three days to move a Vote of "No confidence" in the present Government, because I do not believe in their capacity for making either peace or war. We have been discussing for three days a large number of Resolutions, all of which could have been included in one general vote of "No confidence." We have had a teetotal Debate for the last two hours which could easily have been raised on a general vote of "No confidence." It was not raised in that way, because the teetotal Members of this House are quite willing to wound the Government by an Amendment on a teetotal question, but are afraid to strike the Government when it comes to a question of voting against them. I believe in knowing where we are on subjects of this kind. I say quite frankly that I believe the present Government, from the Prime Minister downwards, are incompetent to make either war or peace.
    In the Debate on Tuesday the Prime Minister accused me of deliberate falsehood in this House. He said he was not a party to any communication from Downing Street to the Press of this country. I told him, and I repeat it now, that he was not telling the facts with regard to this matter, and it is a prevarication which can be proved. I challenge the Prime Minister, and I hope the Leader of the House of Commons will convey the challenge to him, to set up a small Committee of three Members of this House of Commons, and let those of us who know the journalists who have been to Downing Street, and have got the information, give evidence before the Committee, which shall report to the House of Commons whether or not it is true that these bits of information and this Press campaign did emanate from Downing Street. I am perfectly prepared to stake what public reputation I have— I think very little about that at all; it does not worry me at all— on an inquiry of

    427
    this sort, and that is the point I wish to raise. I do not mind arguments being against me, but I do mind Ministers in the House of Commons riding off on these side issues. If I had had an opportunity of getting in on the Address, I would have said certain things. I would have said that there is a great difference between the points of view which we must take up now and the point of view which we took up when we went into the War. When we went into the War it was absolutely necessary that there should be unity among the nations. At that time we all went to war for different reasons, and there was no time to consider all the various reasons that brought the whole of the people of this country into the War. But now that the War has developed to such an extent that it includes practically every nation in the civilised world. I think that we ought also to have regard to that second point, which is extraordinarily important, and that is whether policy now ought to supersede the question of unity. We as a nation must find out what is our best policy in dealing with this War, and whether we ought not to sacrifice to the question of policy the more superficial question of unity in regard to the War.
    Those of us who make this kind of criticism are frequently asked what we would do. I am perfectly prepared to tell my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House what I would do if I were in his place. It may, of course, be very presumptuous, but, after all, in this House hon. Members are never afraid to consider the views expressed by another hon. Member, whatever his political views, and we arrive at conclusions here by a general consensus of opinion. I will tell my right hon. Friend what I would do if I were in his place. I would give up telling falsehoods in public about the strength of our Army and our Navy. I would give up misleading the public on those points. I would, further, give up telling more falsehoods when we get into Secret Session of this House of Commons. I accuse— and I do it deliberately, because I raised these figures originally— I accuse the Prime Minister of deliberately misleading this House of Commons after he has misled the public outside on his figures. After all, this is our country, and out of the complexity of this War we all want our country to come strongest. We do not want to be handicapped in the future race, and I say that if I were
    428
    in the position of my right hon. Friend I would deliberately set about a policy— and I suggest it to him quite seriously— whereby I would ruthlessly comb out the Army on the Western Front until it contained, like the Army of Joshua, nothing but the most fit men for the purpose of fighting. I would release every other man for civilian and industrial work at home in order to build ships so that we might keep this country in food. Remembering what our small "contemptible" Army did in the early days of the war; remembering that it held up the advancing forces of the highest-trained troops in Europe, I would depend upon our modern Army, chosen in the way that I have suggested, sitting tight on the Western Front and preventing the Germans making any advance until the great power of the United States could be used against the Germans. Why should this country go on sacrificing its men, and its money, and its material while there are other great civilised Powers in the world who are professing to help us? In all conscience we have done enough! We have served the cause of civilisation enough, and we want a policy by which our men and our country can be protected. It may not be the right policy. I do not claim it, but it might be. I put it forward as my policy, the ruthless combing-out of the Army, so that the German forces might be held on the Western Front until the forces of the United States are prepared to come in. I say I his deliberately, although I am not a military man— there are military men in this House who can say what they think of the opinion— that if we are to depend on a purely military decision in this War, this War may last for ten, fifteen, or twenty years. Now this Government to-day is putting all its money upon the military decision. That is proved by what is going on outside this House at this precise moment. I am quite certain that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House of Commons could not say to-night whether Sir William Robertson will be at the War Office in the morning. Everybody knows what is happening outside the walls of this Chamber. Everybody knows the kind of offers that have been made to the man who is in charge, who happens to be a Scotsman, and who happens to have this view of the situation— that if the Government do not like him they have to dismiss him. He considered himself competent enough for the work he is asked to do. If the Government do not think him competent the only way they can

    429
    get rid of him is by dismissing him, which means that the Government is pinning all its attention on a purely military decision. I think that is wrong. When you look at the conquests of Germany in this War— and, after all, we have to face the facts— they have all brought material benefit to the German Empire. They have the coal mines, they have the granary of Europe, and everything that will help them to fight us. Every conquest that we have made— glorious as the military achievement has been in getting them— has been a burden to the country.
    Colonel Sir R. WILLIAMS: No!
    Mr. HOGGE: Yes— Palestine, Mesopotamia.
    Sir R. WILLIAMS: What about the Colonies?
    Mr. HOGGE: My hon. Friend again knows it to be so. Because of these things our great Navy and mercantile marine is so being used that we are not getting the food supplies for this country that we might otherwise get. I am not objecting. I am glad that we have done it. I am saying that they are a burden to us, and that Germany's acquisitions in that sense are not a burden to them. Germany has got the granaries to supply them with food and the coal mines to supply them with coal. Our military achievements are actually weakening our position. Take the personnel of this Government. There is the Leader of the House of Commons. Incidentally, as a critic who perhaps has annoyed him as much as anybody in the House, I pay my tribute to him for the way in which he attends to the House of Commons. He is always prepared to meet us half-way. Take the speech which he made the other night on the alternative vote. He said that he and his Friends went into the Division Lobby because it was purely a party issue. Well, we Liberals—
    Sir G. YOUNGER: Did the same thing!
    Mr. HOGGE: My hon. Friend who, like myself, is a Scottish Member, says that we did the same thing. He is quite right about the fighting members of the Liberal party, but he will also know that the Liberal members of this Administration, which he supports, did not go into the Lobby in favour of the Liberal side of this Division. If he wants the names I will give them. If the members of this
    430
    Administration who are drawing out of the same pool as the Leader of the House of Commons had gone into their Lobby, the Liberals would have had a majority of twenty-one in that particular vote. I do not think that the Leader of the House of Commons had any business to be thinking during the War of a party subject. He is a member of the War Cabinet. This War Cabinet should get its collar down either to the making of war or the making of peace. That is the burden of my complaint. The Leader of the House of Commons has done sentry-go in this House while a so-called Liberal, who is Prime Minister at the moment, has carried on this War. I could make a long speech if I wanted about the folly and incompetence of our present Prime Minister. He came into power promising this country victory and success. He came into power to do things now. He has given us neither victory nor success. He has given us 1s. 3d. worth of meat a week, ½lb. of sugar, and 2 ozs. of margarine. This has been the achievement of the present Minister who presides over the destinies of this country. But what I should have liked would have been to come to grips with this Government. I think we want a new Government, a smaller Government, with fewer men in it, and with the one thought in their mind all the day, and all the week, and all the time, that either we must make war successfully, or we must bring this country out on terms of peace which are an advantage to it. They want to comb out all the Departments, they want to strafe all the hotels. This country is to-day in the hands of the policeman who used to direct the traffic, but who to-day directs the domestic lives of the people of this country. If the Government would get down to that that would be the business, and they would get the support of intelligent Liberals in this House instead of the support of the Front Opposition Bench. [Laughter.] The House laughs, but after all this is a tremendously serious thing. This country has spent a lot of money and has lost a lot of lives, and many on the Front Bench have lost the lives of the people they cared for most in the world. We have got to get out of this. What I feel at the moment is that there is too much of the policy of drift in the Government, who do not know where they are going. You have got the irony of this situation, that the Government which came in on the policy of "Do it now" is

    431
    waiting and seeing at this moment. That is the trouble. We are told that Russia is out of the War. Everyone says Russia is out of the war. Is Russia out of the War? I suggest, in all seriousness, that Russia is not out of this War, and that if this country is thrown into antagonism to the Revolution in Russia, Germany, through Russia, may, on the policy of self-determination, attempt to set up new buffer States between Russia and India as the result of the policy which we also largely adhere to at the moment. One sees the kind of exhibition that went on yesterday from the Foreign Secretary. We have all witnessed many scenes in this House, but the one we witnessed yesterday reminded most of us of the days when we were at a public school and used to go paper-chasing. It is that kind of thing that makes me feel that the present Government has not got a grip. I am quite sure it has not got it.
    The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cleveland told us yesterday that there were ninety-one members of the present Government. I do not know how we can recognise them. I suggest to the Leader of the House that he might suggest to the ninety-one members of the Government that they should wear a brassard so that we might know them when we came up against them in the House of Commons. In the half-hour on the Adjournment Motion one cannot develop an argument, and I should have liked on the Address to
    432
    get really to grips. Either this Government possesses the confidence of the country or it does not. I have no wish for people to get up in this House and say it does not who are not prepared to test it. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will do me this amount of credit, that I will test it at any time he likes, even though there are only the two Tellers in the opposite Division Lobby. I am sick to death in this House to see leaders of progressive opinion who continually contend that this Government does not retain the confidence of the country and who ride off on all sorts of Amendments to the Address to the King. Let us take the gloves off. If the Opposition mean business let them take the gloves off and fight the Government. This Government ought to be fought. I believe it is the most incompetent Government that ever sat within these walls, with the laudable exception of the Leader of the House, who always meets the House quite fairly. That is why I should have liked the opportunity to move an Amendment directly challenging the policy of this Government. I believe I am only the harbinger, and that in a few months we shall have got rid of this Government and be on the road either to a successful military victory or to a settlement which will bring peace and contentment to this country.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-four minutes after Eleven o'Clock, till Monday next, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 13th February.