Commons Sitting of 12 June 1918

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the CHAIR.
BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES.
Copy presented of Agricultural Statistics, 1917, Vol. LII., Part II., Return of Produce of Crops in England and Wales, with Summaries for the United Kingdom [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
Copy presented of Report of the Indian Wheat Committee for 1915 and 1916 [by Command; to lie upon the Table.
ARMY.
Copy presented of Rules for Military Detention Barracks and Military Prisons. Amendments [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.
    INDIA.

      ARMY CONDITIONS.
      1. Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for India whether any and, if so, what material improvements have been effected in the position of Indian officers and Indian men of the Indian Army since the commencement of the War; whether any statement relative to this matter was laid by the Commander-in-Chief in India; and, if so, whether the substance of such statement will be made public in the United Kingdom?
      THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. Montagu): Since the beginning of the War the following improvements in
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      the conditions of service of Indian officers and Indian soldiers have been made:

      (1) Free rations have been given to all ranks.

      (2) Field service batta has been in creased.

      (3) Special allowances have been granted for service in certain fields of operations outside India.

      (4) The scale of pensions and the conditions on which they are granted have been improved.

      (5) Sanction has been given for a large number of rewards for distinguished war service, in the form of land grants or special pensions

      (6) The pay of ranks above sepoy or sowar has been increased, and a bonus given to recruits on joining.

      I am not aware of any statement that has been laid by the Commander-in-Chief on the matter, but if my hon. Friend has any information on the subject I should be glad if he would communicate it to me.
      Sir J. D. REES: May I ask if I am right in supposing that these are very considerable improvements which my right hon. Friend has enumerated?
      Mr. MONTAGU: Yes; they are very considerable improvements in the Service on the conditions obtaining in the first days of the War.

      EMIGRATION.
      2. Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for India whether any change is contemplated in the existing system of free emigration of labour from India to Malaya and Ceylon; and whether all interests concerned will have full opportunities of making representations before any change is introduced into a system which works to the satisfaction of all actually concerned?
      Mr. MONTAGU: No material change in the system has been proposed, but suggestions for removing certain defects in. the working are under consideration.

      EAST INDIA REVENUE ACCOUNTS.
      3. Mr. CHARLES ROBERTSasked the Secretary of State for India whether he can arrange this year for a discussion on the Indian Budget?
      9. Sir J. D. REESasked the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the fact that no statutory obligation exists

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      for the discussion, of the East India Revenue Accounts, he will abstain from arranging that such a discussion shall take place until after his proposals relative to the future constitution and administration of the Government of India have been laid before Parliament?
      Mr. MONTAGU: Perhaps my hon. Friends will address their questions to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.

      SANITARY COMMISSIONER.
      4. Mr. HOGGEasked the Secretary of State for India whether it is contemplated appointing Major Norman White to the post of Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India or whether the appointment is strictly temporary; whether it is the practice to appoint anyone not holding a diploma in public health; and whether there are already in India many men holding such diplomas who are senior in service to Major White?
      Mr. MONTAGU: Major Norman White's appointment as Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India is temporary and provisional, and will not prejudice the claims of other officers, which will be duly considered when the time comes to fill the post substantively. In making this arrangement the. Government of India have necessarily had regard to the restrictions at present placed on their liberty of choice by the demands of the War on the personnel of their medical service.
      Mr. HOGGE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why when there are so many sanitary commissioners in India who are qualified, this man, who does not hold the degree necessary, has obtained the temporary appointment?
      Mr. MONTAGU: I do not think my hon. Friend will doubt Major Norman White's general qualifications, but this was simply to fill a gap pending the appointment of somebody to hold it permanently. The part with which my hon. Friend is really concerned is the prospects of the other officers. I have an assurance from the Government of India that their rights are in no way prejudiced.
      Mr. HOGGE: Will my right hon. Friend say that Major White's appointment will not be confirmed, seeing that he does not hold the one necessary qualification, a diploma?
      Mr. MONTAGU: I cannot say he does not hold the necessary qualification. All I say is that he has not been permanently appointed, and no permanent appointment will be made without the consideration of other persons.
      Mr. HOGGE: I will raise this question on the Estimates.

      REFORMS (REPORT TO WAR CABINET).
      5. Sir HERBERT ROBERTSasked the Secretary of State for India whether he is in a position to make any further statement in regard to the Report submitted to the War Cabinet with reference to the proposals for the reform of the Government of India?
      Mr. MONTAGU: The Viceroy and I have embodied our proposals for carrying out the decision of His Majesty's Government of August last in the form of a Report to the War Cabinet. It will be remembered that in the August announcement it was stated that ample opportunity would be afforded for public discussion of the proposals, which would be submitted in due course to Parliament. Owing to their heavy pre-occupation with the immediate work of the War, the Government have not yet been able to consider the Report and to formulate their conclusions upon the proposals contained in it. But they have decided that it shall be presented to Parliament as soon as sufficient copies are available in India and here, so as to afford the opportunity for public discussion promised in the August announcement, and so that, in coming to their final decision, the Government may have the advantage of considering any suggestions to which its publication may give rise.
      Sir H. ROBERTS: Can my right hon. Friend state approximately when this Report will be issued, and whether, when it is issued, an opportunity will be afforded this House to discuss it?
      Mr. MONTAGU: I think, approximately, it wilt be published at the end of this month. As regards the other question of my hon. Friend, perhaps when the Report is published he will renew his question to the Leader of the House.
      Sir J. D. REES: Is it not clear that it would be far better to defer any general discussion such as arises on the East India Revenue Accounts—commonly called the Budget—until after a discussion on these proposals can take place in this House?
      Mr. MONTAGU: That is a matter for the Leader of the House and the House itself to decide, but I should have thought a discussion on Indian affairs would be more useful after rather than before the publication of this Report.

      ARMY PAY (CHILDREN'S ALLOWANCES).
      6. Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for India, whether the Grant of children's allowances extended to officers of the British Army serving in India has been equally extended to officers of the Indian Army serving in India?
      Mr. MONTAGU: The question of the extension of children's allowances to officers of the Indian Army is still under the consideration of the Government of India. I hope to receive their recommendations shortly.

      POLICE (PAY).
      7. Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for India what steps have been taken by the Government of India to in crease the pay of the Indian police, both British and Indian; and whether any in creases that have been given in any way cover the extra cost of living now entailed on the police by War prices?
      Mr. MONTAGU: Increases of pay have been sanctioned within the past two and a half years in most provinces for the lower grades of the Indian police, and a time scale was sanctioned early in the War by way of relief to European officers. I am unable to say precisely how far the increases of pay which have been given cover the extra cost of living. Those granted to the lower ranks no doubt to a great extent do so. Local governments have also a general power to grant compensatory allowances to lower-paid officials in all departments when food prices exceed certain limits.
      Colonel YATE: Is there any prospect of this matter being seriously taken into consideration in view of the very low pay of the Indian police throughout the whole service?
      Mr. MONTAGU: The question of the pay of Indian police will be taken into consideration when the Report of the Public Services Commission is received.
      Colonel YATE: Not before?
      Mr. MONTAGU: It is being considered now. The Government of India is corresponding with the local governments on
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      the subject. I cannot say how soon their recommendations will be received, but I will inquire.

      HOME AND INDIAN CIVIL SERVICES.
      8. Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for India if he can say what are the rules as regards pay and allowances under which the services of members of the Indian Civil Service are placed at the disposal of the War Office; whether these rules differ in any way from the rules under which the services of members of the Home and Colonial Civil Services are placed at the disposal of the War Office; and, if so, what is the difference.
      Mr. MONTAGU: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 21st November last to the hon. Member for Oxford, of which I am sending him a copy, and in which the difference between the arrangements for the Homo and Indian Civil Services were stated. I understand that for Colonial Civil servants the same arrangements have been adopted as for Home Civil servants.

      ALIEN SHIPS (CLYDE NAVIGATION).
      11. Colonel Sir FREDERICK HALLasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether officers and sailors arc allowed to pass freely up and down the Clyde and to have access to the harbour and dock works in the neighbourhood of Glasgow; and if, in view of the important naval works in progress there and of the desirability of withholding information as to sailings to and from that port, which might reach the enemy through neutral sources, he will consider the possibility of arranging that neutral vessels shall be placed under British control in the lower reaches of the river, and a strict limitation kept upon the freedom and movement of such crews while in the Clyde district?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): I have made the local inquiry promised, and find that alien ships are subjected to strict examination before entering the Clyde. On arrival in dock they are guarded, and no one is allowed to land without a permit. Alien supervision has lately been tightened in the Clyde district, and the question of placing the vessels under British control while on passage up and down the Clyde is under consideration.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    WIDOW'S SOLE REMAINING SON.
    12. Mr. JOWETTasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to a petition, sent to the Admiralty on 15th October last, requesting the transference of Stoker Harry Leatt, of H.M.S. "—" to some form of Home service or his discharge for work of national importance on the ground that he is the sole remaining son of a widow who has already lost three sons in the War, one killed in action, one died of wounds, and one died of black-water fever in East Africa, and whose husband died in consequence of a breakdown caused by the loss of three of his four sons, whilst she is herself broken in health by reason of her fourfold bereavement and by the fear of losing her last remaining son; and, having regard to the fact that Mrs. Leatt's health is not likely to be restored so long as the fear of losing her last remaining son possesses her, he will have the petition reconsidered with a view to the request therein contained being granted?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The petition referred to by my hon. Friend was received by the Admiralty, and a reply was sent on the 20th October to the effect that the man himself should make application through his commanding officer in the usual Service manner. No further communication on the matter has been received at the Admiralty.

    POSTAL CHARGES.
    13. Sir. F. HALLasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any representations have been made by the Board of Admiralty, either to the War Cabinet, the Treasury, or the Post Office concerning the disadvantage which men in the Navy suffer in consequence of their being required to bear the cost of letters which they may send to their relatives and friends; and, if so, what were the reasons adduced for penalising men in the Navy in this manner?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes, Sir; with the result that the penny rate still applies to letters written by sailors from any ship in the Navy, whether in home waters or abroad, and from any foreign depot. Letters written from home depots and home depot ships have to pay the new
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    l½d. rate. Compared with the Army postage rates, this arrangement leaves the balance in favour of the Navy, compared with the Army at home; but, on the other hand, against the Navy, compared with the Army abroad.
    Mr. HOGGE: Can my right hon. Friend tell us how those of us who have friends in the Navy can determine when a ship is in or out of home waters, seeing that all letters must go "care of the G.P.O."?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I observe that my hon. Friend asked that question of the Postmaster-General on the 3rd June. I assume the General Post Office have a confidential statement from us to enable them to determine where the ships are.
    Mr. ROWLANDS: Do the Admiralty really intend to make representations with a view to putting sailors on active service on an absolute equality with the soldiers?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: As regards the sailor in foreign depots, he is in the same position. But remember that the soldier abroad on garrison duty has to pay his 1d. It is the soldier with the British Expeditionary Force who can send letters home free, and if the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Postmaster-General are prepared to agree to that I cannot imagine the Board of Admiralty raising any objection.
    Commander BELLAIRS: Have the Board of Admiralty addressed any representations to the Postmaster-General and the Treasury asking for sailors to be put on an equal footing with members of the other Service?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: No. When the new rates were proposed we did make representations for the claims of sailors to be recognised, but, as to the rest, I will put before the Board the opinion expressed by hon. Members that the sailor should be in exactly the same position as a member of the British Expeditionary Force.
    Sir F. HALL: Will the right hon. Gentleman press that without any further delay?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I have just said I will bring the matter before the Board.
    General Sir IVOR PHILIPPS: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will do that without pressure from this House.

  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
  14. Mr. SNOWDENasked the Secretary to the Admiralty if he can state why no reply has been sent to two letters sent to the Accountant-General for the Navy, 4a, Newgate Street, E.C., by the mother of Percy Mitchell, A.B., No. 14 Mess, His Majesty's ship "Erin," with regard to the mother's allowance due to her on account of her son having made the extra grant; and will attention be immediately given to the matter?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: The allowance referred to is the allotment concession, a benefit which the seaman can retain for himself or can allow to his dependants. Mitchell wished his mother to receive the extra grant, and authority for payment has now been issued. As regards the omission to reply to two letters on this subject, which I regret, I must explain that over 200,000 individual cases were affected by the introduction of this particular concession, and in some cases considerable delay in authorising the necessary increase of allowances and in dealing with the resultant correspondence has been unavoidable. It was, in fact, specially pointed out in the Order to the Fleet on this subject that, in view of the work involved, delay was unfortunately to be anticipated.
  61. Mr. JOWETTasked the Pensions Minister, concerning Private J. H. M'Laren, late No. 11080, 11th Service Battalion, Duke of Wellington's Regiment, who was shot through the shoulder and, after being eight and nine months in hospital, was discharged from the Army on 29th April, 1916, and is now in receipt of 12s. a week pension altogether for him self, wife, and his three children, whether he is aware that during the first eight months after his discharge, although he was then and has ever since been totally unfit for any work that has been available to him, M'Laren's pension was 24s. 9d. a week altogether for himself, wife, and his three children, and that when this amount was afterwards reduced to 19s. 6d. for himself, wife, and three children, M'Laren was driven by the insufficiency of his pension to accept the only work he could get, and, in consequence, he fell from a ladder whilst cleaning windows in the course of his employment when he had only effective use of one arm; if he is aware that, as the result of this accident, M'Laren
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  is permanently crippled and cannot move without the aid of two crutches; and whether, having regard to all the facts of the case, he will reconsider his decision, which is, in effect, a denial that M'Laren's pension was insufficient to represent the extent of disability prior to the accident?
  The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Mr. Hodge): I regret that I have not yet completed my inquiries into this matter. Perhaps the hon. Member will be good enough to put his question down again in a few days' time.
  39 and 40. Captain BARNETTasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office (1) if he is now in a position to state whether the consolidated family allowance payable in the case of married soldiers living at home is in effect separation allowance plus 7s. per week for the keep of the soldier; if so, what steps are being taken to increase the allowance or, alternatively, to issue rations instead of the said 7s.;(2) whether, as from 1st May, the ration allowance payable to single men and to married men separated from their wives has been increased by 4d. per diem; and, if so, why no corresponding increase has been, granted to married soldiers living at home?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): The increase of family allowance to cover the increased cost of the ration is under consideration, and I hope very shortly to be in a position to announce a decision.
  45. Mr. HOGGEasked the Prime Minister what decision has been reached about the payment of separation allowances on a better basis to the dependants of apprentices who have not yet since the outbreak of war been able to establish a claim that satisfies the practice of local war pension committees?
  Mr. FORSTER: My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. I have nothing to add to the answer which I gave on Wednesday last to the hon. Member for West Fife.
  Mr. HOGGE: May I ask the Leader of the House, to whom this question was put, and who asked that it should be postponed, whether he is aware that when the Pension Estimate was discusser, the Pensions Minister and the whole House expressed a desire that this reform should be granted, and whether the Government

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  intend to do anything in regard to this matter? Will the right hon. Gentleman answer?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): I cannot answer, as I have not looked into it.
  Mr. HOGGE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware I put it last week? He asked me to postpone it in order that he could look into it.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The hon. Gentleman is mistaken. I asked him to postpone it in order that it might be looked into. I did not undertake to look into it, but I will do so.
  46. Mr. HOGGEasked the Prime Minister what further evidence he yet requires to be satisfied that the separation allowances paid to wives and dependants of serving men is inadequate to their needs; whether his objection to raising the same is a Treasury objection; and whether he is prepared to provide an opportunity on the Vote of Credit for discussing the same?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I think that it would be more convenient to deal in Debate with the points raised in the question, and, if hon. Members desire, the subject can be discussed in connection with the Vote of Credit next week.
  Mr. HOGGE: Will the right hon. Gentleman give us an opportunity of debating this particular subject?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: It does not depend on me; it depends on the House of Commons. I shall be glad to.

  RUSSIA.

    ALLIED INTERVENTION.
    15. Mr. LEES-SMITHasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will say whether an agreement has been reached between the United States and the Allies regarding non-intervention in Russian affairs; and whether it has been decided to give Russia the widest economic help?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Balfour): There is no truth in the report that an agreement has been reached to abstain from intervention in Russia. We are, of course, anxious to give Russia economic assistance.
    Mr. KING: Can the right hon. Gentleman go further, and state that there is complete accord between our Government and President Wilson in regard to policy towards Russia?
    Mr. BALFOUR: The hon. Gentleman has gone a good deal further than the question on the Paper.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: May I ask if the United States and the Allies are in sympathy with the intervention of Japan?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should put that question down.

  AUSTRIA AND MONTENEGRO.
  16. Mr. RICHARD LAMBERTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any secret treaty between Austria and Montenegro is know to the Foreign Office; and, if so, what are its terms?
  Mr. BALFOUR: The Montenegrin Government have officially denied the report which has been current in some quarters to the effect that a secret understanding was entered into with Austria-Hungary in 1915.
  Mr. KING: Does that refer to the Montenegrin Government in France or to the Montenegrin Government in Montenegro?
  Mr. BALFOUR: I cannot go into those subtleties.

  VATICAN (CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION).
  17 Captain CARR-GOMMasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any further communications have taken place between the Government and the Vatican on the subject of immunity from aerial attack; whether he is in a position to state that no religious procession took place in Cologne on the feast of Corpus Christi; and, if so, whether the Vatican has explained why this was so?
  Mr. BALFOUR: The reply to all parts of the question is in the negative.

  MILITARY SERVICE.

    ARMY PAY CORPS (YORK).
    19. Mr. HOGGEasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether 50

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    per cent. of the men in the Army Pay Corps at York graded 3 have now been passed B1 or A; and whether, in view of the salutary improvement in health of such occupations, it is the intention of the War Office to use the Army Pay Corps for such purposes in future?
    Mr. FORSTER: Unfortunately, the hon. Member is misinformed. The proportion of men in these offices raised to Grades A and B is very small. Out of a total of some 850 Grade-3 clerks, only two have been raised to A and thirty-two to B 1.
    Mr. HOGGE: If I give the right hon. Gentleman the names of the men, will he look into it?
    Mr. FORSTER: If my hon. Friend is able to satisfy me that something like 400 clerks have been raised from Grade 3 to B 1 or A, I shall be very much surprised.

    OVERSEAS SERVICE.
    24. Colonel DU PREasked the Under secretary of State for War whether he will take steps to ensure that voluntarily enlisted or attested men who are over military age, as defined by the Military Service Act, 1918, will not be sent abroad except with their own consent?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson): I regret that I am unable to give any pledge or undertaking in regard to the maximum age above which a man will not be drafted abroad?
    25. Colonel DUPREasked the Under secretary of State for War whether he is aware that non-commissioned officers of fifty-four years of age who voluntarily reenlisted in 1914 as instructors for home service only are now being medically examined and drafted abroad; and whether he will state under what Regulation or Army Council Instruction this is being done?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: There is no intention to draft abroad any noncommissioned officers or men whose terms of enlistment are for home service only, provided that they do not come under the Military Service Acts.
    26. Mr. KINGasked the Under secretary of State for War whether special instructions have been recently given under which certain Home service companies, composed of men in categories B 2 and B 3, have been examined by a special medical board, and, while their
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    categories remain unchanged, are placed in three classes, namely, Class 1 for frontline trenches, Class 2 for second-line trenches, and Class 3 for digging, etc., in France; whether this policy has included the official announcement that all men. so classified are to be vaccinated, inoculated, and sent on draft leave; whether arms and equipment have been issued to.some of these men, who arc quite untrained with rifle, and, by reason of wounds, physical disability, or mental deficiency, incapable of effective service in the front lines; and whether, in view of the anxiety caused by this policy, he can make a reassuring statement?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: The particulars given by my hon. Friend are inaccurate. The examination and classification to which, it is presumed, he refers, represent the usual procedure for the periodical review of soldiers serving at home to ascertain whether they can be utilised on duties better suited to their physical condition. The Army Council are taking every reasonable precaution to ensure that men will be utilised on duties for which they are fitted.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Do I understand then that medical boards only require men of the higher classes who are really fitted for this work to do it?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I have no information to the contrary. If my hon. Friend will mention any specific case, I shall be glad to look into it.

    CASE UNDER INQUIRY.
    29. Sir F. HALLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Private P. G. Gumming, No. 615696, joined the 19th London Regiment at Winchester a little over a year ago, went out to France in 1917, and on arriving at the base was examined by a medical board and marked permanently unfit; that he was then sent to No. 46 Prisoners of War Company and, being unable to carry on with the work, was admitted to No. 5 General Hospital suffering from valvular disease of the heart, rheumatics, anæemia, and ulcers on the right thigh; whether from there he was transferred to the East Leeds War Hospital, and was afterwards sent to Ledston Convalescent Camp, was discharged from there unfit and marked Command Depot; that he was then transferred to the London Command Depot at Shoreham; that he was examined by the senior medical officer and marked never

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    likely to become A or B; that at a subsequent medical board he was marked B 3; and, considering that this soldier is only able to do very light fatigue duties, such as picking up waste paper round the camp, and considering that previous to joining the Colours he was managing clerk to a firm of solicitors, will he consider the desirability of either discharging this man or utilising him as a clerk in the Demobilisation Department, Records Department, or some such similar occupation where the State could get some benefit from his services?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I am making inquiries, and will write to my hon. and gallant Friend as soon as possible.

    DISCHARGE CERTIFICATE.
    32. Mr. ANDERSONasked what is the nature of discharge certificate B2070; whether men in possession of this certificate are liable for military service; and whether discharged men in possession of certificate E511 are liable for further service?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of NATIONAL SERVICE (Mr. Beck): My light hon. Friend has asked me to reply. I would refer the hon. Member to the very full answer which I gave to the hon. Member for East Edinburgh on 5th June. I may add that certificate E511 is given to Territorials on their discharge, and corresponds to B2070, which is issued to men of the.Regular Forces.

    RECRUITS (DUBLIN).
    38. General McCALMONTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether the military authorities in Ireland have authorised any statement to be issued as to the number of recruits recently raised in the city and county of Dublin; and, if so, will he state what are the figures?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: From the inquiries which it has been possible to make in the time available, it appears that no such statement as that mentioned has been authorised or issued by the military authorities in Ireland.
    General McCALMONT: Are we to understand that the statement issued last week was not only unauthorised, but incorrect?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: I am not sure about its incorrectness. but I can say it was not authorised by the military authorities.

    MANUFACTURING COAL SUPPLIES.
    66. Mr. SMALLWOODasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware of the fact that a further call up of coal carmen, loaders, and wharfmen for military service has been made, notwithstanding the arrangement recently arrived at to retain all existing men engaged in this work of national importance; is he also aware that these men cannot be replaced, and that in consequence coal supplies for manufacturing and all other purposes are seriously jeopardised; and will he say what action, if any, ho proposes to take?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Wardle): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to this question on 10th June.

    BERMONDSEY LOCAL TRIBUNAL.
    85. Mr. ALBION RICHARDSONasked the Minister of National Service whether Mr. Davis, who has been adopted as a Parliamentary candidate for Bermondsey, is still acting as the National Service representative at the Bermondsey local tribunal; and., if so, whether he will take immediate steps to terminate his appointment?
    Mr. BECK: Mr. Davis, having become, as slated, a prospective candidate for Parliament for Bermondsey. has been transferred to Battersea.

    EXEMPTIONS.
    86. Captain STARKEYasked what percentage of men from nineteen to twenty-three years of age previously holding exemptions but rendered liable to service by the clean cut have boon called up from industrial work and from agriculture, respectively; whether fresh exemptions have been granted to those not called up by any authorities other than the tribunals; and, if so, by what authorities?
    Mr. BECK: I regret I have not the information at my command which would permit of my ascertaining the percentage referred to by the hon. Member. In agricultural cases certain men have received exemptions from Appeal Tribunals under the Proclamations; and in war work of an industrial character some men in certain

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    occupations essential to the War have not at present been called up, but no fresh exemptions have been given to them.

    MEDICAL BOARDS.
    87. Mr. PRINGLEasked whether any fresh instructions or circulars have been issued to medical boards either generally or to boards in particular areas; and, if so, whether he will lay these instructions upon the Table of the House?
    Mr. BECK: As I have already stated in my answer on the 10th June to the hon. and learned Member for Ealing, instructions were issued that medical boards might be reduced to three and in case of great emergency even to two, although it has not been necessary to adopt the latter course. It would, I think, be wasteful to print for general circulation the suggestions made to the boards by the National Service Medical Department, but I shall be happy to have typewritten copies placed in the Library, where they will be available for Members. My right hon. Friend the Minister of National Service notes by the Question Paper that there is some anxiety concerning certain medical gradings. He has, therefore, asked me to make arrangements convenient to Members interested for my right hon. Friend to meet them in a Committee Room upstairs, when he will be happy fully to explain the system adopted and to answer questions. Perhaps Monday afternoon would be convenient.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Will the Minister of National Service make a statement in the House on this subject, so that it may be available to the public?
    Mr. BECK: My right hon. Friend would be delighted to do so on the proper occasion, perhaps next week on the Vote of Credit, should the House so desire.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Is this new policy the result of the appointment to the control of the medical boards of an officer who was recently condemned by the Mesopotamia Commission?
    Mr. BECK: I do not know to what officer the hon. Member refers.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Is this his policy?
    Mr. BECK: There is no such officer in the service of the Ministry of National Service.
    Mr. P. A. HARRIS: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is a strong feeling outside as to secret instructions issued to
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    these boards, and can they be made public in order that we may understand the procedure?
    Mr. BECK: There are no secret instructions?
    Mr. HARRIS: There are!
    Mr. BECK: This morning I looked through a few files of detailed and almost scrappy suggestions sent out to the medical boards by the Medical Department, and I am going to lay a pile of these in the Library of the House of Commons for hon. Members to see. There is nothing secret about them, and they are mainly suggestions. The official instructions have all been published and they have not been varied in any particular.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Will my hon. Friend see that these instructions are placed in the Library before the discussion on this subject takes place on the Vote of Credit?
    Mr. BECK: Certainly!

    J. HENRY SCHROEDER AND COMPANY.
    89. Mr. GILBERTasked the Minister of National Service if he will state how many exemptions from military service are held by partners and employés of J. Henry Schroeder and Company, of 146, Leaden- hall Street, E. C.; whether any are held by personal servants of Baron Bruno von Schroeder, Frank Cyril Tiarks, or Julius Rittershaussen of the said firm; and, if so, will he state the terms and conditions thereof?
    Mr. BECK: I am informed that the only person holding exemption from military service in the firm of Messrs. Schroeder and Company is Mr. Rittershaussen, who is thirty-nine years of age, category C 3, and who holds a conditional exemption from the City Tribunal. As regards the latter part of his question, I have no information, but on receiving fuller particulars from the hon. Member I will be prepared to make inquiries.

    CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
    90. Mr. SNOWDENasked the Minister of National Service if the prosecution of Mr. Joseph Stopps, who was recently fined £25 or three months' imprisonment at Leamington for refusing to submit to medical examination, was ordered by or carried out with his approval; if so, whether he is aware that Mr. Stopps had appealed for exemption on conscientious grounds and was given throe months'

    2191
    exemption because he was doing work of national importance in the meanwhile; and whether, in view of his replies that conscientious objectors who were doing work of national importance were not called upon for medical examination, he will take stops to have this prosecution and the penalty annulled?
    Mr. BECK: I have no information on this case, but inquiries are being made, and I will inform the hon. Member of the result.

  PRISONERS OF WAR.

    SANITARY LABOUR IN INTERNMENT CAMPS.
    20. Colonel BURNasked the Undersecretary of State for War if he has issued an order forbidding British labour to empty the cesspools for German prisoners at Stoke Poges Camp while our prisoners in German camps have to look after their own sanitary arrangements" themselves?
    37. Brigadier-General McCALMONTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to a protest made by the Eton Rural District Council against being called upon to make provision for the clearance of the cesspools of a prisoners of war internment camp; and whether he will explain why these particular German prisoners are not called upon to perform this duty for them selves?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: Inquiries are being made, and I will communicate with my hon. and gallant Friends as soon as possible.

  MADSEN GUN.
  21 and 93. General Sir IVOR PHILIPPSasked (1) the Under-Secretary of State for War whether steps have been taken to secure the rights in the Madsen gun for this country; (2) the Minister of Munitions whether he can give the House any information regarding the policy of the Government as to the introduction of the Madsen gun into the British Army?
  Mr. MACPHERSON: I am afraid that I can add nothing at present to the answers which have already been given regarding this gun, but I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that the matter is being closely investigated. The reply to the first question is in the negative.
  Sir I. PHILIPPS: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the only answers we have had in this House have been to say that nothing can be done about the Madsen gun, and this question was put down to elicit from the right Ron. Gentleman an answer as to the policy of the Government on this matter? I think we are entitled to an answer.
  Mr. MACPHERSON: I quite agree with my hon. and gallant Friend. I was referring to the Debate that took place in another place the other day, when a statement was made by the representative of the Ministry of Munitions.
  Sir I. PHILIPPS: On a point of Order, Sir. In this House I asked a question of the Minister of Munitions, a member of the Government, who has this matter in hand, and he gave me a definite answer that nothing was being done. A junior official in that Department in another place gives an entirely different and equally unsatisfactory statement as to the position of the Madsen gun. I submit to you, Sir, that this House should not have to go across the passage to get information on matters concerning the War, and I submit respectfully that the Undersecretary for War or the Minister of Munitions ought to be able to answer the question, especially if they have decided what is to be the policy of the Government in this important matter.
  Mr. SPEAKER: There is no point of Order in that for me to rule upon. It was a very interesting speech, but the hon. and gallant Gentleman ought to have reserved it for a suitable occasion.
  Mr. MACPHERSON: I can tell the hon. and gallant Member what was the gist of the speech in the other House. This gun is to have a new trial, under the auspices of the Ministry of Munitions, the Air Ministry, and the War Office, on Friday, I think.
  Sir I. PHILIPPS: Will my right hon. Friend carefully consider the precedent of the Stokes gun; is he aware that in that case the military officers said the gun was useless; and is he aware that the Ministry of Munitions ordered those guns?
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Member must really give notice of some of those questions.
  Sir C. HOBHOUSEasked the Under-Secretary of State for

  2193
  War whether the trial of the Madsen gun which he has announced to-day is to take place in France or in this country?
  Mr. MACPHERSON: It is to take place in this country.
  Colonel Sir H. GREENWOOD: Will the trial of this gun, which already has been tried by most of the machine-gun experts in this country and favourably reported on, take place in the presence of those who have fired this gun and also fired other guns like the Lewis gun and the Hotchkiss gun, which many think should be replaced or largely superseded by the Madsen gun?
  Mr. MACPHERSONindicated assent.
  Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Will the right hon. Gentleman give us a report of the result of the trial?
  Mr. MACPHERSON:I cannot promise.

  IRELAND.

    AEROPLANES OVER MEETING.
    22. Mr. KINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that on 26th May five aeroplanes went up at Cullen, county Cork, and continued to circle very low over a meeting for singing, bagpipe music, and dancing, called an aeridhacht, that flame rockets were dropped repeatedly, and that the public interpreted these manoeuvres as intended to terrify and disperse the gathering; whether this use of the aeroplanes was made on police or military orders; and whether, in view of the greater need of our air forces elsewhere, such air demonstrations in Ireland will be discontinued?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: Five aeroplanes did circle over a meeting at Cullen on the 26th May, at the request of the military authorities. The five machines used were for training purposes.
    Mr. KING: Can we have an assurance that this is a very exceptional incident, and that aeroplanes will not be used to terrorise a peaceful meeting?
    General McCALMONT: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that supplementary question, may I ask whether loyal citizens with clear consciences have got anything to fear from British aeroplanes?
    Mr. MACPHERSON: No, I think not. I cannot give any assurance such as my hon. Friend asks.
    Mr. KING: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware of the immense noise made by five aeroplanes flying over a meeting?
    Mr. SPEAKER: When we have 120 questions on the Paper, it is a pity to waste time in this way over such a small matter

  WOUNDED SOLDIERS UNIDENTIFIED.
  23. Mr. SMALLWOODasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether a North Lambeth family lost all trace of their only son fighting on the Western Front in 1915, after having been posted as missing; whether a few days ago his sister, on calling at an East End hospital, had her attention drawn to a patient who was making signs with his head for her to come to him, and, on going, discovered her brother, who had lost both arms and legs and was dumb; if he will say what the explanation is for information not being given to this man's family; and will he say whether there are any unidentified wounded soldiers in British hands at this date?
  Mr. MACPHERSON: My attention has been called to a newspaper report, but I have no knowledge as to the facts of the case, and cannot make inquiry without further details. I am endeavouring to obtain these from the agency which I understand was responsible for distributing the notice to the Press.

  SOLDIERS' LEAVE.
  27. Mr. THOMAS-STANFORDasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that numerous men of the 16th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, formerly Sussex Yeomanry, who were mobilised in August, 1914, and are some of them time-expired men, have served successively in Gallipoli, Egypt, and Palestine, and are now in France without having been granted any leave; and whether he will endeavour to arrange that after this long period of service they may have an early opportunity of seeing their families?
  Mr. MACPHERSON: As my hon. Friend will realise, the military exigencies of the moment necessarily allow only a limited number of troops being given leave, but I can assure him that the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief will give every consideration, when opportunity permits, to

  2195
  those who have had long service in other theatres of war and who are now serving on the Western Front.
  Colonel LOWTHER: Will the case of the men of the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th Battalions of the Royal Sussex, which I had the honour to command, be also attended to?
  Mr. MACPHERSON: Most certainly.
  28. Sir F. HALLasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether he is aware that a number of men serving in Egypt and Salonika have not been home for over two and in some cases more than three years; how many men have been sent on leave since the commencement of hostilities, and how many are now being sent home weekly; what is the duration of their leave; whether there is an equal distribution of such leave amongst each unit; and whether, considering that these men volunteered for service with the Colours, steps will immediately be taken to increase the number of men sent home on leave with a view to endeavouring to allow every man from these theatres of war to come back at least once in eighteen months or not more than two years?
  Mr. MACPHERSON: As I have frequently explained, the facilities for transportation govern the limitation of all leave granted to troops serving in Egypt and Salonika. I can, however, assure my hon. and gallant Friend that everything possible, consistent with the military situation, is being done to increase the numbers to whom leave is granted. The duration of leave is twenty-one days, and there is, I understand, equitable distribution amongst units.
  35. Mr. JOWETTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War concerning a soldier who has not been home for three and a half years, is stationed at Amara, Mesopotamia, has undergone a dangerous operation for abscess on the kidneys, and is broken in health, if he will make inquiries into the case with a view to his being allowed leave to return home before the next hot season comes on?
  Mr. MACPHERSON: A soldier suffering from a serious disability such as that mentioned by my hon. Friend would, as soon as it were possible to move him, be sent to a sanatorium in India, and, if the medical authorities considered it essential, would, when well enough to travel, be brought home as transportation permitted.
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  As I have frequently explained, owing 1o the great difficulties of transport, it is not possible to bring home more than a very limited number of troops for leave in England.

  CHARTERHOUSE HOTEL.
  30. Mr. GILBERTasked the Under secretary of State for War if his Department have taken over the Charterhouse Hotel, E.C.; if so, for what purpose they have taken it over; if it is proposed to spend any money on alterations; and what is the estimated cost?
  Mr. MACPHERSON: Yes, Sir; this hotel was taken over on the 16th May for use as a hospital for limbless soldiers. The only alterations proposed are to the locks of the doors.

  INQUEST AT CASTLEBLAYNEY (SOLDIERS' NON-ATTENDANCE).
  31. Mr. KINGasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Patrick Duffy was killed at Castleblayney, Ireland, by sentry soldiers; that the medical evidence at the inquest showed that there were many bayonet wounds as well as a fatal bullet wound in the body; that, though the military officer, Corporal Nicholls, and Privates Rogers and Gerome were summoned by the police to the inquest, they never attended; and that the coroner declared that they showed great disrespect by non attendance and, if they were not soldiers, there would be arrests; and whether it was due to the military orders that no soldiers were present at the inquest?
  Mr. MACPHERSON: I am making inquiries in this case, and will write to my hon. Friend as soon as I am in a position to do so.

  ARMY ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT, SHORNCLIFFE.
  33. Mr. C. DUNCANasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether he is aware that there are workmen employed at the Army Ordnance Department at Shorncliffe whose wages with war bonus are 30s., 31s., and 32s. per week; whether he is aware that on these wages the men find it impossible to live; and whether he will give his attention to have this matter inquired into and rectified?
  Mr. FORSTER: The men's claim has been referred to the Ministry of Labour with a view to settlement by arbitration.

  ORDER OF BRITISH EMPIRE.
  36. General McCALMONTasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether awards of the Order of the British Empire to officers on the active list for services with Expeditionary Forces are made on the recommendation of their commanding officers as in the case of purely military decorations; and whether these decorations constitute an additional reward for service behind the fighting zone to which the fighting troops are not entitled?
  Mr. MACPHERSON: Awards of the Order of the British Empire for service with the Expeditionary Forces are made on the recommendation of the Commander-in-Chief concerned, and the channel of recommendation, so far as the Army Council are aware, is identical with the procedure in force for military decorations. It will no doubt, however, frequently occur that an award of the British Empire Order is substituted for a military decoration in cases in which the Commander-in-Chief is of opinion that the services rendered do not justify the award of an Order or decoration normally reserved, as far as possible, for services in the fighting zone. The Order of the British Empire does not in effect constitute an additional reward for services behind the fighting zone, seeing that services of this nature are not regarded as. eligible for military decoration usually reserved for fighting Services. It is not proposed to award the Order of the British Empire for services in action.
  General McCALMONT: Is the House to understand that the Distinguished Service Order is not awarded for service behind the fighting zone, as the right hon. Gentleman has stated? Is it not the fact that this is an additional decoration, and, as this is not available for the fighting forces, therefore the fighting forces are severely handicapped in the fact that there are two decorations instead of one for non-fighting men?
  Mr. MACPHERSON: I have distinctly stated this is not to be given for services in action.
  General McCALMONT: Therefore that is an advantage to people behind the fighting lines.
  Mr. PRINGLE: Is it not necessary to have two decorations, because there are so many more men behind the lines?

  KING'S LIVERPOOL REGIMENT (ACCOUNTS).
  41. Mr. SNOWDENasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office if his Department has received complaints from men serving and discharged concerning the alleged debit balances in the old 19th Company, 3/5 King's Liverpool Regiment, supernumeraries, now the 315th B Company, Royal Defence Corps; whether direct and serious accusations have been made against certain persons in the pay office; whether a request has been, made for a full inquiry into these charges; whether the charges are to the effect that the accounts were falsified; whether charges have been made in regard to the antecedents of those in command at St. Anne's Street depot who had sole charge of the cash and stores; whether it is alleged that one of these officers, a colonel, had been three times bankrupt; that another, a sergeant-major, was an undischarged bankrupt; that another, a quarter-master-sergeant, was out of employment at the time he enlisted; and that another, the assistant-paymaster, had made an arrangement with his creditors; and whether, in view of these charges and the admission by the War Office, by the granting of a partial inquiry, of their seriousness, he will grant a full inquiry into the charges made?
  Mr. FORSTER: Certain allegations have been made as to these accounts, and a full inquiry is now in progress.
  Mr. SNOWDEN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when that full inquiry was ordered, and when it began?
  Mr. FORSTER: I am afraid I cannot. It was quite recently.

  FOOD SUPPLIES.

    CEREAL PRICES.
    42. Sir F. FLANNERYasked the President of the Board of Agriculture what increases in the prices of wheat, barley, and oats will be fixed so as. to enable farmers to increase the wages of agricultural workers proportionately to the increased cost of living, and the extra labour involved by the calling up for military service of men from the land?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Mr. Clynes): I have been asked to reply. My Department is now engaged in preparing a scheme of prices which will take into account the matters referred to by my hon. Friend.
    Sir F. FLANNERY: How soon will that scheme be laid on the Table?
    Mr. CLYNES: They are now actually working on the matter, and there will be no delay whatever in taking action.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: Will the right hon. Gentleman try, instead of an increase of prices, a reduction of rent for the farmers to make good an increase of wages?
    Mr. CLYNES: That is one of the few matters not within the province of the Ministry of Food.

    TITHES.
    43. Sir F.FLANNERYasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the increases of tithes, which in some cases amount to 8s. per acre, upon agricultural land; and whether it is the intention of the Government to assist the growth of food by early legislation consolidating the incidence of tithe and providing for its redemption upon terms equitable to all concerned?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir R. Winfrey): My right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this question. The position which has arisen in regard to tithe is well known to the Government, who have the question under consideration. I hope before very long to be able to announce their decision as to what, if any, legislation they deem necessary.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Would it not be possible to repeal the Act which relieves owners of tithes who pay rates?
    Sir R. WINFREY: That comes under the Agricultural Rates Act.
    Mr. MORRELL: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether a decision will be announced before the Debate in this House?
    Sir R. WINFREY: Oh, yes; it will require legislation.
    Mr. PRINGLE: Could it not be done on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill?
    Sir F. FLANNERY: Are we to under stand that legislation will be introduced during the current Session?

    FARM WORKERS (EXTRA RATIONS).
    74. Sir F. FLANNERYasked the amount of extra rations to be allowed to farm workers, especially in view of the harvest?
    Mr. CLYNES: Male farm workers are entitled to receive the supplementary ration, which allows them an increase of about 50 per cent. on the meat ration in the form of bacon.

    TEA.
    75. Colonel THORNEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food how the proposed registration of tea consumers is to take place; whether it will be done by way of sugar cards or will those persons registered for meat, butter, margarine, or other food commodities be enabled to obtain their supplies of tea by means of the existing food cards; and, if so, will he state which?
    Mr. CLYNES: A full announcement has already been made on this point. In London and the Home Counties divisions the food card is being used for tea registration. In other districts consumers may be registered on production of the butter and margarine card issued under a local rationing scheme or of the meat cards. Food control committees have been told to issue instructions on this matter to the public in their several districts.
    76. Colonel THORNEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether his attention has been called to the discontent existing in the retail grocery trade caused by notices in the Press emanating from the Ministry of Food that all consumers of tea must register by 10th Juno, suck discontent being due to the shortness of the notice, scarcity of labour in the retail trade, and the fact that two Saturdays and two Sundays occur within the period of ten days only between the issuing of the Order and the date for registration; whether representations have been made to the Department concerned requesting a postponement of the proposed registration date; and whether the date will be postponed, so as to cause less inconvenience to distributors of tea if possible?
    Mr. CLYNES: I am sending my hon. Friend a copy of an official notice issued to the Press last week, in accordance with which tea retailers are permitted to accept late applications for registration up to Saturday, l5th June.

    VEGETABLES.
    77 Mr. GILBERTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether his attention has been called to the high prices charged by some retailers in London during last week for green vegetables; and can he take any steps in order to prevent this in future?
    78 Sir ARTHUR FELLasked if any steps are being taken to check the prices charged for vegetables beyond the prices obtaining in Covent Garden; and if he is aware that for the same quantity of rhubarb 3d. was charged at Covent Garden and Is. 3d. at shops in the suburbs?
    Mr. CLYNES: Careful investigation is being made into the prices charged for green vegetables and fruit in the markets and in retail shops. So far as rhubarb is concerned, the lack of gooseberries in the market has inevitably tended to harden prices. In comparing retail prices with wholesale prices it is essential to make sure that the quality of the fruit or vegetables sold is the same in each case. I shall be glad to make special inquiries in any specific case about which hon. Members will give me information, and I am considering what action, if any, can usefully be taken.

    HERRINGS.
    79. Sir A. FELLasked the Parliamentary Secretary if his attention has been called to the waste of food entailed in the destruction of herrings caught and landed at Lerwick, where upwards of 200 tons of fish were destroyed on several separate days; and if some arrangement can be made to enable them to be shipped or else preserved as kippers or salted herrings?
    Mr. CLYNES: The Food Controller is aware that some herring landed at Lerwick did not find a buyer on arrival. Owing to the time occupied on the voyage, the possibility of war delays, and the competition of the heavy catches of herring now being landed on the mainland of the North-East Coast of Scotland, the shipment of fresh herring for the Shetlands is not a satisfactory course at this time of the year. The Ministry of Food have made arrangements whereby the transport of kippered herring are considerably improved. The herrings at present caught off Lerwick are hardly suitable when cured for the home markets, and the Food Controller has
    2202
    already informed the trade that he is prepared to give favourable consideration to applications for leave to export these pickled herrings to Allied countries provided that they are put into cure before 15th July.
    Sir A. FELL: I know the hon. Member is doing a great deal, but is he really doing everything that can be done to save this great loss of food?
    Mr. CLYNES: I think so. We have been in close communication with the authorities in all parts of the Kingdom, and if my hon. Friend can put before me suggestions, I shall be glad to have them.
    Sir J. AINSWORTH: Is it possible in some way or other to deal with this appalling waste of food, remembering that the consumer now pays five or six times more for herrings than they did a short time ago?
    Mr. CLYNES: A similar wastage was quite common in peace-time, and there is a greater difficulty in war-time, but we are doing everything we can to diminish the wastage.

    MEAT.
    80. Mr. SNOWDENasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if he will make inquiries into the reason why the supplies of meat in the borough of Blackburn are so unsatisfactory, fully 90 per cent. of the persons registered with the co-operative societies and private butchers not having had any mutton during the past three months and there having been no week when the full ration has been obtainable, while, on the other hand, the shops of the foreign meat companies have had a plentiful supply of both beef and mutton; and will he see that steps are taken to stop this preferential treatment in the distribution of supplies?
    Mr. CLYNES: Supplies of imported meat during the past few months have consisted mainly of frozen beef and only very limited quantities of frozen mutton have been available. Complaints have been received that some multiple shop companies had obtained a larger proportion of mutton than private traders, and steps have already been taken to secure a more equitable distribution of the limited supplies. There is no reason why any retailer should not have received the full ration of meat required for the needs of

    2203
    his registered customers, and if any specific instance is given I will cause inquiries to be made.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries into the specific charge made in this question as to what has taken place in Blackburn?
    Mr. CLYNES: This question is put in rather general terms, but perhaps there will be some advantage in my hon. Friend having a conversation with me about this particular case.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Thank you.

    SUGAR.
    81. Mr. SNOWDENasked the Parliamentary Secretary whether ho will consider the possibility of doing something more to secure a further supply of sugar for the manufacture of sweets and chocolates whereby the public requirements may be met and the position of small shop keepers may be alleviated?
    Mr. CLYNES: The sugar position, actual and prospective, is not such that any additional issues of sugar for the manufacture of sweetmeats can, at present, be contemplated. The position of the small shopkeeper has recently been dealt with by the issue of the Sale of Sweetmeats (Restriction) Order, which will substantially increase the supplies available for them.

    MALT AND HOPS.
    82. Mr. C. DUNCANasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he has received applications from farm workers for a supply of malt and hops; whether he will consider the claim of these men to such consideration owing to the nature of their employment and the hot weather during which this work s performed, and release for the brewing of home-brewed beer the amount of malt and hops asked for; and, if so, can he state when such supplies are likely to be avail able?
    Mr. CLYNES: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. In view of the limited stock of malt available for brewing it will not be possible to grant general licences for home brewing, and it would be invidious to make provision for one class of national worker without extending the treatment of other workers whose employment may be con-
    2204
    sidered of equal national importance. It is hoped to make some provision for farm workers on the lines adopted last year.
    Sir F. FLANNERY: Is the Department considering the question of so altering the brewing as to increase, the supply of low grade beer and decrease the supply of luxury beer so as to enable farm labourers and others to have a larger quantity during the harvest?
    Mr. CLYNES: I promised in the discussion last Thursday that that would be taken into account and it is being considered.

    AGRICULTURAL WORKERS (HARVEST TIME).
    83. Sir J. SPEARasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if he is aware that in the South of Eng land it is the practice to supply casual agricultural workers at hay and corn harvest time with food as well as monetary payment; and, in view of this, will he arrange to supply farmers so requiring and applying for them with emergency coupons to meet such cases?
    Mr. CLYNES: I am aware of the practice in question. It if, however, thought the needs of the case will be sufficiently met by the present system, under which the cards of persons visiting a neighbourhood are available, when accompanied by a simple declaration, for purchases made on their behalf from retailers in the district.
    Sir J. SPEAR: Will that apply to the men attending the threshing machines who are working a long way from their homes?
    Mr. CLYNES: This particular class of work does not in any sense affect the procedure that can be followed, and in that case it would apply in the instance mentioned?

    MINISTRY OF FOOD (ESTIMATES).
    84. Mr. C. ROBERTSasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he will lay before Parliament the proper Estimates for his Department for the year ending 31st March, 1919; and if he will state what his Department has spent in the year ending 31st March, 1918. on the sub-heads: salaries, wages, and allowances, travelling expenses, incidental expenses, food economy propaganda, rationing expenses, national kitchens, subsidies towards the sale of foodstuffs, and Appropriations-in-Aid, respectively?
    Mr. CLYNES: The form in which the Civil Services and Revenue Departments Estimates are presented to this House is a matter not for me, but for the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. The actual expenditure is, I understand, defrayed out of the Vote of Credit, and is recorded in the Appropriation Account.
    If the hon. Member would care to see a provisional summary of expenditure before the actual particulars are made public, I will cause one to be sent to him.
    Mr. ROBERTS: Could the right hon. Gentleman arrange that the Estimates of his Department should be given in the usual way, instead of the very obscure and inconvenient form in which they are now presented to Parliament?
    Mr. CLYNES: I am not well versed in regard to this procedure, and I cannot commit myself to any alteration without further consideration.
    Mr. ROBERTS: Can they not be presented in the usual way?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That question should be addressed to the Secretary to the Treasury.

    FOOD DESTRUCTION (GLASGOW).
    92. Colonel THORNEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that recently immense quantities of food have been taken out of cold storage in the city of Glasgow and condemned; that on one day alone 40 tons were cast into the destructor; if he will say who is responsible for this waste; what are the names of the four principal owners of this food; and whether it is contemplated to prosecute those responsible for this waste?
    Mr. CLYNES: I have been asked to reply. I am informed that, owing to some defect in the refrigerating machinery of the carrying vessel, about 40 tons of meat, part of a cargo which recently arrived in Glasgow from North America, was found, upon examination in the cold storage warehouse, to be in a bad condition, and was subsequently condemned as unfit for food. The meat was the property of the Ministry of Food, and the deterioration appears to have been inevitable.

    BEE DISEASES.
    43. Mr. P. A. HARRISasked the President of the Board of Agriculture what
    2206
    measures he is taking to combat the Isle of Wight bee disease; whether he will give favourable consideration to schemes for restocking under the auspices of the Board; and whether he will consider the advisability of enforcing the notification of the Isle of Wight and other bee diseases and take means to stop the wilful exposure of infected bees and hives?
    Sir R. WINFREY: In reply to the first and last parts of the question, I can inform my hon. Friend that difficulties of diagnosis make it inadvisable to require the notification of the Isle of Wight disease or to try to enforce restrictions against it. Further scientific investigations into the nature of the disease are, however, being made, and I hope that this difficulty may soon be overcome, when the position will be again considered. In the meantime, the Board are taking steps to secure the. importation of foreign stocks of bees which appear to be capable of resisting the disease.

  HOSPITALS BOMBED BY GERMANS.
  49. Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Prime Minister whether the War Cabinet has considered the series of attacks by the Germans on our hospitals in Northern France; and whether they propose to take steps by way of reprisals?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I can not make any statement on this subject. The Report to which I referred in reply to a Private Notice question on 28th May by my hon. Friend the Member for Mile End has not yet been received.

  DISCHARGED SOLDIERS (HOSPITAL TREATMENT).
  60. Sir MAURICE LEVYasked the Pensions Minister whether he is aware that in the East Midlands area there are not any institutions where discharged soldiers can receive orthopædic treatment as in-patients; whether he is aware that the Mayor of Leicester and the committee of the Royal Infirmary of Leicester have offered to build an extension of the infirmary for in-patients requiring orthopædic treatment; and will he say why they have not been allowed to proceed with the scheme?
  Mr. HODGE: The answer to the first and second parts of the question is in the

  2207
  affirmative. It had, I regret, to be decided that the Leicester scheme, involving the construction of permanent buildings, could not, owing to shortage of labour and materials, be allowed to proceed at the present time.
  Sir M. LEVY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that unless this treatment is given a large number of men will become permanent cripples; and will the right hon. Gentleman also say by whom this decision was arrived at?
  Mr. HODGE: By the Priority Committee.
  Sir M. LEVY: What about the men who may become permanent cripples?
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman must give notice of further questions.
  Mr. OUTHWAITE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that numbers of men are now being turned out as permanent cripples for lack of this treatment, and would it not really be better to take the action suggested?
  Mr. HODGE: As a matter of fact, if some permanent building at present in existence can be pointed out to us, we shall be prepared to adapt it for the purpose.

  MEDICAL CASES (TRAINING).
  62. Mr. ANDERSONasked the Pensions Minister the number of medical cases which are now receiving training under his Department, and the number of such cases which, after training, have been put in employment?
  Mr. HODGE: The number of medical cases which were receiving training in the week ended the 5th June, 1918, and the number which had received training under the Ministry up to that date are 6,526 and 7,613 respectively, or a total of 14,139, made up thus:

  Under Training.

  Trained.

  General subjects (Institutions and Workshops

  4,477

  2,722

  Blind (St. Dunstan's)

  561

  422

  Lord Roberts Memorial Workshops

  755

  1,385

  Munition work

  733

  3,084

  6,526

  7,613

  Total

  14,139

  In practically every case men who have completed courses of training have been put into employment.

  RAILWAY TRADERS AND SEASON TICKETS.
  64. Mr. RENDALLasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is now willing to ask the Railway Executive Committee to arrange for the interavailability of season tickets on the Great Western and the London and South-Western Rail ways; whether he is aware that return tickets between the London stations of these companies and many other stations on their lines have long been interavailable; that the number of trains has been greatly reduced, the speed reduced, and the cost of season tickets increased; and that chambers of commerce in the West of England are unanimous in pressing for this reform?
  72. Sir ROBERT NEWMANasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that, owing to the reduction of the train services on the Great Western and the London and South-Western Railways, residents of Exeter and its neighbourhood, including many business men, have been considerably inconvenienced, and that the inconvenience has been greatly increased by the non-interavailability of season tickets on these two lines between Exeter and London; and will he take steps to remedy this grievance?
  Mr. WARDLE: The reasons why all traders' and season tickets for long distance journeys are not available by any route have been explained from time to time; but the matter is being further considered, and if another question be put in the course of a few days, I hope to be able to give a definite answer.

  GAS PRICES.
  65. Colonel BURNasked the President of the Board of Trade if he proposes to sanction the attempt that is being made by the gas companies to abrogate the sliding scale which has been in practice since 1875 and by means of which, during a period of high prices, the in crease of cost has been divided between the company and the consumer, seeing that this change will enable the companies to pay an increased pre-war dividend entirely at the expense of the consumer?
  Mr. WARDLE: The Select Committee of this House referred to in the reply given by my right hon. Friend to this question on the 5th instant have reported, but their Report has not yet been made public.
  Colonel BURN: I will put this question down again in a week.

  MERCANTILE MARINE.
  67. Mr. PETOasked the President of the Board of Trade when it is proposed to give effect to the findings of the committee on uniform for the mercantile marine of the 14th December last?
  Mr. WARDLE: The compromise proposed by the Committee has not yet been accepted by one of the principal organisations concerned, and it is not possible to introduce a controversial measure on a question like uniform in the present state of public business.
  Mr. PETO: Can the hon. Gentleman say to what organisation he refers as not being agreed with the Report of the Committee?
  Mr. WARDLE: I think it is the one with which the hon. Gentleman himself is connected.
  68. Mr. PETOasked what increase it is proposed to grant on the present scale of pensions for the widows and dependants of merchant service officers killed during the War?
  Mr. WARDLE: The hon. Member has already been informed that the question of amending the compensation scheme is being considered. This question is a difficult one, but it is being pressed on as rapidly as possible, and I will inform the hon. Member as soon as a decision has been arrived at.
  Mr. PETO: Arising out of those replies, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the two questions on the Adjournment tonight.

  COAL AND LIGHTING (NEW ORDER).
  69. Mr. ROWLANDSasked when the new Order with regard to coal and lighting will be issued?
  Mr. WARDLE: I hope that it will be possible to issue the Order next week.
  Mr. ROWLANDS: Will the hon. Gentleman have some copies of the Order placed in the Vote office as soon as it is issued?
  Mr. WARDLE: I will have inquiries made.
  70. Mr. ROWLANDSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the early time at which the street lamps are lit; and will he consider the advisability of making representations to the local authorities with the object of having the street lamps lit later in order to effect a saving of power and to gain the full economic advantage of the Daylight Saving Act?
  Mr. WARDLE: Yes, Sir; and I am in communication with the Home Office in the matter.

  TOBACCO (SUPPLY TO MINERS).
  71. Major Sir HENRY HAVELOCK- ALLANasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can see his way to provide the members of the Bishop Auckland Co-operative Society, most of whom are miners, with a larger quantity of leaf tobacco, so that they may be on an equality with engineers, shipbuilders, munition workers, ironstone miners, and quarrymen, who are being supplied with an extra allowance?
  Mr. WARDLE: The Tobacco and Matches Control Board received on the 29th May a request for special consideration from the Bishop Auckland Industrial Flour and Provision Society, Limited, and instructions were given on the 31st May for additional supplies of tobacco to be allocated immediately to this district.

  MUNITIONS.

    CORNISH WOLFRAM MINES, LIMITED.
    51. Mr. C. DUNCANasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the Mineral Resource Department of the Government have closed down the Cornish Wolfram Mines, Limited; whether he is aware that a number of workmen have been thrown out of employment without either the usual week's notice and without receiving the wages then due to them; and whether he will make inquiry into the matter with a view to these men's wages being paid without further delay?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Mr. Kellaway): This mine was being worked as a private concern by a limited company, and the working was discontinued by that company, and not by the Ministry. I am informed that the men were told they would receive a week's pay in lieu of notice, but the company has not, in fact, paid the wages due by them to the miners, and they have informed the Ministry that they have no funds with which to do so. As the Ministry had a charge upon the assets of the company which has now matured, owing to the company ceasing to carry on their business, they have recently appointed a receiver, who will in due course realise and deal with such assets according to the rights of the parties interested, and the wages of the miners will be a preferential debt under the Companies Consolidation Act, 1908, to be paid as soon as there are any available assets in the receiver's hands.

    TIN-PLATE STOCKS.
    94. Captain CARR-GOMMasked the Minister of Munitions whether he is aware that quantities of tin-plates belonging to merchant firms have been held in stock by order of the Controller of iron and steel productions for fully two years, while new tin-plates are being made in great quantities and issued for use; what is the reason for withholding permits when the tin-plates are required for making utensils for hospitals, canteens, and transports; and whether he will grant permission for the release of all such tin-plates as have been in stock for two years and upwards?
    Mr. KELLAWAY: Tin-plates are controlled by the Steel Orders of 4th August and 20th November, 1916, and under these Orders cannot be disposed of unless they are required as a component part of a Government contract or against a Ministry of Munitions permit, reference, and number. Permits are not withheld when the Government Department concerned is satisfied that tin-plates are required for making utensils for hospitals, canteens, and transports. No permits are issued for the release of tin-plates, but permits are issued to the consumers of tin-plates by the Controller of the Priority Department, who has in fact issued permits for a weight so much in excess of the present output of tin-plates that any existing stocks should be readily absorbed.

    ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGES.
    52. Mr. C. DUNCANasked the Prime Minister whether, as recommended by the Committee appointed to inquire into the position of modern languages in the educational system of this country, a committee has been set up to inquire into the potentialities of artificial languages and the desirability of encouraging the use of one; if so, can he give the names of the committee; and, if not, can he say whether the question is likely to be settled at an early date?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Perth on Monday last.

  LAND FOR SOLDIERS.
  53. Sir JOHN SPEARasked the First Lord of the Treasury if, in view of the desirability of providing small holdings for returned soldiers and sailors, he will advance to county councils State loans to enable those bodies to assist suitable men to occupy small holdings throughout the country under the small-holding system administered by those bodies?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The whole question of the settlement of ex-soldiers and sailors on the land including the very difficult financial problems involved is receiving very careful consideration, but I am not yet in a position to commit myself to the early resumption of State loans to county councils (which as my hon. Friend is aware have had to be suspended by reason of war exigencies) for the purposes of such settlement.

  WAR LOANS (COMMISSIONS TO BANKERS).
  55. Sir JOHN JARDINEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the Treasury allow commissions to bankers on both War Loans and War Savings Certificates, while none is allowed to brokers on subscriptions coming from them for War Savings Certificates, but only on War Loans?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The commission paid to bankers in respect of War Savings Certificates sold by them is remuneration for actual work done by them which would otherwise fall on the Post Office. This work is not performed by brokers who

  2213
  buy certificates over the counter of a post office in the same way as ordinary members of the public.

  INCOME TAX.
  56. Colonel THORNEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that workmen employed as miners are allowed a rebate of £10 in the assessment of Income Tax for the wear and tear of clothing and tools; that many other classes of workmen, such as gasworkers and men in chemical factories and shipyards, suffer as much from wear and tear of clothing as miners; and if he will consider the question of giving a rebate to all classes of workers the nature of whose employment causes an unusual expenditure for clothing?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Allowances are made to miners for tools and other expenses according to the circumstances of each pit. As regards clothes, the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, after consultation with the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, have authorised an allowance from the quarterly Income Tax assessments on miners at the rate of £4 or £5 per annum according to circumstances, in respect of clothing used exclusively for the purposes of the miners' employment. Rates for similar allowances have been and are being agreed for other classes of workers with the principal trade unions concerned, and an allowance will be given in every case in which it can be shown that expense is incurred by manual workers for clothing used exclusively for the purposes of their employment.

  SIR JOHN BRADBURY'S COMMITTEE.
  57. Captain CARR-GOMMasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can now say what action the Government pro pose to take in view of the interim Report of Sir John Bradbury's Committee on the staffing of Government Departments?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The Government has approved the Report referred to and steps are being taken to give effect to its recommendations.
  58. Captain CARR-GOMMasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Committee presided over by Sir John Bradbury is continuing its inquiries; whether any steps have been taken to
  2214
  bring its work into touch with the Cabinet Committee on Accommodation; and, if not, whether he will appoint a member of the latter Committee to sit and act with Sir John Bradbury's Committee so as to co-ordinate the efforts of the two committees?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The Committee on Staffs has been authorised to appoint inspecting officers to investigate and report upon the organisation and staffing of the various Departments, and these inspections are now proceeding. Arrangements have been made for the Committee to have access to the Reports of the inspectors appointed by the War Cabinet Committee on Accommodation, and care is being taken to keep the two Committees in touch with one another in so far as their inquiries are inter-related.
  Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether these inspectors have been at work for some time, or whether they have just been recently appointed?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: They were appointed some weeks ago. I cannot give the exact date.

  WOMEN (RECRUITMENT).
  88. Mr. WILSON-FOXasked the Minister of National Service whether a single organisation has now been established to recruit women for the Navy, Army, and Air Service; and, if not, whether he will state the reason why this necessary measure of economy has not been carried out?
  Mr. BECK: Negotiations are in active progress with a view to the establishment of common Selection and Medical Boards for the Women's Corps of the Navy, Army and Air Force, and it is hoped to institute them at an early date. The machinery of the Employment Exchange system is already utilised for the recruiting of women for the Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Force, Women's Royal Naval Service, Women's Royal Air Force.
  Mr. WILSON-FOX: Has the recruiting for these branches been consolidated, seeing that on the 28th of February last the hon. Gentleman informed me that the whole of these arrangements had been placed under the Ministry of National Service, and apparently only now are they engaged in actively dealing with certain branches of them?
  Mr. BECK: This form of recruitment of women labour is somewhat new in character, and the negotiations have taken a long time, but I hope that they are now about to be completed.

  WAR MEMORIAL (SCOTLAND).
  91. Mr. HOGGEasked the Secretary for Scotland what steps he has taken to forward the scheme of a permanent war memorial in Scotland; and whether he is yet in a position to make a Report?
  The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Munro): I have communicated with various representative Scotsmen and requested them to serve on the Committee which, as I indicated in my previous answers on this subject, I am setting up to consider how the question of a memorial can best be matured. I am glad to say that I am receiving affirmative replies, but as the Committee is not yet complete I propose to defer announcing the names for a few days.
  Mr. HOGGE: How many representatives of Scotland has the right hon. Gentleman asked among his colleagues?
  Mr. MUNRO: I cannot give the precise number—several.

  OUTDOOR RELIEF (CHEPSTOW GUARDIANS).
  95. Mr. JOWETTasked the President of the Local Government Board if his attention has been called to the action of the Chepstow Board of Guardians in refusing to continue to bear the cost of out-relief to support a widow to whom they had previously allowed out-relief for two years whilst she resided with a daughter, then unmarried and resident in Chepstow, after the daughter in question had married and removed to Newport taking her mother with her; and whether, having regard to the fact that the widow referred to is sixty-three years of age, is of good character and reputation, has brought up eleven children, of whom six are now living, including three sons invalided out of the Army, is crippled with neuritis, and has been obliged to go into the workhouse, where she is costing many times over the amount which the Newport guardians proposed to allow her in out relief subject to the consent of the Chep-
  2216
  stow guardians, notwithstanding the fact that her daughter is still willing to give her a home and all necessary personal attendance, he will obtain a full report of all the circumstances affecting this case, providing that he has not already done so, and afterwards bring pressure to bear on the Chepstow guardians to induce them to consent to make the necessary arrangements for repayment, to enable the Newport Guardians to continue to give out-relief if the facts are as they are here stated?
  The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Hayes Fisher): My attention had not been previously called to this case. The Local Government Board have no power to interfere in any individual case for the purpose of ordering relief, or directing the manner in which relief should be given; but I will make inquiries and inform the hon. Member of the result.

  LAND ACQUIRED BY WAR DEPARTMENT, CIPPENHAM.
  Captain CARR-GOMMasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give the House the opportunity of discussing the proposal to take over, for military purposes, about l½ square miles of the best agricultural land in South Bucks, most of it bearing corn of the finest quality, and of hearing a statement from the Minister concerned before the final steps in this transaction are taken by the Government?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I assume that the hon. Member is referring to the same case as that dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for War in his reply to a question by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Bucks on 5th June. I regret that I can add nothing to that reply.
  Captain CARR-GOMM: Have the War Cabinet decided on this now? Have the War Cabinet had brought to their attention the fact that in this part of the country there are several private parks, golf courses, a large race course, and other land which is not bearing agricultural produce, and that great sums of money have been put into this land which is well known to be some of the richest land in the South of England, and will the right hon. Gentleman arrange that this

  2217
  matter can be discussed and a Minister shall speak on it on the Vote of Credit, and that the final decision shall not be taken until after this discussion takes place.
  Brigadier-General McCALMONT: Is it not a fact that in addition to something like 300 acres bearing important crops a whole hospital is to be taken down in this place, and has not the work of destruction already commenced so that if anything is going to be done it must be done at once?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I can only say that all the facts as I believe which were brought to the notice of the House were before the mind of the Government when they decided the matter. It was submitted to the Cabinet by the Director of Food Production. We appointed one of our number to go into it and examine it. He did so, and it was on his advice that a decision was given. I have no objection to the subject being discussed on the Vote of Credit, but I cannot promise that in the circumstances the Government will reconsider their decision.
  Mr. MORRELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman promise that the work will be stopped until the House has had an opportunity of considering the matter?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: No. The Government could not go on if it were to be on the basis that whenever a decision was objected to the work of carrying it out could not be commenced.
  Mr. HOGGE: Is it a fact that the actual work of demolishing the public buildings on this site has been begun?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I really cannot say that. I have no means of knowing that.
  Mr. FRANCE: Does the right hon. Gentleman wish us to understand that if the House of Commons expressed a strong view on the matter of this land being spoiled and food wasted the War Cabinet would not be prepared to consider the view of the House of Commons?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: No. I do not at all imply that. Of course the Government depends on the House of Commons. If the House of Commons takes a view on any subject different from that of the Government either the Government has to adopt the view of the House of Commons or has to go. That is quite evident. What I meant was that the Government are not prepared to stop what has been
  2218
  already decided on merely because the question has been raised in the House of Commons.
  Captain CARR-GOMM(subsequently): In view of the importance of taking over agricultural land, and of the replies which have been given in the House, I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the taking over of a largo area of agricultural land in the county of Buckingham by the War Department?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Before a decision is given, may I put it to my hon. and gallant Friend and to the House that the subject can be discussed next week— [HON. MEMBERS: "TOO late!"] —and that in any case it is very unlikely that anything that can be done this afternoon would make any difference.
  The pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. Speaker called on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and not less than forty Members having accordingly risen, the Motion stood over, under Standing Order No. 10, until a quarter-past Eight this evening.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Mr. RUNCIMAN:May I ask the Leader of the House whether he proposes to ask us to sit on Friday, and, if so, what business the Government will take then?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I am very anxious not to ask the House to sit on Friday when it is not necessary to do so. I hope the Report stage of the Finance Bill will be finished to-morrow, and should there be any time over, I hope the House will also finish the remaining stages of the Land Drainage Bill. In that case we shall not ask the House to sit on Friday.

SUPPLY.— [14TH ALLOTTED DAY.]
Considered in Committee.
[Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1918–19.— [Progress.]
  POST OFFICE.

    STATEMENT BY MR. ILLINGWORTH.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £10,141,304, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Post Office, including Telegraphs and Telephones."—[NOTE: £16,000,000 has been voted on account.]
    The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Illingworth): I regret that again I have to open my speech on the Post Office Estimates by saying that during the past year further restrictions have had to be made on the postal facilities which have been enjoyed by the public for so long. That is not particular in any way to the Post Office, as many other large undertakings, such as the railways, through the force of circumstances, have been compelled to adopt the same course. Though a certain number of restrictions have been imposed, I am glad to say they have not been so numerous as they have been in previous years. I am afraid I cannot say to-day that we have reached the end of these curtailments, yet I hope that in
    2234
    the future they will become gradually fewer and fewer. In many cases these restrictions have been made necessary by the taking off of trains, and the circumstances under which the railways are more or less helpless on account of the shortage of engines and also on account of the shortage of staff for repairing the rolling stock and also providing the railways in other respects. I am told that many of these men are working a good deal of overtime, and that they want to have a rest on Sundays. Consequently, in various districts, the Sunday post has had to be cut off altogether. In some of the more remote country districts, where the population is sparse and the post is very small, the difficulty has been one entirely of road transport, men who have been drivers of mail carts having been called up for the Army. There have also been the difficulties of getting suitable horses, the shortage of supply and the high price of petrol. In many of these cases there have been demands for very much higher remuneration on the part of the contractors, and in cases where the service was already run at a heavy loss I have considered that I should not be justified in incurring the extra expense.
    4.0 P.M.
    There is still a large number of men of the postal service in the Army. It is now close upon 80,000. Three thousand have been discharged and returned to the Post Office, and have been given the work which is most suitable for them. Many men will be liable for military service under the new Act, but I do not think, taking into consideration the low medical category of many of them and the necessity of retaining them in the Post Office for carrying on the service of the country, that many of them will be able to be spared. As the War goes on year by year there is more and more work carried out by the Post Office which might not fall strictly within its purview, but with its large ramifications all over the country it has been considered the best authority for doing it. Of this the largest amount of work is caused by the Army allowances and pensions to the various dependants of soldiers. The Army, Navy, and Royal Air Force in this respect entail over 4,000,000 counter transactions per week. Many hon. Members who take a special interest in the fighting forces, and also many members of the public, have made frequent requests that these men should be paid on Fridays, but I am afraid that

    2235
    Friday is already taken up for other payments, and that the payments to the lighting forces cannot be made on that day. Each set of payments has its allotted day—soldiers' wives on Monday, their dependants on Tuesday—these are the two largest classes—naval and military pensions on Wednesday, allowances to wives and dependants of sailors and the Royal Air Force on Thursday, and on Friday the old age pensions are paid. It will be generally conceded, in view of the special circumstances in which the old age pensioners are placed, that they have the first claim to be paid on the day which is considered the most convenient day of the week—that is, on Friday. So it is quite impossible that all these people, most of whom wish to be paid on Fridays, should be accommodated in that respect. Saturday is always a busy day, and it is quite impossible to make any payment on that day. There is much more work in connection with stamps undertaken by the Post Office in consequence of the War. There are the Income Tax and Entertainments Duty stamps. These are issued in many denominations, and entail a lot of work and time at the Post Office counters. Also in the future we have to look forward to Luxury Tax stamps, as I understand this tax, when it comes into force, will be collected by means of stamps through the Post Office. There is also the War Loan, when one happens to be on the market, and also the sale of War Savings Certificates, which is, of course, of daily occurrence. Through the Post Office, since the beginning of the War, nearly £300,000,000 have been subscribed. Many of these subscribers have been depositors in the Post Office Savings Bank, and though many of them have subscribed quite considerable sums, it is very gratifying to know that the depositors are now higher by over £20,000,000 than they were at the beginning of the War.
    Another matter which is spasmodic, but still causes a large quantity of work, is the question of air-raid warnings, which sometimes entail as many as from 10,000 to 20,000 telephone calls. I have called for volunteers to undertake this rather onerous duty, and it has been met in a very ready manner by the telephone operators. I think if thanks are due to anyone in the Post Office for work which has been done all through the present
    2236
    year it is more especially due to these telephone operators who have so willingly undertaken this duty. Thirty-two of them have been awarded the British Empire Medal for meritorious service carried out in this respect. Everything is being done as far as possible to assist the Ministry of Food in its rationing schemes, and an enormous number of ration papers, or food tickets, or what anyone likes to call them, are being distributed by the Post Office. Also papers are either distributed or exhibited in the Post Office disseminating information of all descriptions, mainly having reference to the War and the fighting forces. The increase of telephone, telegraph and postal work for the fighting forces is very much larger, and continues to grow month by month. All this extra work causes more counter work in the Post Offices, and this all has to be grappled with as well as it can be with a much smaller staff than we had before the War. I believe at present something like 25,000 fewer people are employed in the Post Office than before the War. Those hon. Members will think it is perhaps rather unreasonable for their constituents to complain, as they very frequently do, that the service is not so good as it used to be, and that they suffer considerable inconvenience through the overcrowding of post offices, which, of course, were not built to transact this enormous amount of business. I am sure when it is brought home to them what the Post Office has to try to do they will accept the position in a reasonable and rational way, as the vast majority of the population of the country has already done. I am afraid present indications are that the work will grow more rather than less.
    The staff of the Army postal service is rather larger than it was a year ago, and though the work it has to do is slightly less there is no waste of staff, as it is able to conduct the business in a more satisfactory and more efficient way. Although strictly speaking under the military authority, all ranks are drawn from the Post Office. They are enlisted in the Royal Engineers and Special Reserve. The non-military element, which is employed solely at home, consists of 140 discharged soldiers and some 1,200 women. As one might expect, the bulk of the correspondence goes where the greatest number of troops are, which is in France, and the post now consists every week of some 10,000,000 letters and about 350,000

    2237
    parcels. At Christmas time, in 1916, there was a very great congestion of the parcel traffic, which caused a great deal of delay, and I am afraid many of them did not receive their Christmas pudding till several days after it was due; in fact, in the New Year. I thought we had better make some arrangements to prevent this occurring again, and this last Christmas the notice that no parcels would be accepted for delivery for the troops in France for several days before Christmas had very happy results. The parcels were all posted in very good time, and were delivered when they ought to have been, and very few indeed were delivered after the Christmas day. The post this Christmas was rather less than last. It amounted to 20,000,000 letters and 4,000,000 parcels. A special cheap telegraph service has been provided for the Dominion Forces from Overseas— troops, doctors, and nurses—at about a fourth of the ordinary charges, and to those troops serving outside Europe who are either sick or wounded telegrams can be sent free of charge provided they are sent through official sources. The 1d postage up to one ounce to troops serving abroad is still maintained. There has been considerable increase in the post for prisoners of war and for those interned in neutral countries, because lately there has been a large increase in the number of prisoners. I have not got the figures quite correct up-to-date and the position is somewhat uncertain, but letters last year at about the some period were 89,000 per week, and they are now 116,000. The parcels also increased very considerably, as last year in the same period they were 85,000 a week, and now they are 126,000. Unfortunately such a large increase of traffic caused for awhile the suspension of the parcel traffic altogether, as there was a large accumulation and there was not sufficient shipping to deal with it. This has now been got over, although the demands are increasing every week.
    One of the outstanding features of the year is the large increase in the cost of working the Post Office. A war bonus has been granted varying from 6s 6d. to 14s. per week, and a claim has also been put in recently for a round increase of wages of 20s. a week for all the staff, both male and female, with half rates for juveniles; but as this is now or shortly will be before the Arbitration Board, I do not propose to say anything about it now except that the cost will be several millions more. '
    2238
    The bonus which has already been granted cost some £6,000,000 per annum, and with other extra costs which have necessarily been incurred, have made it necessary to increase the charges in the Post Office services. The 1d post, which was first introduced by this country, and which has been of such inestimable benefit to mankind all over the world, has I regret to say been—I will not say abolished, because I hope it is not abolished—but suspended. I am glad to say that of the great nations of the world we were the last to relinquish it. It is rather over a year since the London address was altered by the addition of numbers to the letters. At the end of the first month after this change some 32 per cent. of the letters were correctly addressed. At the end of September, 1917, that number had increased to 43 per cent.; in January, 1918, to 46 per cent.; and on April 30th, 1918, to 54 per cent. These results are very satisfactory and exceed the expectations which were formed by officials who were most conversant with this part of the work of the Post Office. The number indicates the delivery office, and it is of great assistance to the temporary officers, who have not to find out to which delivery office each street belongs. This lends itself to more rapid and economic working of the sorting and delivery of letters. A list was issued hurriedly of some 5,000 streets. This has not been found to be complete enough, and another book has been printed which contains about 20,000 streets, and I hope will be ready in the course of ten days or a fortnight. This book will not be distributed free to the public. There will be a charge of probably 3d. or 4d. per copy. I am not quite sure of the exact price, but it will be fixed in the course of a few days before the book is issued. I am sure this small sum will not be grudged by the public, because it will ensure a very much larger number of letters being correctly addressed. The letters "will be delivered more rapidly, and I trust more accurately than they have been in some districts.
    Automatic telephones, for which great expectations were entertained before the War, have not been developed to that extent which one would have liked, but the Leeds Exchange, I am glad to say, has been completed, and I had the pleasure of opening it for the public service early in May. This is the largest automatic exchange in Europe, as it contains

    2239
    at present some 6,800 lines, and the ultimate capacity will be somewhere in the region of 15,000. I have no doubt that after the War the development of telephones in this respect will be very considerable. There has been a general tendency for generations to substitute mechanical means for human energy, whether it be of brain or of labour. This system will be especially useful in this respect, as anyone is liable to make mistakes when they have to deal with long strings of figures and sometimes have to wait to get through. In this case the subscriber is responsible for the accuracy of the number. Although I have not got the exact percentage of wrong numbers given by the subscribers in the first few weeks of the working of the automatic telephone in Leeds it amounted to an extraordinary number. I am quite sure that some of these subscribers who used to complain frequently about being put on to a wrong number may come to the conclusion that they were more to blame than the operator, and that it is quite possible that though they thought they had given one number, they had given another.
    Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL: Is the Leeds Exchange quite successful?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: It is quite successful, except for the mistakes which the subscribers make in giving the wrong numbers. Mechanically, when they give the right number, it works very well.
    Mr. MACMASTER: Are there no mistakes by the operator?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH:No, there is no operator. The tunnel for the post office tube railway is now completed, though the equipment will not be begun until the War is over, as both the material and the labour is wanted for munition purposes, and for the use of the forces in one way or another. The more I see of this railway, the more convinced am I that my right hon. Friend (Mr. H. Samuel) was quite right when he instituted that great scheme. It will save an immense amount of traffic on the road and ensure the more rapid transit of mails from station to station.
    I have referred to a few of the points that have occured in the Post Office during the year, but naturally the most interesting part of the Post Office work is in connection with the War, and that is
    2240
    work which at present cannot be made public. When it is divulged in the future, I am sure it will show what an immense help the Post Office has been to the naval and military forces in matters connected with the War. I must ask the public to put up a little longer, at any rate, as long as the War lasts, with a service which is not quite so satisfactory and efficient as it was before the War, and to accept the assurance that the Post Office is doing its best under very difficult circumstances. I am sure that when the general public know of the extra work that has to be carried out by the Post Office, with a smaller staff, they will recognise that they are not suffering as much inconvenience as they might have done under less efficient officials than we have at the Post Office at the present time.
    Mr. ROWNTREE: We all desire to congratulate the Postmaster-General on the record of work that the Post Office has accomplished with depleted staffs and under very difficult conditions. I want, before going into any details connected with the postal service, to deal with a question which affects the life and conditions of all the postal servants. The Postmaster-General referred to the large number of postal servants who are working abroad and who have joined the Army. We know that numbers have given their lives in France. I think it is extremely important that when we pay our tribute to those who have fallen it should be not mere; lip service, but that we should desire to think of what they have been striving for, and the future conditions in the industrial world which the men returning from France desire to come back to. I think those who have made inquiries as to what the men are thinking in France in regard to industrial matters feel that there are four great questions that they are interested in and which they hope will be very different on their return from what they were before. There is a demand for better wages, a demand for better housing, and a bit of land, a demand for better education for their children, and lastly, the point to which I wish to draw special attention, there is a demand that their status and their position in industry shall be different from what it has been in the past. If you ask the men in the camps at home you will find that they, too, are thinking on the same lines, and that,

    2241
    speaking generally, the four points I have mentioned are points which the workers to-day are demanding and expecting.
    I think it is well that we should recognise the enormous change that there has been in regard to industrial questions, and especially with regard to the question of status. It is well known that there is a feeling of disappointment in the ranks of the postal service, that the Postmaster-General has not been able during the year to establish some kind of joint council in the Post Office service. I have heard this question discussed during the year at a large number of conferences of workers. If you try to put this demand for status in a few sentences, I think it would be like this, that the demand of the worker is not merely an economic demand but a human demand, that it claims from the employers and managers a clear recognition of his rights as a person, and that employers cannot regard human beings as merely hands or so many units of brain power or muscular energy. What is asked is that employers should co-operate with the workers, and treat them as they would wish to be treated themselves. That position involves the surrender by the employers of the supposed right to dictate to labour the conditions under which labour should be carried on, and the acknowledgement that all matters affecting the workers should be decided in consultation with them. I know that that is a very large demand. It is, in fact, the beginning of self-government in industry, and those who advocate it must be prepared to travel a very long way. I am perfectly certain that unless that demand is conceded, and unless employers are willing in this country to try to meet it, it is useless to try to maintain industrial harmony here.
    What has been done by the Post Office to meet this demand? Last year when the Vote was being discussed I alluded to this question, and suggested to my right hon. Friends that during the year they might be able to bring joint councils in the Post Office into being. A month later the Whitley Report was published. I know the Chairman will excuse me when I say that all engaged in industry are greatly indebted to him and his Committee for that Report, and for the suggestions that they have put before the public, which go so far to meet the conditions which I have outlined. As I believe this is the first time that the question of the Report has
    2242
    been discussed in this House, perhaps I might indicate what is really suggested in that Report.
    The CHAIRMAN: I must warn the hon. Member not to travel too wide. He can deal only with the subject so far as it is relevant to the Post Office. This is not an occasion for a general discussion on the Whitley Report.
    Mr. ROWNTREE: I shall, of course, obey your ruling, and I believe that what I am going to say is all germane to this Vote. I want to point to the suggestions made in this Report as to the subjects that should be subjects of discussion by these joint councils. They are subjects which, I think, everyone connected with industry will see are of practical importance to any industry, and especially so, it seems to me, to a great national service like the one we are to-day considering. The signatories of the Whitley Report suggest that there shall be a central joint council representative of employers and employed, and that there shall also be district councils and committees in the individual shops in the industry. The signatories hint that there must be all kinds of variations in the way in which this is administered, but, speaking broadly, that is the general scope of their recommendations. Then, when we come to the point of what subjects shall be discussed by these councils, I find they include the better utilisation of the practical knowledge and experience of the workers, means for securing to the workpeople a greater share of responsibility in determining the conditions under which their work is to be carried on, the establishment of regular methods of negotiation, for fixing and adjusting earnings, piece-work prices and so on, technical education, and many other things. These are the questions which, during the past year, the members of the Post Office staff have been asking the Postmaster-General to agree that" they should be dealt with by joint councils. To show the importance that the Government attach to this matter, I may inform the Committee that on 20th October, 1917, the Ministry of Labour announced that the War Cabinet had decided to adopt the Whitley Report as part of the policy which they hoped to see carried into effect in the field of industrial reconstruction, and they went on to add that the Government are very anxious that such councils should be

    2243
    established in well-organised industries with as little delay as possible. An offer was made of Government assistance in setting up such councils, and during the past year the Ministry of Labour have been diligent in trying to induce private industries to agree that these council should be set up.
    I believe it is admitted by all who have given thought to this question—by those engaged in industry—that probably the Post Office provides the most hopeful field for experiment in this direction. It is a national industry, it is well organised, it has a high standard of intelligence amongst the workers, there is no trouble regarding foreign competition, and the workers themselves are anxious that such councils should be set up. You often find in private industries that the workers are doubtful as to the expediency of such a step. Questions of private profit turn on it. But here, as far as one can see, this demand on behalf of the workers for the setting up of joint councils is practically unanimous, and I think it is felt, by large numbers outside, that, at a time when the Government, I think quite rightly, are spending considerable sums of money in urging that this scheme shall be set up in industry generally, that it would be wise to begin at home, and that the Post Office does provide, for the reasons I have stated, the most hopeful field for experiment. There is, therefore, a very urgent demand that the Postmaster-General and his colleagues should be willing as quickly as possible to make the experiment. At conferences which I have addressed during the last few months again and again it has been asked of me by private employers, "Why should we in our industry adopt this scheme when the Government refuses to adopt it in the Post Office and in some of the other public services?" Really those who are responsible for the conduct of the Post Office have in the past few months provided arguments for those who do not wish to accept the Government policy in this direction. The failure of the Government to meet this demand is also bad for the Post Office itself. I am the last person which would desire to exaggerate the feeling amongst workers at the pre-sent time, but I am perfectly certain that there is unrest and discontent among postal workers in many places
    2244
    to-day, and that discontent and unrest could be removed if only there were in existence councils of the character I am dealing with, consisting of representatives of the management on the one side and of the workers on the other, to deal with the large number of questions which are not getting adequate attention at the present time. There is a suspicion, moreover, amongst the workers with regard to the delay of the Post Office in taking action in this direction; they cannot understand it. I am certain that those who desire to see waste prevented in the future and who are anxious to secure increased efficiency in industry—those who increasingly give themselves to the study of the question of satisfying the legitimate demands of the workers with a view to making their lives comfortable and happy and removing grievances as quickly as possible—will agree with me that if those grievances are not removed, and if there is suspicion and discontent amongst the workers, it is impossible to get the volume of work from the men and women that you should get, and which I believe they desire to give, and, therefore, on the grounds of national efficiency and national economy, it is essential you should, as far as possible, make industry run easily in this respect.
    To come down to greater detail, what are the sort of questions which might be discussed by councils such as I have indicated? Here, of course, there will be differences of opinion. My own feeling is, and I think I may say my own experience goes to show, that the more trust you can. put in these councils, the greater responsibility you can place upon them, the more likely is it you will get a willing response and that you will get real efficiency in industry. Therefore, I would not be afraid to allow the councils to discuss questions like that of promotion. Anyone who knows anything of the postal service must be aware how extraordinarily difficult that question is and how much rancour there is amongst postal servants, because they feel they are under a system of promotion which is not fair. It has been all the more so this year, because of the great increase of work in connection with the Civil Service. Men and women have been poured into the different branches of the Civil Service, they have been given high salaries, and many postal servants feel that they have not had a chance of having their claims considered

    2245
    and that preference has been given to outsiders. There is a very strong feeling on that question.
    Mr. SNOWDEN: Would the hon. Gentleman propose to refer to these councils the general question of promotion or only the question of promotion as it affects individuals?
    Mr. ROWNTREE: Certainly I would band over a general question. Naturally the central body would deal with the general question, while the district councils and the works committees might deal with individual cases in their own districts. I do not feel, however, that I am carrying the Postmaster-General with me in this regard. I expect he thinks the difficulties are too great in that respect. But my feeling is that there could be a system whereby the Postmaster-General would be very much helped if the question of promotion were referred to the joint council. A much clearer question has reference to the conditions of employment. Again, those who know anything of the postal service are perfectly well aware of the complaints continually arising with regard to meals, changes of duty, leave, and equipment of offices and shops where the work is done. These are all questions which should be dealt with by the joint council, and I believe it would be found that if this system of joint councils were inaugurated a great many of these questions, which after all are small in themselves, but which loom large if week after week and month after month the grievance goes on and is not remedied—I believe it would be found that these questions would be satisfactorily and well settled by such joint councils. Then there is the question of demobilisation. That wants dealing with by the Post Office and by other industries in the same kind of spirit. I believe, rather late in the day, the Post Office has set up a demobilisation committee—a small one—and has invited two representatives of the workers to sit upon it. In my opinion that is a question which should be dealt with by the central council itself. Already I know that an arrangement like that is being made in some other industries.
    I am anxious not to go into further details, as there are other Members to follow on this question, but I do wish my right hon. Friends to recognise the importance of this subject, not only from the standpoint of the Post Office, but from the standpoint of other Civil offices,
    2246
    and from the still larger standpoint of the general movement in the country. Those who are interested in this question see perfectly well that the feeling of all trade unions is that they are going to expand, through the adoption of this scheme. They know that in the future they are not merely going to think of obtaining increased wages, but that they are going to think of the importance of industry as a whole, and certainly, in a great national service like this, where any profits that arise go to the State, and where the improvement of efficiency in organisation is of great national advantage, you can, I think, get the wholehearted and enthusiastic support of the trade union in giving effective co-operation to the State. I do hope that during this year my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General will be able to get a system of joint councils started in the postal service, and that from the very start he will not be afraid to consult the trade union as to the form which it should lake. The Postmaster-General should be careful not to make the mistake which the Admiralty have just made, but from the very start should frankly discuss the whole question with the trade union. I believe if he is able, during the year, to bring the council into being, he will do much to promote the efficiency of the Post Office, and to promote good feeling and co-operation amongst the postal servants, and will also do much to help the whole movement in the country, which I consider is one of vital importance, if you are to get anything like industrial harmony and efficiency in the industrial world.
    Mr. WILES: I am sure every member of the Committee sympathises with the Postmaster-General, in grappling, during this time of stress and of war, with many great difficulties of every kind. Still, I must say that even in war time one does expect a few grains of comfort in the Postmaster-General's annual speech. I have now listened for twelve years to the annual statement of the Postmaster-General, and I think the statement we have heard to-day is the most dreary account I have ever heard of the working of this great machine, which spreads its tentacles from one end of the country to the other. I had hoped that my right hon. Friend, with his experience of industrial life, would have revived the old bones of the Post Office, and I imagined that he would have given some hope in

    2247
    his speech of reforms of some kind. I had hoped that he would have told us something about the aeroplane service that is being established. We have heard of that through the newspapers instead of through the mouth of the Minister. We read the other day that experiments were being made with an aeroplane postal service between Paris and London, and I had hoped that to-day he was going to tell us that it is to be established, as I believe it will be, and that it will not be long before our mails to our Allies will be carried through the air.
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: After the War.
    Mr. WILES: It may be after the War, but the experiment is being made. We know that the difficulties of transport are so great that our railways are so overloaded, that our roads are being so worn out, especially in London, by mail carts and mail vans, which use them by night and by day, that if we can get some new form of delivering the mails it will be a great advantage in every way. There is one matter to which I should like to call the attention of my right hon. Friends, and that is the tremendous amount of work which is being thrown upon the Postal Department by other Departments of State. A large number of new Government offices have been set up, probably necessarily, because of the War. All those offices are putting upon the Post Office an enormous amount of labour. Their letters consist of a large foolscap sheet, in a franked envelope, and, as economy is insisted upon in the use of paper, it should be seen whether these communications might not often as easily be made by post card. I suggest to the Postmaster-General, with his great ability, he should fight these Departments, and try to obtain from them proper credit for the enormous services which the Post Office renders them and the State. Letters are now carried largely by girls, and, if you have a peeping-eye, you can see that the girls, or the older men, carrying the letters usually have among them several big Government franked-letters to one stamped. I suggest to the Postmaster-General that, in the interests of his Department, he should see that these new Departments set up by the War Cabinet, and all the Departments of the State, whether it be that of the Shipping Controller or the Commission on Sugar, or the Commission on Leather
    2248
    —that all these Controllers, whose name is legion, ought to be charged for the services rendered to them and the State by the Post Office. I want the right hon. Gentleman to be able to put before the Committee next year, if still in his present position, what is the cost to the State of carrying this enormous amount of stationery about from one end of the country to the other, I believe largely unnecessarily. It would not be proper, however, to discuss that now. What I want to see is a business-like account kept of what the Departments of the State cost us in using the services of the Post Office. I do not think any account is kept at the present time. I believe that each Department, whether it be the Ministry of Shipping or whatever the Ministry, sends these letters out without any regard to expense. I do not say that all the communications should be stamped, for that would be unnecessary labour, and I want to save labour, but I submit that every Department should keep an account of every letter sent through the Post Office, in order that we may have some idea of the amount of work which they throw upon that Department, and I think if that were done the right hon. Gentleman would not have such a dull account to give of what the Post Office does when he makes his annual statement next year.
    5.0 P.M.
    My hon. Friend behind me reminds me of the unnecessary telegrams that are sent out by these Departments to which I refer. I believe that the telegraph department of the Post Office still shows a large loss, and I think that, in the interests of economy, a check should be put upon those Departments which send out these unnecessary telegrams. When a man sends a telegram, for which he has to pay 6d. or 9d.—the latter being the charge now—he keeps his message down to the price he has to pay. The Departments pay nothing for telegraphic services, and I think the right hon. Gentleman does not grumble enough. I want him to bring these Departments to book, and I believe that, among them, the greatest offender is the War Office. I am not going to complain as to the use of the telegraph on behalf of our men serving in the field of battle and in foreign countries; they should have all the help we can give. Still, I do know this, that inland telegrams sent out by the War Office are largely unnecessary, and I think that these Departments, whether

    2249
    it is the War Office or any other Government Department, should be charged by my right hon. Friend a proper amount for the services rendered by him and by his officials, in order that a proper estimate may be formed of the vast services rendered to the country by the Post Office. There are one or two other matters to which I should like to call his attention. The first is the difficulty which has arisen in regard to typists in the Post Office. The typists unfortunately, or fortunately they may think, belong to the Postal Telegraph Clerks' Association, and that organisation has put their case before the ' Postmaster- General. I understand that the reply of the right hon. Gentleman was that the typists must not belong to the Postal Telegraph Clerks' Association, but should belong to an association of their own. It seems to me that this is one of those little things which, by cast-iron rules, are a cause of trouble to the Post Office Department. A private firm is far more reasonable to deal with. The cast-iron regulations of the Post Office are always causing annoyance, and generally it is these small, petty annoyances which are a source of all the Department's staff difficulties. It hardly seems to me within the domain of the Postmaster-General to say to his staff, "You must belong to this trade union or that trade union." If the typists wished to join the Postal Telegraph Clerks' Association, why should not that be enough for the Postmaster-General, and why should not questions as to the conditions of labour come before him in the ordinary way? I do hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Assistant Postmaster-General, when he comes to reply, will deal with this point, and that he will agree that these typists have been treated in what appears to me to have been a very unreasonable way. Another small matter which I want to put forward has reference to the K Company of Royal Engineers. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham was going to deal with this question, but he is not in his place, and therefore I should like to say a few words about it. The men of the K Company of the Royal Engineers before the War gave part of their services to the State as soldiers, and then they came back to do their work as ordinary men in the Post Office, having served in the Postal Engineers. The
    2250
    grievance is that the three years which they serve as engineers and as soldiers—a far more risky occupation—for the same State or the same firm, so to speak, is not allowed to count for their pension allowance. That is very unfair indeed. It is a small matter, because there are not a great number of these men, but it is one of those little things that would make the working of the Post Office much easier. I would ask my right hon. Friend to consider it, and I hope that he will be able to give a satisfactory reply. It is not a new grievance. It has been raised many times before. The Holt Committee, even in 1907,. reported as follows:
    "Your Committee recommend that the whole period of service in K Company, where it is followed by established service in the Post Office, be treated as postal service and not military service for the purpose of computing Civil pensions, and that the pensions of officers already retired be accorded accordingly and the arrears made good to them."
    This Committee was appointed a great many years ago, and this is an old grievance, and it seems to me that the time has come when it should be cleared up satisfactorily. The Member for York (Mr. Rowntree), in a most interesting speech, has dealt with the application of the Report which bears your name to Post Office work. He dealt with it very exhaustively, and in a far better way than I can deal with it. He has made an appeal to the Postmaster-General from the highest standpoint, as well as the standpoint of the Post Office and of efficiency, which is almost irresistible. The Committee must remember that the Government, through the Ministry of Labour, almost compels private firms to put the Whitley Report into effect. Controlled firms must do it, and private firms have very strong pressure brought to bear upon them to put the Report into effect. The Government, with members of the Labour party and Wade unionists in their innermost counsels, are sending out these instructions and giving this advice by the Ministry of Labour, and yet, I understand, the Postmaster-General will not consider putting the Report into operation so far as his great business is concerned.
    The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pike Pease): He has not said that.
    Mr. WILES: I am sorry, but understood that he did not see his way to put it into operation. That was one of the reasons I

    2251
    thought his speech "was so dreary. He did not even lead us to hope anything better either for the men or for the country.
    Mr. PEASE: There was a question asked with regard to this matter to-day—
    Mr. ANDERSON: No; it was not reached.
    Mr. PEASE: I am sorry.
    Mr. WILES: I am sure that my right hon. Friend knows that I would not have any misunderstanding about it, but at any rate he will agree with me that up to the present time the Whitley Report has not been put into operation in the Post Office. We shall be on common ground there. I want to point out to him the necessity of doing something of the kind, having regard to the fact that private firms are almost being compelled to do so, and in many cases with great success. My hon. Friend has said how satisfactory it has been in many cases. It is true that in other cases the men themselves do not desire it, but in a large organisation like the Post Office it could be begun in a small way. It might be tried in a town like Leeds or Sheffield. I quite agree that it must be a fairly large town. It could not possibly be put into force in a town where there are only a few employed, but I contend and I feel sure that the general policy of the Whitley Report could be put into force throughout the Post Office. The trouble in the Post Office is the difficulty to relax its cast-iron regulations. It is so old and it is so large that it really wants thoroughly stirring up, but the War has gone on so long that I am afraid it must be put off for some time. I feel that good advice could be given by members of the staff in many of the Departments. There are very highly skilled and highly-trained men of considerable intelligence and ability who are most anxious to give their services in assisting the State Post Office. I might suggest that some of those men who spend their time in organising deputations to the right hon. Gentleman, or in holding meetings, he might consider better employed if they were using their organising ability and their knowledge in helping the Post Office. There are in the Telegraph Department, in the Telephone Department, and in the Engineering Department, men of ability who, if they were helped and encouraged, and not snubbed,
    2252
    could bring forward new schemes for greater efficiency in Post Office work. I notice that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. Clynes) made a speech the other day at Manchester with reference to the Whitley Report being applied to the Admiralty. I understand that some committees have been set up in the dockyards, but I suggest that it was hardly the best way to start by saying how they were to be set up, and in the case of the Post Office it would be better to confer, to a certain extent, with the men who are working in the Department, and who will work and assist the Post Office on these committees. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, with reference to a scheme that had been started by the Admiralty, said:
    "He had read with misgivings the circular issued by the Admiralty to the various Government yards laying down exactly the constitution of some of the workmen's committees and in imposing limitations upon them. It would not do for a Government or a private firm to throw rules at the head of men and say, 'We have laid down these regulations which you must follow ' "
    I suggest that it would be much better, when the Post Office comes to deal with the Whitley Report—I see that a weakening is taking place with my right hon. Friend and I hope that he is going to tell us that he proposes to deal with the matter this year—the right hon. Gentleman would consult the many intelligent and expert men that he has in his Department. At the present time there is nothing to encourage them to invent anything, or to economise in working, or to speed up that great institution. Now is the time when he has a great opportunity, and I trust when he comes to make his reply that he will give us some hope that the Post Office is going to put into force the suggestions thrown out by the Whitley Committee.
    Mr: H. SAMUEL: The dominant factor in the position, so far as the Post Office is concerned, during the War, arises from the circumstance that 80,000 of the men in the Post Office service have been sent to join our Armies and our Fleet. The consequence of that has been a necessary curtailment of facilities in almost every direction, particularly since the withdrawal of this amount of labour has been accompanied by an immense mass of new business, to which the Postmaster-General to-day has made reference, directly arising out of the War.

    2253
    Facilities have been curtailed. Fortunately for the Postmaster-General, he has a very docile public to deal with in these days. In the presence of the great anxieties and sorrows of the War all minor troubles are put aside, and the public at large acquiesces, if not readily, at all events reluctantly, in the withdrawal of many postal facilities to which they are accustomed. Most unfortunate is the fact that accompanying this curtailment of facilities has been an increase in the Post Office charges. I regret more than I can say that it should have been found necessary, after seventy-five years of 1d. postage, to suspend, I hope, as the Postmaster-General also hopes, only for a time, the postage rates to which we have been accustomed. I wonder what our Friend Sir John Henniker Heaton would have thought had he survived to witness this revolutionary change! I cannot doubt, however great may be the financial difficulties immediately after the War, that public opinion, when peace has been restored, will soon demand the restoration of the 1d. postage rate.
    In that connection I wish to make a suggestion to the Postmaster-General and to the Government. Proposals are in the air for the establishment of a system of decimal coinage. The scheme, which has most generous support is that which retains the sovereign as the standard and divides the pound into 200 pennies or into 1,000 milles. Instead of 960 farthings in the pound there would be 1,000 milles. The penny then would have 25 per cent. higher value than it has now, and, if decimal coinage came in on that basis and if the penny postage were restored, the Post Office would find itself in receipt of a 25per cent. higher revenue on the letters that it carries. All its charges would be increased by that amount, and it would be able, in spite of the higher cost of labour likely to follow the War, to restore its old services in all their former perfection, so far as they were perfect, and yet give a very considerable profit to the State. Each letter would, in fact, bring in five farthings, and at last the old rhyme to which we are accustomed in our childhood might be heard at St. Martin's-le-Grand:
    "You owe me five farthings
    Say the bells of St. Martin's."
    If that were done it would be so great an advantage to the Post Office that I hope the Postmaster-General will lend the
    2254
    weight of his official support to the proposal for establishing a decimal coinage, if only for the reason that it will enable him at one and the same time to restore penny postage, and yet to maintain the finances of the Post Office. Before the War the one Post Office which I will not say equalled but tended to rival the British Post Office in efficiency was—if I may be allowed to mention it as an historical fact—the German Post Office, and that was very largely because the German charge for each letter was 10 pfennigs, which is not 1d. but a ¼and having that larger revenue for the services rendered they were able to give very efficient service.
    Passing from that, the right hon. Gentleman mentioned two matters connected with the Post Office, both of which were subjects in which I took the keenest interest when I had the honour to fill the post he now occupies. The first is the tube railway from East to West of London, which I am glad to find it has been possible to complete during the War so far as the tunnel is concerned, though, of course, the provision of the electrical equipment and appliances must he suspended. I am particularly gratified to hear that he, bringing a fresh mind to the project, endorses it, and is convinced that it will be of value to the Department and to the State. The second matter relates to the automatic telephones. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that in Leeds the largest automatic telephone establishment in Europe has been opened. I could have wished that he would have told us something of the degree of satisfaction it has given to the people of Leeds. I think the Committee will probably expect that. I have no information that would warrant me to express any opinion, but I shall be glad if the Assistant Postmaster-General would tell us how far this installation has been able to overcome the difficulties which are always inevitable in the establishment of a highly complicated piece of machinery such as that. In the year before the War I visited America, the United States and Canada, largely with a view to examining the telephone systems in force there. I found that in the West of Canada automatic telephones existed, and were very popular and highly approved by the subscribers to the system. In the United States, on the other hand, the system had been adopted only to an exceptionally small

    2255
    extent, and I think if we are able, as I hope we shall be, successfully to work automatic telephones in this country, we shall be able for once to give a lead to our telephone friends in the United States, who in other respects have been so very far in advance of what has been accomplished in this country.
    The only other topic on which I would venture to trouble the Committee is the subject that has been referred to by each previous speaker in this Debate except the Postmaster-General himself, that is, the application to the Post Office organisation of the principles embodied in the Whitley Report. I think this House has every reason to be proud that, while its Speaker has been able to point the road to a remodelling of our political constitution, the Chairman of its Committees has been able to lay a foundation for the reorganisation of the constitution of industry. For my own part, I believe that the Whitley Report is a State Paper of profound importance. After the War we all hope that the relations between employers and employed may be placed on a better footing, free from the bitterness and friction that has characterised it in the past, giving on the one hand to the workers comfort and a higher status, and on the other securing, perhaps, a better output. The principle has always been laid down that the State should be a model employer of labour. In these days it has been made clear that in the opinion of the Government—I think quite rightly —one of the conditions of model employment is the adoption of the principle of the Whitley Report, and I do not see on what ground a Government Department should regard itself as exempt from that obligation. For my part, I believe that the principles of the report can be applied in a Department such as the Post Office, not only without danger, but with very great advantage. We have, indeed, during the last ten years gone very far towards that end. Lord Buxton—Mr. Sidney Buxton when he was Postmaster-General—created something of a domestic revolution in the Post Office by, for the first time, recognising the trade unions and endeavouring to take them into consultation with himself as Postmaster-General and working with them on friendly terms, instead, as had previously been the case, of holding them at arm's length and refusing even to recognise their existence. Soon alter he had carried out
    2256
    that change in practice he resigned from that Department. I had the privilege of succeeding him, and carried on the system and developed it a good deal beyond the point at which it was then left. I think, on the whole, that has been a very successful experiment. No doubt there have been difficulties from time to time, no doubt there has been friction, but I am quite certain the difficulties and the friction would have been infinitely greater if the trade unions had not have been recognised.
    It has been, during the last ten years, the custom of the Postmaster-General frequently to meet in conference representatives of the National Joint Committee of the trade unions, and the postmasters of the various towns are also required to meet the local branches, either singly or in conjunction with one another. In this way the conditions of labour in the post office are constantly under discussion and under review. But the Whitley Report proposes only that these conferences should be regularised and periodical, that they should deal with a considerable group of subjects some of which, perhaps, have not hitherto come within the purview of the meetings between the Postmaster-General or the local postmasters and the representatives of the men. The Whitley Report makes no proposal that the councils shall deal with the commercial management of businesses. They are to deal with the conditions of employment and matters relating to them. They are, indeed, to stimulate the employés to make suggestions for technical improvements here and there, but the work of the counting house, if I may so express it, is not intended to come within the purview of the national, the district, or the works committees. Indeed, the representatives of the employés have not had the training or the experience which would enable them to. be useful advisers on that side of business. Nor does the Whitley Report make any suggestion that these councils should deal with so delicate a matter as the promotion of individual workmen to be foremen, or to higher posts. I imagine that in the application of the principles of this Eeport—or rather these Reports, because there have been several—to a State Department such as the Post Office the main lines of the proposals will be followed, though no doubt adaptations might be necessary here and there on account of the differences between public and private

    2257
    employment. I hope that we may hear to-day from the right hon. Gentleman the Assistant Postmaster-General what the Government propose to do in this regard. I hope that we shall hear of it from the Postmaster-General himself. I know that this matter has been under discussion for very many months, and I am not prepared to lay the blame of the delay at the door of the Post Office, or of my right hon. Friend. I can well believe that in this, as in so many other matters, the long interval that elapses before the Government takes action is due, to the War Cabinet, the War Cabinet which is always congested with business, which insists upon managing not only the whole conduct of the War but also all our domestic concerns, with the result that continually, again and again, this House has to complain of prolonged delay, frequently causing friction and difficulty, in the decision of questions of importance. I hope, however, that my right hon. Friend will have been able to secure attention to this most important matter, and that he will be able to inform this Committee, which, as the speeches have shown, is keenly interested in the matter, what course the Government propose to take in this large question.
    Mr. ANDERSON: I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £100.
    The Post Office has undoubtedly become an enormous business concern. We know there are employed there 250,000 men and women, and that the receipts stand at round about £32,000,000 with a profit of about £6,000,000 per annum. This has been built up from small beginnings, and I believe that we have not by any means reached the limit of the possibilities so far as the Post Office is concerned. I am quite sure it will launch out in new directions, and also that it will develop many of its present undertakings with regard to banking, and the like. My view is that if the Department is to reach its highest point of efficiency and service the labour side of the Department must be looked into very carefully. At present in large degree the Post Office is an autocracy tempered by public criticism, and I want to ask whether under those conditions you do really get the best out of the men and women in your employment, and whether you have brought to a maximum the spirit of responsibility and co-operation. That is the point which in various ways we are trying to emphasise this
    2258
    afternoon. Everybody believes that the post-war conditions in many respects are going to be different from those that obtained before the War, and this must be no less true, so far as labour is concerned, in nationalised industries than in those not yet nationalised
    The value of labour has been recognised during the War, and we are pleading that such new machinery shall be established as will give to the workers a new interest, a more direct interest, in this huge organisation of which they form part. It ought to be borne in upon them that in work like the Post Office work they are fulfilling a social purpose and are filling a social need, and it ought to be seen that there is a greater diffusion of the sense of responsibility and pride in enterprise. The trade unions are growing very strong in the Post Office. There are well over 100,000 organised now, and that movement is going to grow much stronger still. The character of the trade union movement and the nature of its functions in the Post Office, however, will depend very largely on the attitude towards that movement shown by the Post Office management. You can either make that attitude wholly critical and somewhat hostile in tone or you can make it a constructive movement. You can call it in and make it beneficial in the highest degree, a real help and a real guide for the Department. You can develop the spirit in which every man and woman in your employment will want to be more helpful and will want to help to improve the conditions of service.
    I believe that as one step in this direction we ought to establish joint committees in the Post Office on the lines of the Whitley Report, and that any difficulties or dangers that may be created in regard to the application of these principles to privately-owned industries are greatly minimised when it comes to an enterprise like the postal service. My hon. Friend the Member for York showed that there are special arguments why the principles of the Whitley Report should be applied to the Post Office. The nation here in regard to its own business ought to give a lead to private employers, and since you have other Government Departments to-day—the Ministry of Reconstruction and the Ministry of Labour—impressing upon the private employers of the country the need for adopting at once the principles of the Whitley Report, surely that is an additional argument why you should set your own house in order first.

    2259
    The Post Office also is a nationalised concern, and therefore it should have a finer spirit than that merely of commercialism and money-getting, and there ought to be a far greater degree of cooperation between the management and those in its employment. There ought to be all round a spirit of genuine service, and my firm opinion is that the application of these principles will certainly tend wholly in that direction. If you will set up joint committees of the kind indicated you will get more and more your employés to face with you your difficulties, to understand something of your problems, and to share on certain questions at least responsibilities with you, and I believe it will be good for the management, for the employés, and for the nation at the same time.
    The hon. Member for York pointed out that you have a very special kind of employéin your service. The character, the ability, and the intelligence of the men and women in the employment of the Post Office are on very high lines. If you take, for example, the number of men who are guilty of defalcations, and so on, who abuse your trust, it is very low—less, I believe, than 1 per cent. of the people in your employment—-and therefore you have got men and women of skill and of ability and of a high range of intelligence, and they are willing to work with you and asking to work with you, for the whole of these organised workers are urging that the principles of the Whitley Report should be applied to the Post Office service, and so far it is the Post Office itself that is standing in the way. These organisations are well over 100,000 strong, and they have a joint working committee, so that the unions are all linked together and are friendly in their attitude toward each other. These unions have been pleading for a long time that this step should be taken. The Postal and Telegraph Clerks' Association, one of them with a very large membership, signified approval as far back as July, 1917, and said they were quite willing that the Whitley Report should be adopted so far as the Post Office is concerned. They have written to the Ministry of Reconstruction and the Ministry of Labour about it, and the other unions have come into line and lave taken up the same attitude and are asking why there should be this long delay in putting these proposals into effect. The only intimation they have got so far
    2260
    has been a reply—I think, from the Ministry of Labour, stating that so far as the Post Office was concerned the question of how and in what degree the proposals of the Whitley Report can be applied to the Post Office is receiving careful consideration. That is a very guarded and a very official reply, and it does not take them very far. All this time other Government "Departments are holding conferences all over the country to tell private employers what is their duty in this matter. The Minister of Reconstruction addressed a meeting at Glasgow on 4th April, a meeting of the Glasgow Trades Council, and he was strongly urging in favour of these joint committees, and this was the first question he was asked when his speech was at an end:" Does Dr. Addison consider he is justified in preaching the doctrine of joint control, and how does he expect private employers to accept joint control in view of the attitude of Government Departments, particularly the Post Office; and does he know that members of the Whitley Report have declared the Post Office to be a suitable institution for the introduction of this scheme?" What can a Government orator say under such circumstances? All that Dr. Addison could say was, in the usual official language, that he would take this matter into account and give it his most serious and most earnest consideration.
    I wish to ask whether the present machinery is adequate in regard to the relations between the Post Office and this great mass of a quarter of a million of workers. I think for myself that the management at present is in many ways rather remote from the workers, and when you are dealing with 250,000 people with passions like yourselves, and jealousies, and hopes, and suspicions, and aims like yourselves, you are up against a very difficult human problem which requires careful management and control; and I am sure of this, in regard to a great institution like the Post Office, that again and again grievances which could have been remedied at the start if they had been dealt with promptly are allowed to fester, to become acute, and to drag on month after month arousing much bad feeling and much ill-will, and if you can get machinery for anticipating some of these troubles, and preventing them, you will go a long way towards establishing better relationships all round. Friendly discus-

    2261
    sions time and again would smooth the way, and prevent many of the difficulties arising altogether.
    Now, what is the present position with regard to the organisation of the Post Office? We have got the centre of organisation at St. Martin's-le-Grand. We have got fourteen districts each in charge of a surveyor, and then we have got the postmasters under the various surveyors; and when grievances begin far down there is the utmost difficulty in getting the matter put right, and very often delays occur that need not occur at all. Although the trade unions are recognised by the Post Office, the machinery even now is somewhat difficult to operate, and it begins sometimes with perhaps a signed memorial in regard to conditions, or wages, or hours, or meal reliefs, and so on, and that memorial is acknowledged. Very often delays occur even there, and a matter that should be put right promptly is allowed to drag on. In other cases you have the question of discipline and disciplinary measures, and there once more the unions must not under any account take note of these questions until the damage has been done, and they are never called in to help you, but are expected rather to fight you if you do something wrong. I suggest that, so far as these public services are concerned, the unions could be doing much better work than that, and to a much larger degree than at present they could help you to get rid of your difficulties if you gave them the opportunity to do so. How can the employés put right their grievances now? There is the extreme step of a strike. The have been strikes from time to time in the Post Office, and sometimes as many as 400 and 500 men have been dismissed for going on strike, but does anybody want to strike in the postal service? The men and women in your employment least of all desire to be driven to any step of that kind, and a strike, especially in a public service, produces great bitterness and public inconvenience.
    What is the alternative at present to the strike? To a very large extent it is to put pressure upon Members of this House in regard to various grievances in the postal service. Members of this House are asked to raise questions, and sometimes the pressure that is put upon them produces an inflamed state of things. We have had postmaster-generals speaking from that bench who applied very strong
    2262
    language to the postal employés in regard to the methods they were supposed to adopt. I am not going to enter into that either one way or another, but in my view if you get this tribunal set up, a tribunal accepted by both sides, and fair to both sides, you would get rid of nine-tenths of these questions that come up for discussion in this House, and you would also get rid of a great deal of the political pressure put upon Members of this House in regard to comparatively small matters, I have a question here in regard to the promotion of assistant clerks. They are a class common to the Civil Service, including the Post Office. In all Government Departments except the Post Office, and in two branches of the Post Office, namely, the Savings Bank Department and the Accountant-General's Department, the assistant clerk has an opportunity of promotion to the second division, the scale rising to £300. In the Post Office, however, with the exception of the two branches referred to, second division clerks are not employed, and consequently the assistant clerk has no opportunity of promotion to the second division. Well, here is a grievance arising, and their opportunities are curtailed; they are kept down to a maximum of £200, and so on; but if you had a joint working committee, such as this we are now discussing, this is the very kind of problem that could be brought up and properly solved by it.
    If you are in doubt as to the scope and nature of the complaints that come up for discussion in this House, I will turn up the index of the Official Report for a few months, and here are some of the matters that came up for discussion in this House in regard to the Post Office: "Remuneration for Sub-postmasters," "Holidays for Postal Employés," "Grievances of Postal Clerks," "Wages and Hours of Mail Cart Drivers," "Educational Facilities for Girl Messengers," "Effect of Pensions where Officials are doing Munition Work," "Pay in London and the Provinces," "Pay in Relation to the Cost of Living," "Remuneration of Postmasters for the Sale of Insurance Stamps," "Pay of Sub-postmasters for War Loan Work," "Pay for Sunday Work," "Pay for Supervising Officers," "War Bonus for Temporary Workers," "War Bonus for Employés." Would it not be a good thing that you should set up a joint working committee to deal with all these questions? Surely the pressure

    2263
    of business in this House is of such a character that you should be able to get rid of a great many of these matters, and you would be able to settle them in a much more satisfactory way if it was done by those with an inside knowledge of the facts! At present these grievances accumulate, and very often at last we set up a Fawcett Committee or a Tweedmouth Committee, or a Hobhouse Committee, to examine the grievances and decide what shall be done. Very often after these Committees have reported there is usually a long delay before the Reports are made, and the trouble is growing all the time. Often afterwards there is a feeling aroused as to the interpretation of the award, and that it is not being interpreted in a proper way. In all these ways we seem to get examples of the kind of work that could be done if something on the lines of the Whitley Report were adopted. You would get matters like pensions and superannuation allowances dealt with on fair lines, and you would infuse in regard to labour conditions more of the spirit of democracy into the Post Office and less of the spirit of autocracy, which simply wants to impose conditions on the workers regardless of their feelings. In the old days we used to get autocracy on these questions, but to-day we believe that the masses of the workers ought to have some voice in a matter of this kind.
    There is one other point, and it is that, if you are going to adopt the proposals at all, let it be done on broad, right lines. Do not, in some bureaucratic spirit, make some niggardly and ungenerous proposals. That has been done by the Admiralty, although they say it has been done only in an experimental way. It would have been far better on the part of those other Departments if they had left the matter alone, because they have done harm, and the Admiralty in regard to these proposals made the mistake of ignoring trade unions and of restricting nominations to those who have been five years in the Service; and so, under this scheme of the Admiralty, all the old methods are going to continue, and the Admiralty propose to change everything whilst leaving everything absolutely unchanged. If you are going to do that, then your committee is going to be stillborn, and no real purpose will be served. There may be difficulties in regard to applying these principles to the Post Office. I asked a question to-day in regard to this matter, and the reply has
    2264
    just been put into my hands, and I suppose this is the latest pronouncement in regard to applying the Whitley Report:
    "The question of applying the principles of the Whitley Report to Government Departments is a matter which does not concern the Post Office alone, and, pending a decision of the Government on certain general questions, I am not in a position to make any announcement."
    Apparently the Admiralty thought it was a matter which concerned them, because they rushed in with a special scheme with regard to the Whitley Report. I suggest to the Post Office that before coming to a decision as to how they are going to apply these proposals they ought to have a consultation with the workpeople themselves as to the lines along which they ought to move, for these are matters which concern the management and also those employed. It is the essence and spirit of the Whitley Report that they are matters which concern both, and if it is going to be properly done it must be properly taken in hand. I suggest that we should have a Conference with the representatives of organised labour in the employment of the Post Office, in order to see that the proposals are adopted in the right spirit and the right way. Such a Conference ought to be useful in many directions. I would again impress upon the Postmaster-General that there is a great possibility for good work, and for removing feelings that exist sometimes of ill-treatment or of lack of consideration. The final word in regard to these questions will still rest with the Postmaster-General, and be subject to this House, and in this way it will be possible for an agreement to be reached.
    We know to-day that new democratic ideals are merging. I do not believe it is possible to have democracy in politics and bureaucracy in industry. I believe that industry will have to be more and more democratised, and the workpeople will have to be made more and more partners in all these great public concerns. If you are going to have the new spirit about which we hear so much when this War is over, then you will have to provide the machinery through which the new spirit can express itself. If you do not do that you will go back to the pre-war feelings and troubles. The reconstruction of society is not going to come from above from people in authority alone. In the reconstruction in regard to conditions of life, and working-class conditions, the workers will also claim to have a voice. They are not going to have their lives

    2265
    arranged for them in Government offices by reconstruction committees sitting in private in Whitehall, Downing-street, and elsewhere. They are going to claim some say as to how they are going to Live under the new conditions.
    Mr. BOOTH: We have had too much State socialism lately.
    Mr. ANDERSON: That may be true, but I am not dealing with the question of State socialism for the moment, or with business probity, but these are questions which will have to merge. I wish to develop responsibility amongst those in the employ of the Post Office. I wish to see the general level of service increased. I wish every worker to feel that he is not a mere cog in the wheel, but that he shares in this great enterprise, and feels worthy of his trust.
    Sir W. RUTHERFORD:It has been my ill-fortune for the last sixteen years in this House, on every occasion when the Post Office Estimates have come forward, to feel it my duty to call attention to a number of matters which are going on in a way which I, at all events, felt was highly unsatisfactory. It would be ungracious of any of us to get up here to-day and complain about delays in the delivery of letters or about the curtailing of Post Office facilities. We all know that a very large number of the employés of the Post Office are to-day fighting for us, and we appreciate the difficulties under which that enormous organisation is being carried on, and I think the whole community is quite prepared without any complaint to put up with any little inconveniences to which they may be subjected. On the other hand, I think that, in view of the great loss of efficient servants, the Post Office ought to be congratulated upon the amount of efficiency and success which, having regard to these difficulties, they have up to the present achieved.
    I have long been of opinion that the British Post Office is probably one of the most backward institutions on the face of the earth from the point of view of commercial efficiency. I do not know whether the Committee is aware of the fact that in the reign of King Charles we had the penny post in London. It was then done by private enterprise, and there were six deliveries a day, and the charge was one penny. I do not know that we have progressed very far in the nature of advancement since that time, at all events as
    2266
    regards London. We have now got the price up again. Immediately the State took over this work the price was put up all over the country. In fact, it became an institution run by paid officials, and it was governed in an autocratic manner, which is always a defect which is bound to lead to inefficiency. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cleveland (Mr. Herbert Samuel) alluded to the fact that in his judgment Germany before the War had a very efficient postal service—in fact he said that it was next in efficiency to the British postal service. My inquiries are to the effect that before the War probably the Japanese postal system was the most efficient. We all know that the Germans had organised a very efficient service, but the right hon. Gentleman did not point out even as regards the German service that they had in all their principal towns a service under which five letters could be sent for a penny. From any part of the Empire of Japan to any other part for ten years before the War ten letters could be sent at the cost of 1d. I do not think that the British Post Office has anything to boast of with regard to the rates it is charging or with regard to the facilities that are given in this country. It seems to me that if all our modern improvements in the nature of transport and organisation or even a fair proportion of them had been brought to bear upon the postal service, we should have been able at least to send four or five letters anywhere in the British Empire to-day for 1d. As a matter of fact the inefficiency and the charges have not improved over any decade of years for the last 100 years, compared with the general transport arrangements and the general efficiency of all kinds of institutions conducted by private enterprise.
    6.0 P.M.
    There are three points which I think we ought particularly to pay some little attention to to-day. The first point is a comparatively short one, and it is the treatment of the men in the K Company, This is rather a small matter, but it is just exactly one of those points which if the Whitley Report were adopted would automatically disappear, and it would be dealt within a friendly way. I am not going to delay the Committee by going into details. The nature of this treatment has already been pointed out, but the principle at the bottom of it is that a Committee of this House expressly set up to deal with this, and a number of other difficulties, did deal with the point and did

    2267
    make a special Report upon it recommending a friendly adjustment in a perfectly sensible way, but the Post Office, when it received that Report, declined to carry that decision into effect. I took an active part in this House in connection with the inquiries of no less than five Committees which have dealt with postal matters. I do not know whether the Committee is aware that on each of those occasions although the members of those Committees were nominated by the Government of the day, and although some of them had sittings lasting over a year, investigating all sorts of matters and points relating to the subjects referred to them, only one or two of the principal points decided by those Committees as being fair and reasonable were adopted, and, as a rule, the Post Office when it got the Reports declined to give effect to them. It almost makes one think that in a matter of this sort in connection with the Post Office it is perfectly useless to appoint a Committee if, when the Report is brought in, the Post Office declines to carry it out. That is one point. Then there is the matter of the typists, to which reference has been made. Here, again, although it is a very small point in itself, it is a matter of great importance as one of principle. One of our recent Postmasters-General, Lord Buxton, adopted the plan for the Post Office of acknowledging the authority and position of the workers' unions. It was thought when that great improvement and amelioration was made that, at all events, there would be some chance of a large number of these points of grievance disappearing. I am glad to say that there were a vast number of small grievances of all times and descriptions which were satisfactorily dealt with and solved, because the employés in the Post Office were, for the first time, able to be represented collectively and able to make some general arrangement for the whole body.
    It was an excellent reform. It has done a great deal of good, but what has happened in connection with the typists, of whom there are now a considerable number employed—far more than used to be employed? They desired to belong to and did become members of the Postal Telegraphists' Association, which is one of the principal unions concerned. The Postmaster-General said, "We will not allow this; you must form a union of your own." There are some hundreds, probably a
    2268
    thousand or two, of typists, who asked, "What is the use of a union of our own, what influence will such a union have, representing as it will do a comparatively small number of people; why should we go to the expense, annoyance, and difficulty of forming an association of our own, why should we be compelled by the Postmaster-General to join any other union except the one we desire to join—the principle union of the service?" They claimed to be represented by the union of which they had become members and to which they subscribed. The Postmaster-General turned round and said, "I will not acknowledge this movement, I will have nothing to do with ft, I will not listen to any of your matters which come through the Postal Telegraph Union; I will not permit you to be members or to be represented by that union. You must form a union of your own." My point is this: that if the principle is admitted—and it was admitted—that the Postal servants should be represented by their union, surely to goodness that should, as a corollary, carry with it that they were entitled to join such unions as they thought fit, and to be represented by people to whom they had entrusted their interests ! I entirely agree that in the last eighteen months since this question arose there has been difficulty all over the country, and I have been entirely unable to understand the attitude of the Post Office on this point.
    The other matter to which I just want in a word or two to refer has reference to the Whitley Report. The Post Office employs a quarter of a million people. It has amongst its employés poets, painters, authors, dramatists, literary men, men of high organising power, men of very great ability, men of culture, and men whom, on a great many points, we here would be delighted to meet. At the present moment the great service to which they belong gives them an average income of something under £250 per annum, with practically no prospects of advance, and it is under the autocracy, and is sat upon by two or three highly-paid officials at the head office. I am prepared to give the present Post-master-General and the Assistant Postmaster-General every credit for the efforts which, I am sure, they have both been making as intelligent and reasonable business; men to try and get over some of the cast-iron red-tape—[Laughter]—with which this great Department has been bound. The only thing which will carry out my metaphor is this: steel bands, which would

    2269
    be an equivalent, I think to some extent, to the kind of thing I am mentioning— steel bands under which this Department is at present run. The same difficulty has been fought by preceding Postmasters. What they have done we do not know, for it does not come out into the light of day. But I think I can see some of my hon. Friends who are here to-day going in for some very wholesome and wholesale reforms in connection with places like the Post Office if they only got the chance.
    There is in my mind no doubt at all that in this highly intelligent, well-educated body of men many could be of great use to the State, could make valuable suggestions, and would be and are willing to work together in improving the status, and the machinery, and indeed the whole administration. At present they are simply kept down not by the Postmaster-General, not by the Assistant Postmaster-General, but by about half-a-dozen highly-paid bosses! [Laughter.] Yes—who are safely installed at headquarters and who have made up their minds that the people who are underneath them shall not have any outlook if they can possibly manage otherwise. The Post Office ought to set an example in regard to these matters. What is the use of this great and very important question of industrial reconstruction and reform being dealt with in an intelligent manner, in a manner which strikes the imagination, and strikes all of us as being so practical and so beneficial in so many directions; what is the use of apostles going about the country preaching that this Report should be adopted by private individuals when one of the greatest employers in the country, the Post Office, is not at present willing or ready to adopt it? The Post Office ought to have been one of the first to adopt the Whitley Report, and to show by its example that it approved of the principles and reforms advocated. May I add this one word of further appeal upon this subject? I believe the right hon. Gentleman is going to adopt the Whitley Report. I do not believe that the Post Office, in spite of its present government and arrangements can or ought to stand out. May I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to do the thing properly when he or his Department is doing it. Let there be no emasculation of the Report, no laying down of a number of conditions which will make it difficult, if not impossible,
    2270
    to properly carry out, but let the Report be adopted as a whole, in the letter and in the spirit.
    Colonel Lord HENRY CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: I desire to associate myself with the appeal so eloquently put forward by the hon. Member for York and other Members that the Whitley Report should be adopted by the Post Office service. It is said that this War is a war which has liberated a great many new forces. Undoubtedly this War has been, and will be, a war of liberation, but whether there is much new in these new forces I am not so certain, because human nature is the same now as it was in the days of the Garden of Eden. Human nature has struggled from the very earliest days, towards self-realisation. It is quite certain that this War has given a great impetus towards that tendency. That is what is meant when we speak of things, not being the same after the War as they were before the War. Undoubtedly the people of this country are not going to be satisfied with being treated, as they were before the War, as the soulless machines; they are going to ask for a much fuller recognition of their humanity. I do-not say that the new tendency has much affected either the upper classes or the middle classes. What elements of "divine discontent" have been starring in those two classes have been treated with the marvellous magic by the Prime Minister, who has appeared in shining armour with bushels of decorations, baronetcies, and knighthoods, and has allayed that feeling of discontent. But there are great masses of the people, workers with brains and workers with their hands, who are not to be put off with these gew-gaws, and who are demanding, in the words of the poet Wordsworth, that—
    "They shall be treated not as senseless members of a vast machine, a tool or instrument, employed as brute mean without acknowledgment of common right or interest in the end."
    I really and honestly believe that the only danger to the stability of our society and of our institutions is that these new democratic ideals should be stemmed and obstructed. Happily, the Whitley Report. has pointed out the way in which these new forces may be guided into safe and peaceable channels. If we have only the statesmanship and wisdom to call to-our councils those who work and associate them with those who direct the work, I am perfectly certain that the result will

    2271
    show us how very reasonable, sensible, and patriotic are the great masses of the working people of this country. I am thankful to say the movement, inaugurated by the Whitley Report, has achieved remarkable progress in the country. It has been very greatly obstructed by the non-possumus attitude of the Postmaster-General. Those who have been advocating its cause in the country find that those who wish to obstruct are some employers, and the first question they ask is, "What are you yourselves doing in the Government?" My hon. Friend the Member, for York and I and several other Members raised this question this time last year, and we were told that it was under discussion. Whenever we have asked a question we have always got the same answer. I really do think it is time the Postmaster-General got a move on in this matter. There is no doubt that the Feeling in this House is in favour of the adoption of the Report in the Post Office service, as the Postmaster-General must have perceived by this time.
    A great many hard things have been 3 aid about the Post Office this afternoon. It has been called a piece of cast-iron red-tape by my hon. Friend, and other Members have called it a soulless autocracy and a rigid bureaucracy. I am not given to strong language myself, but I cannot help thinking that there is plenty of evidence which makes it necessary that the wind of the autocracy should be tempered to those who are employed in its service. my hon. Friend the Member for Attercliffe instanced the grievance of the assistant clerks. Here is, as he said, a very good illustration of the necessity of some form of the Whitley Council for the post Office, because it is rather ridiculous hat we Members of Parliament, should lave to bother the Postmaster-General in debate and by questions in order to get such apparently unjust things put right in the Post Office service. Take, or instance, the question of the assistant clerks. When they joined the service hey were told that the second division clerkships would be open to them, but when they are told off to go to the Post Office service they find there are no such things as second division clerkships, except in the Savings Banks and the Accountant-General's Department. Here s where the autocracy comes in. The Postmaster-General refused to do any-
    2272
    thing more for them, but to allow them to go to third-class clerkships. That is of no use to them, because there is no promotion. It does not mean that they will reach any higher salary. If they are not allowed to go to the second division clerkships they ought to be allowed to be transferred to other Departments, but the Postmaster-General has stepped in and refused to do this. I do think these people have a genuine grievance, and I do hope my right hon. Friend will kindly give it his serious attention.
    I would like to draw the attention of the Postmaster-General and the Assistant Postmaster-General to a question to which I and other Members have often drawn the attention of the official heads, and that is the grievance of the second-class Post Office engineers. In 1911, when the National Telephone Service was taken over by the Government, a new class was created, called the assistant engineers. Half of the second-class Post Office engineers were transferred to that new class, but the remaining half—that is to say, about 150—were told that they were redundant. Those people had served in the Post Office, some for twenty years and some for more, and, so far as they knew, they had served with complete credit, and their qualifications were never called in question. They, of course, felt it a very great deal after twenty or twenty-five years' service, which, so far as they knew, had been perfectly satisfactory, to be told that they were redundant, and that all avenues for promotion were closed to them. Since the beginning of the War forty-four of these men have been transferred to the class of assistant engineers, but there are still over a hundred who have now waited with great patience and great patriotism since the beginning of the War for a redress of their grievance. Of course, the War has gone on very much longer than they expected, and they have now asked me to bring their case forward in the House. I would ask my right hon. Friend to give the grievances of these people his careful consideration, because there is no reason for believing that these men are inefficient, or that they are unworthy of promotion, and I must say it cannot possibly lead to contentment in the public service that, after twenty-five years of service, men should have to join a redundant class, and have all avenues of promotion closed, and their career, as it were, ruined.
    Colonel Sir F. HALL: I have listened practically to the whole of the speeches made this afternoon, and I cannot help thinking that the Postmaster-General must realise that the general feeling right through the Committee is that if the Government are advising, as they should advise, the adoption of the Whitley "Report, they, at all events, should see that they put their house in order. It is all very well to go to a person and say," We think this is an extremely good thing, and we recommend its adoption." The man will turn round and ask, "What are you going to do?" "Oh!" they say, "we are recommending it." But are you doing it? The Post Office have got to do the same as all other Government Departments, and I think if they adopt the report in to to it will be a great deal better for the Government service in general. As was said by the Noble Lord just now, it should not be necessary to have to bring such cases as the redundant engineers before the House of Commons. I have had the same case time and again, and I would take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman and the Assistant Postmaster-General for the great assistance they have given me in that matter. I am pleased they recognised and promoted recently eight of these redundant engineers. But that is not enough. There are still sixty to seventy of those men who have been in the service for anything up to twenty-five years. When the class was created in 1912 there were 150 of the second class who were promoted to the new class, but 150 were brought in—people from different walks of life—and were placed over the heads of these Post Office employés. If it is said they cannot do the job, I am here to say that if the men cannot carry out the job they are not entitled to have it. But you have used these men as the tutors, and I should like to know on what grounds the newcomers were placed in the better posts, which I should have thought ought to have been allocated to the Post Office employés, provided they could carry out the job. That is the sort of thing which causes grievances. What have various Postmasters-General said? "We will look into this after the War." We had the same answer in 1915. It was admitted then there was a genuine grievance, but they said that during the War they could not look into it. That was three years ago, and we do not know
    2274
    when this War is going to finish. Are we to say that we cannot redress a grievance, and that every grievance has to be left till after the close of the War? I sincerely hope the right hon. Gentleman will continue not only the sympathetic treatment that has been given, as shown by the promotions, but that he will consider the case of the sixty or seventy men remaining. I have received letter after letter on this very subject, and I hope that the matter, having been brought before him this afternoon by the Noble Lord, will receive that support and assistance which we maintain should be granted.
    There is another topic which I would like to bring before the Committee, and it is one which I have ventured to bring forward several times recently—namely, the hardship with which the sailor is treated at present in regard to postage. I am told it is a small item. If so, the more easily is it put right. One is a little surprised to receive a reply to a question such as that which I received the other day. First of all, I did not believe that these people could be so handicapped, and I put down a question, and having got a reply, I put down another question to see whether redress could not be got. I received a reply that
    "One of the reasons for granting free postage to troops belonging to the Expeditionary Forces was the difficulty of obtaining postage stamps in the theatres of war."
    Really, it is too ridiculous to put forward that difficulty. I have yet to learn that 10,000,000 or 20,000,000 postage stamps are going to take up an enormous amount of transport. From my own personal experience, it was not a question of obtaining postage stamps, but we had to obtain all classes of money for our men. Could we have turned round and said, "We are most fearfully sorry we cannot pay you. You must accept our apologies, and we will pay you at the end of the War, because we have not the necessary cargo space." I suppose that my right hon. Friend felt in a great difficulty as to what to say, and I can sympathise with him. I do not want anybody to think that I am raising any objection to the soldier having a free postage. I have seen what an advantage it is to him. and I want that advantage extended to the men on the ships. I suppose one of the reasons for the opposition is the idea that the men in the Mercantile Marine will also want this privilege. Why should not they have it? They are facing all the difficulties

    2275
    just the same as the sailors in the Navy. It is not going to cost much. You have no reasonable excuse. I hope, at all events, that this matter will be pressed again and again until the concession is made.
    I do not want to put down a reduction of the salary by £100. I want the Government to meet me magnanimously on this point, and I purposely did not put down a Motion for reduction. But that is not because I do not intend to press this matter in a proper manner until the claim is met. I hope that I will get support from all quarters of the House. Perhaps some hon. Friends, when addressing the Committee hereafter, may be able to impress on the Postmaster-General that they are in sympathy with the demand to give this privilege to the sailor as well as to the soldier. Perhaps Members representing the naval constituencies will deal with the matter. I cannot understand why they have allowed it to rest where it is for such a long period. Perhaps they were not aware of the disability under which the sailor is labouring. Unfortunately, while we speak in hundreds of millions and even thousands of millions of money in this House, we are sometimes put off on a matter like this, which involves small cost. Are the soldiers to be told that they got free postage because there were no stamps, and not because we want to show that we appreciate what they are doing for us? The soldier will not appreciate that. I put down a question to-day to the Admiralty to see if they would approach the War Cabinet, and I cannot help thinking that we have friends in the War Cabinet who will perhaps be able to come to the decision that we are not asking anything unreasonable. It may be said that the sailors are in home waters to-day and in foreign waters to-morrow. I do not mind whether they are in home waters or in foreign waters. They have to face privations just as great as those of any of the units in the fighting theatres of war, and I hope the same consideration will be given to them.
    There are one or two other matters which I have previously raised on the financial statement of the Postmaster-General. One of these is the question of wages. I am not going to press the matter to-day. I cannot quite understand the difficulties. We are told that £6,000,000 of money has been paid, and that the war
    2276
    bonus has been increased from 6s. 6d. a week to 14s. a week over the pre-war wages. But the tramways people have got 20s. a week. It is the duty of the Government to see that they are model and not miserable employers of labour. If it costs Post Office employés to-day 20s. more to live than in pro-war days it is the duty of the State to see that that money is provided. It costs £6.000,000 at present, and I realise that it will cost considerably more to give this increase, but as this is before a Board of Arbitration I hope that the decision to be arrived at will give complete satisfaction to the employés. I hope that the Postmaster-General will not think that it is all a question of debit, because instead of having a penny postage to-day he has got a l½d. postage, and though there may be a certain amount of loss on one side and perhaps a somewhat smaller revenue from the postage, yet whatever the revenue it is the duty of the Government as model employers to see that their employés are given such a reasonable salary as will enable them to live in no worse conditions than in pre-war days.
    Major Sir B. FALLE:I wish to associate myself absolutely with what has fallen from my hon. and gallant Friend as regards the postage of sailors' letters, and I would like to ask my right hon. Friend if he will give us some information as to what the Post Office will do. We mean to press this matter until we get this concession. We do it because it is an absolutely just claim. We know what the Admiralty view is and we know that it is the Post Office and Treasury which stand in the way. The Post Office must take the matter up and bring it before the Treasury and oblige the Treasury to do the fair and just thing to the sailor. No reason has boon offered for not giving to the sailor the advantage which the Army now possesses. The excuse which has been given is a bad excuse and a bad excuse is worse than nothing. The idea that our soldiers cannot get postage stamps is really too ludicruous for words. Considering that every single letter which a soldier writes has to be censored by his immediate commanding officer surely it is absurd to say that the commanding officer at least could not have a few stamps doled out. They would not take very much room in his luggage. Of course, if the officer could not do so the officer in the district who has to censor the letter could do so. The Navy carries the Army on its back. It

    2277
    not only takes it to France, but it takes the food and ammunition to France. Because it does all these things it should not be placed in a position inferior to that of the Army. If we had no Navy we should not have a single soldier in France, or if we had we could not feed them and supply them with munitions. The soldier is able to write as often as he likes, and he writes pretty often. I have had to censor a great many letters, and I know how often a soldier writes home, but the man in the North Sea is not given the same privileges as regards postal chances as the soldier. I think the attention of the Assistant Postmaster-General has only to be called to the matter for him to see the justice of the claim to give to the matelot what the soldier already has.
    Colonel Sir C. SEELY: I desire to support what has fallen from the hon. and gallant Member and the hon. Member for Portsmouth as to granting to sailors the same privilege of free postage as is enjoyed by the soldier. The reason given for the special privilege in the case of the soldier is not a strong one. I cannot help thinking that the real reason for granting this to the soldier is two-fold: first, because no one realised in the beginning how large a force the Army would become, and, second, it is in itself a reasonable grant, and that reasonableness applies to sailors in the same manner as it does to soldiers. In ordinary times women know where their husbands and sons are, but in the conditions of war the whole matter is altered. When a ship leaves port no man knows where she is going or when she is coming back. Therefore, I think it would be a very great boon to the wives and mothers of the sailors to extend to sailors this advantage which you have given to soldiers. Of course, I know the difficulty which faces the Treasury and the Post Office owing to the loss on the sale of stamps, and owing to the fact that this no doubt will increase to a considerable extent the number of letters sent. A cost which applies only during the War is quite a different matter from a permanent cost which will exist after the War. This cost is not a serious matter in time of war, and it would apply only to the War and to no other period. We have never, in pre-war times, been in the habit of allowing soldiers free postage for letters home even when they were stationed long distances from home, and I do not suppose that anyone suggests that this privilege of franking letters
    2278
    should remain after the War, but I do not see why it should not be possible to grant this privilege to men in the Navy which has been granted for such a long period to men in the Army. I am afraid that it is only one instance of what has been the gravest mistake that we have made during the War. So great was the success of our Navy when the War began that to a certain extent we forgot them. Their success was so overwhelming that people forgot both the work that was placed upon them and the value of their services, and matters like this were forgotten in the same way that matters of far greater importance wove also forgotten at the same time. I press this matter most strongly upon the Government. I do not agree with the hon. and gallant Member who brought it forward, because it is one of such absolute justice that I feel obliged to move the reduction I have put down, not with any idea of carrying it to a Division, because I have no doubt whatever that now that it has been brought to the attention of the Post Office they will grant to sailors this perfectly obvious privilege, which ought to have been given to them at the same time it was given to the soldiers, and thereby give the mothers and wives of these men the advantage which the mothers and wives of the soldiers possess of hearing from their sons and husbands at a time when they get no information, other than their letters, as to whether they are alive or of their health or of what their condition is.
    The CHAIRMAN: The hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot move the reduction standing in his name because there is already an Amendment before the Committee.
    Mr. REA: May I express the hope that my right hon. Friend will lend a sympathetic ear to the eloquent pleas put forward on behalf of the sailors, who are running very nearly the same dangers as are the soldiers, and who are entitled at least to equal privileges, if that can be arranged? When the right hon. Gentleman is considering the matter, I should like him to see whether the same privilege cannot be granted to those men of the Mercantile Marine who are serving with the Fleet, because they are entitled to it equally with the men of the Royal Navy, in that they run very nearly the same risks. I did not rise to take part in the general discussion, but to refer to

    2279
    a remark made by my right hon. Friend in the earlier part of his statement in regard to the reduction of postal facilities. We all admit that we must submit to inconveniences in war-time, and my right hon. Friend will not imagine that any of us are anxious to make unnecessary complaints, but really in some cases he is carrying his deductions to an extent that appears to be a little unfair to some parts of the country. The Committee will imagine, from the fact that I am paying an unwonted visit to this box, that I am here to make a contribution to the Debate on behalf of my Constituency. My right hon. Friend is aware of the circumstances in which the Sunday delivery has been curtailed throughout the country. We are willing to recognise that in some districts the Sunday delivery must be stopped, especially where the reduction in railway facilities calls for it. But in my own Constituency of Scarborough this causes particular hardship. That town has suffered much more than any other town in the country in consequence of the War. It is half ruined, but it is doing its best to avoid going into bankruptcy during the War, and in order to do that it hopes to secure a few visitors—it cannot expect many—from week-end to week-end. The town was progressing slightly and making a little money when my right hon. Friend bowled us right out by depriving us of the Sunday postal service, which was one thing that induced the West Riding manufacturer, whom he knows, to come to Scarborough for an occasional week-end rest. The result of the curtailment of the Sunday postal service is that the West Riding manufacturer, leaving his office for a much-needed rest on a Friday afternoon, can get no letters until he returns to his office on Monday morning. The consequence is that he does not come to Scarborough. Unfortunately, we know that men in business cannot get complete rest from it, and that we must keep in touch with it. We would submit to this interference if it were necessary. The letters for delivery in Scarborough actually arrived there, I believe, on Sunday morning, and I understand they are also sorted, yet the Post Office will not allow them to be delivered to us. Because they will not find the minute expense involved in calling out a small number of postmen to deliver them, the letters lie there until Monday morning.
    Sir B. FALLE: Cannot you have a box and call for them?
    Mr. REA: We have been refused every facility for which we have asked. We were told it would cost almost as much in labour to put letters at the disposal of callers in a box as to deliver them. It is not really a question of facilities or of labour, because I know the postmen in the town are all there, and would do the work because they would get extra money for it. If the letters are there and the labour is there, and there is nothing to be saved, I cannot see anything except what an hon. Member opposite called "the cast-iron red-tape of the Post Office" that stands in the way of the delivery. I would appeal to my right hon. Friend to put his foot down firmly upon these out-of-date officials. They have never paid for the delivery of letters between eleven and one o'clock on Sunday, and therefore the Post Office will not do it. It is a quite unreasonable restriction to put upon the amenities of a town which depends upon these facilities for its livelihood. I would ask my right hon. Friend to view with sympathy the very urgent request I put forward that this very small expenditure should be made for the benefit of my unfortunate Constituency.
    Sir J. FLEMING: I desire to raise two points which have not been mentioned so far in the Debate. The first is in regard to telephones. The present charge for telephones in this country is considered by all of us to be excessive. I remember that at one time the City of Glasgow had a municipal telephone system, for which the annual charge was £5. I think Hull also had the same sort of system at about the same price. When I occupied the civic chair in Aberdeen, we discussed introducing the municipal system there, but as even then it was in the air that the Government would shortly take over the telephones, and as there was a doubt about the connections from one town to another, on the whole we came to the decision that we would not embark on a municipal telephone system, trusting that in the course of time the Government telephone would become as cheap as the Glasgow telephone or the Hull telephone, namely, £5 a year. In place of that the telephone charges have risen steadily. There is nothing that hampers trade more than a high charge for a telephone. A great deal is said at present in the country

    2281
    about reconstruction after the War and what is going to be done to help the business men, workmen, and the various members of the community to do their best to build up after the War those industries which have been so sadly broken down. I cannot conceive anything which would help business more than a cheap telephone system. The Postmaster-General very properly spoke in terms of high praise of cheap postage and of what it has done for the country, the Empire, and, indeed, for the world. I maintain that a cheap telephone system would not only awaken the business efforts of the country, but that in the end it would pay. A dear telephone is not a paying subject When the last increase was made I do not believe that many people dispensed with the telephone, because when one has a telephone he does not like to give it tip. I am sure, however, that there are hundreds of thousands of people who have declined to put in a telephone but who would have done so had the price been cheaper. I would ask the Postmaster-General to keep this point before his mind. I know that at present he cannot think of a reduction in the price, but I ask him to keep it before his mind continually so that some day this country may not be behind Scandinavia, where the telephones cost £3 to £4 a year.
    Mr. PEASE: The wages differ.
    Sir J. FLEMING: Wages in Scandinavia at the present moment, as I happen to know, are as high as they are in this country. The chief thing which makes the installation of telephones in this country so costly is the prevalence of absurd Board of Trade Regulations. Telephones have to be so constructed as to last to all eternity. Movement in the electrical and telephone world are so sudden and constant that it is a great pity to spend as much money on a system which in a few years may be scrapped and a new one introduced. If less stringent restrictions were laid down as to the erection of telephones they could be installed a good deal cheaper. The charges are high for the use of the instrument itself, but another very irritating petty charge is made for the use of a second bell. A good many folks who have a telephone in their houses put it into a cloak-room or some neutral room where no one in the other parts of the house can hear it. If the door is closed a second bell is put either in the direction of the kitchen
    2282
    or some other part of the house where the whole of the occupants will hear it. The cost of that bell itself mid its erection cannot be more than 5s. or 6s., but I will put it as high as 10s. I know that in the case of one installed in the house in which I happen to live it could not have been more than 5s., although, of course, that was the pre-war price. What do we have to pay annually for the use of this 5s. or 10s. bell? Five shillings a year for the use of it. I have lived seventeen years in my present house; consequently I have paid £4 5s. for the use of a bell which does not belong to me and which goes back to the Government! Immediately I leave the house. It is a petty, irritating charge, which ought to be beneath the policy of a great Department like the Post Office.
    7.0 p.m.
    Another trifling thing about the telephones is the Telephone Book. When the Government took over their assets from the National Telephone Company I sup pose it took the book over as well. At all events, it has followed up the principles of that book to this day. The paper is of the most wretched description. You cannot handle the Telephone Book in a busy office more than a month or two before it is dog-eared, dirty, and done. It contains advertisements which are painful to the eye when one is reading down the alphabet to find a person's name. It is ridiculous for the Post Office to earn money in that shabby manner. I would advise the right hon. Gentleman to follow the example of Glasgow. The Corporation of Glasgow is looked upon as a model all over the country, not even excepting Birmingham. The Corporation of Glasgow took over the tramway system and, when they did so, they found the cars owned by the private company all bespattered with advertisements, inside and out, back and front. When they took over the cars they took the whole of the advertisements away, and now on all the cars of the Glasgow tramway system you will find nothing but a simple description of the route the car takes. If a municipality can afford to do that, why cannot the Government afford to drop out these irritating advertisements? Put them in the front or the back of the book if you will, but at all events take them out of the middle, and allow people to read the Telephone Directory with something like comfort. I hope the Postmaster will excuse one who has very seldom spoken in this House from mentioning these matters,

    2283
    but I think the country will be with him if in the near future lie introduces a cheaper system of telephoning, and I believe that cheaper system will pay.
    Another matter of' quite a different nature which I have never heard referred to to-day, or in any previous Postmaster's statement, is as to unclaimed savings bank deposits. That is a matter I have thought a good deal about for many years, and I should like to say a few words about it, in the hope that some day heed will be given to the suggestions I make. I asked, by way of question, last year, if I could get the amount standing to the credit of dormant accounts which had not been intromitted with for twenty years. I wanted that return as a starting-point for another question as regards the treatment of those deposits. However, I was not accorded the information. I was referred to a statement in the Savings Bank.Report where it gives the amount of the accounts which had not been intromitted with for five years. That, of course, is useless for my purpose. Accounts which have not been intromitted with for five years need not be tabulated at all, because that is no long period, but an account that has been dormant for ten years, certainly for twenty years, requires to be looked into. I know something about this matter, because I was for a great many years chairman of the Aberdeen Savings Bank Board, and I took this matter up and caused a public notice to be inserted in the newspapers that on a given date the names and last known addresses of all those with accounts dormant for ten years would be exhibited. The amount which had been dormant for ten years at that date was £5,960. Of this, £3,000 was claimed within a very short time, and for the comfort of the Postmaster I might tell him that the great bulk of that money was re-deposited. That was twenty-one years ago, and at present there is still £800 of that money unclaimed. If you take the deposits in the Trustee Savings Bank and the Post Office Savings Bank, add them together, and take the same ratio of the money lying dormant for ten years, it comes to over £1,000,000. Many of these deposits are in small sums. They are sums which no one in this House would think worth consideration, but they belong to poor people, who have poor relations, who would find them very acceptable if they only knew they were there, but they have no opportunity of
    2284
    Knowing they are there. I do not know if any other bank has ever tried this experiment of letting it be known they arc there. I should like the Postmaster to consider the suggestion that once a year, on the 1st January or 1st June, or whatever date he likes to fix, the names and last known addresses of all those who have money lying on deposit for ten or twenty years should be exhibited in the post offices where those sums lie, so that an opportunity might be given for the public to know of them, and for the proper claimants to get the money. It does not belong to anyone in particular until it has been found out what has become of the depositors. Savings bank books are lost by shipwreck, by all sorts of accidents, by fire, and through sheer carelessness. They are lost by men going abroad and forgetting all about them. The money consequently belongs to no one. The man dies and no one takes any interest in him and no one knows that he had his bank deposit. But if they were exhibited once a year in the post office to which the deposit belonged an opportunity would be given to the depositor to recover the money. In the course of time these various lists might be collated, published in a book, and issued at a small cost. I hope the Postmaster will give favorable consideration— first, to the cheapening of the telephone, and, secondly, to giving people an opportunity of knowing what money is lying unclaimed for a period of, say, ten. fifteen, or twenty years.
    Mr. HUGHES: I have listened off and on to most of the speeches delivered in this Debate, and I notice that one com plaint made against the Postmaster-General by an hon. Friend of mine on the opposite side was that his speech had not been interesting enough and, indeed, that it had been dreary. I am thankful to any Postmaster-General who drops out of his annual speech the traditional jokes to which we used to be accustomed. I have listened now for twenty-seven or twenty-eight years to speeches from Postmasters-General, and they generally repeated the same old jokes about the misdirecting of letters and matters of that sort, although we were weary of them, just as Chancellors of the Exchequer repeated their traditional jokes. I thought the speech of the Postmaster-General was one of commanding interest. He showed how a great Department had been deprived of thousands of men, had had put on it

    2285
    enormous new public services, and had come out of the test very successfully indeed. It was not dreary or uninteresting to me.
    We have had a speech from my hon. Friend (Mr. Rowntree) who, not for the first time, has brought forward a pro position that the Post Office system should be run by what I think he calls a joint committee, consisting to a certain extent, perhaps half, of the workers, and for the rest by those opposed to the workers. I remember him bringing the proposition forward some months ago, when he addressed the present Postmaster-General and implored him, to my knowledge, about five times in six minutes, to take it seriously and recognise that it was a serious proposition. The Postmaster-General has been here sufficiently long for us to recognise that he is a serious man. He is not given to airy persiflage. He can look at things from a serious point of view. Yet my hon. Friend (Mr. Rowntree) kept rubbing this into him that it was a serious proposition. Perhaps what he suggests is a good thing. He said it was good not only for the Post Office, but for all Civil Service Departments and also for what he called, rather vaguely, the movement generally throughout the country. Among his many activities he is a newspaper proprietor. Would he allow the newspapers that he controls to be run by committees composed as to one half of the writers, reporters, printers — those who I maintain provide the brains— and as to the other by those who provide the money? I doubt if he would. If he does not do that his continual demands here for applying such a system to the Post Office cannot be regarded as real, and must be regarded as merely a political movement, possibly founded on the fact that there are a good many Post Office servants in the city of York.
    Sir J. SPEAR: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he would consider the desirability of closing the post offices in provincial towns on market days for one hour instead of two? The increase of business by country folk coining into the towns makes it very in convenient that the offices should be closed for two hours, and it does not help the employés very much, because the in creased business and the limitation of hours create greater pressure on them by congestion of business when the offices are reopened than would be the case if the
    2286
    closure were for one hour instead of two. It also militates against the obtaining of Post Office certificates.
    Mr. FRANCE: I would like to add a few words to the appeal which has been made to the Postmaster-General in regard to the concession to sailors in the matter of postage. I do not say this because I represent a naval port; I do not. It is in consideration of the justice of the situation. I was very much impressed with the answer which was given and which has been read to the House this afternoon as the reason why this concession was not made to sailors. It seemed to me an ingenious example of the ability of those who draft answers to questions. The reason apparently why soldiers do not have to put postage stamps on letters coming from France to England is not an appreciation of the risks of the work they are doing, but merely the mechanical inconvenience caused by the difficulty of providing them with postage stamps. I should have thought that that difficulty could have been got over by the provision of payment upon the letter being stamped, if that were the real reason for this con cession being made. I do not think the answer does justice to the intention of the Government or the intention of the House. I think the concession must have been made because the Government appreciate the fact that men fighting in the Expeditionary Forces should have this concession, and if that applies to soldiers, I think it applies with equal force to the men who are serving under conditions of great danger and great in convenience to themselves in the other branch of His Majesty's Service.
    I was going to raise the question of the treatment of men in the Post Office who come under the head of the grievances of K Company— an old grievance of long standing. I understand that the Chairman of the Committee (Mr. Holt) which dealt with this matter seven years ago, and which recommended that this grievance should be attended to, is going to raise this matter, and as he was chair man of that important Committee upon Post Office Conditions, I should prefer to leave that question to him. But I would urge very strongly, as I was a member of that Committee, that the matter should be settled. It was a Committee considering the conditions, wages, employment and pensions, and as it came to

    2287
    a conclusion seven years ago and recommended five years ago that this long-due payment, and the payment of arrears should be made to these men in the matter of pensions, I trust the Post Office will press— I do not put it more highly than that— as they promised to do, on the Treasury in order to see that this long standing grievance is put right and that these men get what is due to them. In regard to the subject introduced by the hon. Member for York (Mr. Rowntree), and the Motion of the hon. Member for Attercliffe (Mr. Anderson), who pro pose that the principles of the Whitley Report should be applied to the Post Office, I would like to remind the Committee that the Committee to which I have referred, which sat some years ago, was one of those periodic organisations, clumsy in themselves, and devised for the purpose of going into the question of grievances and the difficulty in relation to wages, employment, and conditions of work. It is not as the hon. Member (Mr. Spencer Leigh Hughes) says, in order that these servants may run the business but that they may assist in doing what the Whitley Report desires to do, that the relationship of those employed and those who employ should be so improved that there should be a new atmosphere and a co-operation in purpose which will make for harmony and efficiency which in the past too often has been absent.
    I believe that the Post Office would provide a good example in which the experiment, which, we understand, the State is about to devise, could be carried out. I understand that questions were asked in the Committee as to what were the type of industries in which this experiment could be made. There were four answers, but I shall only refer to two of them. One was: "Those industries in which both employer and employed are highly organised." That surely applies to the Post Office. You cannot have an employer more highly organised for this purpose than the State. On the other hand, you have in the Post Office service a number of very highly organised, intelligent men, in associations which are recognised and have been recognised for many years. The other reply was that the experiment should be adopted by those industries not so highly organised. I prefer to take the first of these two examples. I hope the Postmaster-General will do so and
    2288
    recognise that the Post Office is an industry which is highly organised on both sides, and that he will take action to put into practice the precepts which he is asking others to adopt for the benefit and advantage of the nation.
    Mr. PEASE: Any visitor to the House this afternoon may be struck by the number of criticisms which have been made in regard to the Department which I represent, but it is possible to feel a little surprise that there has been no criticism whatever in regard to the questions affecting the War in relation to the Post Office. I have heard no complaint in regard to letters or telegrams to or from the various theatres of war. That is a different position from the one I occupied last year, and I think there must be some sense of satisfaction that the Post Office staff has been able to accomplish a very great work. The Postmaster-General, in his address this afternoon, which covered a very wide area, stated that we were delivering in France every week about 10,000,000 letters, and that practically the same number were sent back to this country. When we consider the difficulty of delivering letters in other parts of the world it must be realised that the work is on a very large scale. Some of the criticism which we have listened to this after noon— and I find no fault with any of it— has been with regard to matters of trivial importance; but we are a wonderful people, and even in the midst of the greatest War in the history of mankind we feel strongly in regard to these matters, and rightly so, because we wish to try and put the whole work upon a proper basis. I will deal with the criticism of my right hon. Friend (Mr. H. Samuel), who was Postmaster-General when I first went to the Post Office, as to the reply which was given, or was intended to be given, this afternoon by the Postmaster-General in reference to the Whitley Report. He said that he could not say anything with reference to the question put to him, be cause the matter of applying the principle of the Whitley Report to Government Departments was a matter which did not concern the Post Office alone. The matter is, or will be, very shortly before the War Cabinet, and in these circumstances it is not possible to say anything further, nor do I know what the decision is likely to be.
    I think that this afternoon there was a misapprehension shown by the speech of

    2289
    the hon. Member for York in regard to the relation of the Postmaster-General and myself to the trade unions. My right hon. Friend the ex-Home Secretary in his speech referred to the revolution which was carried into effect by Lord Buxton some time ago, and the relationship which existed between trade unions and himself on the two occasions when he occupied the position of Postmaster-General. It is difficult to say exactly what the position would be if the Whitley Report were carried out to the full, but I have no doubt there are certain matters which could be well discussed between a body of that kind and the Post Office. With regard to the question of conciliation and arbitration, the record of the proceedings for 1917 of the Conciliation and Arbitration Board was recently published. Twenty claims on behalf of Post Office servants were heard by the Board in the year 1917, of which fourteen were settled by arbitration and live by conciliation, and one claim is out standing. Twelve of the cases dealt with by arbitration were settled by war bonus awards in May and December, and the total amount of money received is £6,000,000. The total amount of money for the last award in December was over £2,000,000. The remaining two cases relate to claims (1) by the National Federation of Sub-postmasters for increased remuneration for (a) dealing with Army and Navy allowance forms and (b) the issue of War Loan and Exchequer Bonds, and (2) by the London supplementary clerks for (a) the retrospective application of a scale of pay introduced in 1910 and (b) the application of the scales of pay recommended by the Holt Committee with out the increase in hours, recommended by the Committee.
    I mention that because some criticism this afternoon gave the impression that the Post Office was an absolute autocracy. Everyone in the House knows perfectly well that, so far as these matters are concerned, the question of wages is outside the Postmaster-General's jurisdiction The award is made by the Arbitration Committee, the chairman of which has been sitting here this afternoon. The bonus is a very considerable amount. In regard to the question of the charge for postage for sailors, sailors are in exactly the same position as soldiers who are at home. Soldiers who are abroad on foreign service have free postage, but the soldiers at home pay postage in the ordinary way, as do sailors I understand that the appli-
    2290
    cation that has been made this afternoon is that postage should be free for all soldiers and sailors, and also the Mercantile Marine.
    Sir C. SEELY: Sailors are in the same position as soldiers; they are on active service.
    Mr. PEASE: I understand what the hon. Baronet says in regard to that, and I will see that the matter is considered. It is quite impossible for the Postmaster-General to give an answer on such an important question as that without consulting the Cabinet in regard to it. My Noble Friend (Lord H.. Cavendish - Bentinck) brought forward the question of redundant engineers. I was under the impression that I had brought papers this afternoon in regard to them, but I am sorry to say I have not done so. If he will allow me, I will look into the case further, as I do not feel qualified to speak in regard to this question fully without having the papers. I will communicate with him and give him an answer, which he can publish if he thinks desirable. The hon. Member for Liverpool (Sir W. Rutherford) brought for ward the question of expensive postage, and said that he thought that in Japan it was possible to post five letters for a penny. I do not know how that is arranged, but the charges in the different countries in regard to both the post office and the telephones depends to a great extent on wages, and anyone who realises what the wages are in Japan should know that there is really no basis for argument in regard to the two countries. I am sure that everyone would be only too desirous of reducing the charges for the telephone, for the telegraph, and for all postal facilities if it were possible. The difficulties of labour in the Post Office are very great, something like 80,000 men having gone from our service, but we have endeavoured as far as possible to treat fairly all applicants for telephone facilities. We should like to connect anyone asking for a telephone, but we have not got the operators or anyone to instal it. The difficulty has been very great, because we have been obliged, especially in regard to the Air Service, to provide a very large service for the new Government Departments, thus using a great deal of the labour which we had left to us. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Islington(Mr. Wiles) referred to the question of aeroplane postage. Anyone who has an eye to the future can see the day coming when we

    2291
    shall have an opportunity of sending our letters by aeroplane to a very large extent. I can remember, in the history of the town which I represent, that when rail ways were first adopted there was no idea that there could possibly be the extension of the-railway system that we see to-day. It is quite possible that some day the right hon. Gentleman and myself may be able to go in an aeroplane to Iceland one evening and round by Tokio the next morning. As far as one can see, there is no reason why the aeroplane should not be used to a very great extent for carrying letters.
    Mr. WILES: May I ask my right hon. Friend, seriously, if any experiments have been made?
    Mr. PEASE: I am very glad the right hon. Gentleman asks me that question. The reason nothing has been done in regard to this question is that the aeroplanes are required for war work. We have no doubt at all that a postage system can be inaugurated whereby aeroplanes are used for carrying letters and parcels, but in view of the very great demands that there are at the moment for aeroplanes for the Military and Naval Service, it has been decided at present not to proceed in the matter. The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned the question of economy. We have paid great regard to the question of economy, among other outside things— in paper. We had an expert down recently; he spent a long time in investigations atone of our Depots in order to see what saving could be effected in paper, and all the saving he could suggest amounted to about £30 a year, which is a negligible amount in view of the enormous amount of paper which is necessarily used. I need hardly say that we shall endeavour to carry out all the economies of which we are capable.
    Mr. WILES: I am sorry to interrupt, but I did not raise the point at all. I asked the right lion. Gentleman if he would refer to the amount of postage sent out by Government Departments, and the amount of wastage of delivery from which the Post Office suffers?
    Mr. PEASE: With regard to the question mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, the Post Office is credited with the expense of the telegrams of the various Departments, naval and military. If he will investigate the matter further, he
    2292
    will find that is the case with regard to all the Departments. He must have made a mistake, in regard to that matter. It is not possible for us to arrange the amount of work which, is done by these various Departments. There may be in many cases telegrams sent which are unnecessary, but as far us the Post Office is concerned the amount is credited to them.
    Mr. WING: Does the same thing apply to postage?
    Mr. PEASE: Yes, it applies to every thing. The question of the Liverpool typists, which was raised last year by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool (Sir J. Harmood-Banner), has been raised again this afternoon. The question is a comparatively simple one. There are something like fifty-six unions of various kinds. Most of our staff naturally belong to manipulative unions, but typists should belong to clerical unions. It is an essential condition to recognition that the union should be composed of classes which have a community of init rests. About 700 typists arc employed, about half in London and eighty-three at Liverpool. The Postal and Telegraph Clerks' Association arc anxious that the Liverpool typists should join them and the typists there arc agreeable, but other typists are not. I would ask the House this question: Would it suit the general policy of trade unions if any discontented members were to secede from their union and join another union in which they had no community of interests, or were to form a new union? Associations are constantly claiming to be consulted as to the conditions of service of the staff, and they are allowed to take questions of remuneration to arbitration. The system of consultation cannot be made workable unless members of grades are represented by one union only Arbitration or conciliation proceedings cannot take place if no one association can claim to speak authoritatively for any one grade. The Post Office is not composed of one class of workers; it consists of dozens, and claims might be put forward by several associations on behalf of the same class inconsistent with each other. This would result in hopeless confusion.
    Mr. ANDERSON: May I ask whether the Post Office dictates in any way as to the organisation that workpeople shall

    2293
    join, and whether, seeing there are only two or three hundred typists, they are of themselves to form a competent trade union in place of their being allowed to join an existing strong trade union?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The only point that we lay down is that they should join a union in which they have community of interests. The typists are a clerical body and the Postal and Telegraph Clerks' Association is a manipulative body. They must join a body in which they have community of interests.
    Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that there is no objection to them joining a union, but only a stipulation as to which union they shall join?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: Certainly.
    Mr. PEASE: I am sorry if I did not make it clear, but I said that last year in debate. I want to refer to a point raised with regard to postal facilities at Scarborough. The Postmaster - General very much regrets having to reduce postal facilities in this country, but it is impossible to avoid doing so. The question with regard to Scarborough has arisen and has been dealt with on more than one occasion. I should have liked to have been able to say that we agree to what my hon. Friend asks, especially in view of the fact that owing to its geographical position Scarborough has been hit by the circumstances of the War. The general abolition of Sunday deliveries in the provinces was considered, among other measures of retrenchment, in 1916, and it was decided not to proceed with general abolition but to deal on their merits with cases where the public convenience of Sunday delivery appeared to be obtained at too great a cost. Such was the position at Scarborough. The railway facilities are not such as to permit us to make a Sunday delivery at Scarborough. I regret that is so. but as far as I know there is not any likelihood of -us being able to make a change.
    Mr. ROWNTREE: The right hon. Gentleman knows that the Sunday papers manage to penetrate there by carrier or cart or some way or other. There is that way of getting over the difficulty.
    Mr. PEASE: I am sure that my hon. Friend would be only too glad if there were no Sunday delivery in the country at
    2294
    all. In reference to the automatic telephone exchange, I do not happen to have had the privilege of going to Leeds to see it, but I have, some little knowledge of it at Darlington, because that was the first place in which it was inaugurated. The same position is taken up in regard to automatic telephones as in regard to other telephones. A great many com plaints are made with regard to the system, but I am informed by a very high authority that it is quite impossible for there to be any mistake of any kind so far as automatic telephones are concerned, and I believe that to be the case. This system, as is generally known, is adopted to a very large extent in America, and Canada, and the difficulty of an ex tension of it in this country is really a question of money to a very large extent, because the capital required to inaugurate the system all over the country would be a colossal sum. This service has been in operation in the Epsom district for some time, and I believe it gives more or less general satisfaction, 'but, as in the case of everything else in this world, there are some people who are conservative in their opinions and who prefer the human element in telephones. Personally, I think the day will come when we shall see a very great increase in automatic telephones in this country, and I believe it will be an advantage to the State. When I first went to the Post Office I was under the impression that a much larger number of the mistakes were due to the operators than I now believe to be the case. I believe that a great many of the mistakes that are made are due to wrong numbers being given by the subscribers and by sub scribers not carrying out the rules which are perfectly plainly put before the public in the books which have been delivered to almost every house in the country. I wish to say a word with regard to the co-operation of the public in the adoption of the new postage rate. The result has been most satisfactory from the Post Office point of view. In the E.C. district the average day showed about 1,500 in stances of incorrect postage under the old rate, while under the new rate the number is 3,000 out of a million and a half, which is a negligible number. I think, under the circumstances, it will be considered that the public has responded well to the appeal which was made to them.
    The hon. Member for Aberdeen brought forward the question of Post Office Savings Banks. I do not know whether

    2295
    it is possible to carry out the suggestion he made, but I may say on behalf of the Department I represent that the matter will be carefully considered, and I will endeavour to send him a reply in regard to that question. It is a matter of very great satisfaction, in view of the financial position of the country, that there is now more money in the Post Office Savings Bank than there was when the War began. With regard to the question raised by the hon. Member for Tavistock, I am very sorry indeed that there has been inconvenience caused in that market town through want of postal facilities. As on all occasions, I shall be only too glad to consider any representations that are made, and, if the matter has not already been investigated, I will look into it and see if we can meet the hon. Gentleman on the matter. In regard to all these difficulties it must be realised that these are not normal times, and that it is quite impossible to obtain the same terms in this or any Department as existed before the War. In regard to the present staff of the Post Office, no one can possibly expect that we can get as good work from those who are now doing the work as we obtained from the old-established staff, employed for so many years in the Post Office. Still, whatever may be the shortcomings and difficulties which are inseparable from the conditions of the service in war-time, I have some reason to believe that the general public are more or less satisfied with much of the work that is now being done by the Department. Doubtless mistakes are made by this as by other Departments, and I quite recognise that there has been a very considerable amount of delay in the delivery of letters, but it will be seen that this is hardly avoidable in these times of stress. I know that some Members of the House have been inconvenienced by the non-delivery of letters at the proper time, but taking into account all the difficulties of the situation, I think it must be acknowledged that the staff of the Post Office have been able to accomplish a great deal of work. In all the various questions which have been put there was none as to wireless telegraphy. Every one realises that this is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, invention of modern years, and when the history of the War comes to be written, and it is possible for us to make public the work accomplished by the Post Office, especi-
    2296
    ally in the Scientists' Department of the Post Office, I think that it will be a very great surprise to many members of the community, and that everyone will realise that the Post Office staff, and all those connected with the Department which I represent, have in circumstances of no small difficulty tried, as far as possible, to contribute to the needs of the Navy and of our Army in the field.
    Mr. HOLT: I do not rise for the purpose of entering into a general discussion on Post Office matters, but I think it will be conceded that members of the public, taking all in all, look upon the Post Office as having done very well considering the difficulties under which they have to work. There is one consideration which I should like to urge upon the right hon: Gentleman the Postmaster-General, and it is that he should make the last delivery as late as possible at night, and the morning delivery as early as it can be done, for that would really be a great convenience, as it would enable a letter to be received and answered in the same day. But my object in rising to-day is again to press upon the attention of the Government the case of the K Company of Royal Engineers, whose case was investigated by a Committee over which I had the honour to preside. The K Company, as we under stand it, are only nominal soldiers. They were Post Office men, who enlisted nominally in the Army, so that the Army could have the right to the service of competent Post Office servants to carry on the postal service which is necessary for the Army in the field. The Report of the Committee deals with that matter, and it states that the men in question while serving in the K Company of Royal Engineers were employed on Post Office work, and the time they served in the K Company was to be counted to the Post Office, but, owing to the time served in the K Company, these officials suffer a loss of between five and twelve years' service when pension comes to be calculated. That is the point of the men's grievance. While serving in the K Company these men, though Post Office servants, were nominally soldiers, yet they are to be deprived of years of service when estimating pension. The men say that it was represented to them at the time when they were invited to join the K Company that their service in that company would count for pension, in spite of the fact that they were acknowledged as members of the

    2297
    Army. The fact is that a circular inviting these men to enlist in the K Company was issued in June of one year, and another circular was issued in 1909, and these two circulars were equivocal on the subject of pensions; but a circular which was issued in 1907 was undoubtedly clear that the service would not count for pension. The men's case is this, that when it was made clear in the 1907 circular that this period would not count for pension, the enlistment stopped, and then a circular was issued in 1909 leaving the point at least open to doubt, in order to get persons to enlist in the K Company at all.
    The Committee, which consisted of nine members, drawn from all quarters of the House in the usual way, considered the matter very carefully, and they recommended that the members of the K Company should be regarded as the established servants of the Post Office, and treated as Post Office servants for the purposes of pension, and that correction should be made accordingly, and arrears made up to the men. The Committee were absolutely unanimous in their recommendation, and I submit to the Secretary to the Treasury that when the matter was referred to a Select Committee of this House, and when evidence has been heard on both sides, the representatives of the Post Office did not dispute the justice of the men's claim. That is quite certain. The representatives of the Treasury did not choose to attend the Committee to put their case. That being so, it does seem to me that the Government are morally bound to observe the recommendation of the Committee. After all, the proceedings of that Committee were in the nature of an arbitration on whether or not these public servants had or had not received what was properly due to them from the public exchequer. The Committee unanimously came to the conclusion that the men had made out their case, yet for four or five years the Government have refused to make good their recommendation. I think that is treating the Committee with very little respect, and that it is treating the men very unfairly. That sort of treatment is likely to make bad feeling and bad blood in the public service. After all, these public servants put their case to arbitration and won, and then the Government turned down the matter, saying, "You won your case, but we will not accept the award."
    2298
    I submit that is really a denial of justice to these men. I am told that owing to-technicalities legislation will be necessary to enable these pensions to be paid. I do not believe there will be any difficulty in getting through the House as quickly as you like a Bill making it clear that the pensions shall be paid to these persons in accordance with the recommendations of the Committee. Therefore I very strongly, as strongly as I possibly can, urge the Secretary to the Treasury to-reconsider the decision of the Government, and to do to these men what the Committee, over which I presided, believe-to be fair.
    Mr. T. WILSON: I endorse every word the lion. Gentleman opposite has said, and I think the men of the K Company have proved their case, if ever anyone proved a case, and I am surprised that the Treasury have not seen fit to carry out the recommendation of the Committee. I hope, however, that the Government will be in a position to give a favourable reply on the subject. There is another class of men to which I wish to refer, a similar class recommended for an increase of wage by the Committee, and I am informed that nothing was done to meet that recommendation, except that recently a war bonus was given. I refer to Class 2 draughtsmen, who get a £5 increment until their remuneration reaches £200. Draughtsman in other public Departments receive £400 a year, and in the case to which I refer I am satisfied as to the justice of the claim which is put forward. In one municipality they advertised for men of this class— that is, Class 2 draughtsmen— and they offered £4 a week to begin with, and if that can be done in the case of a municipality or in the case of commercial establishments, surely an institution like the Post Office should be in a position to pay higher salaries to men of a similar class, in their employment! I appeal to the Postmaster-General to give favourable consideration to the claim of these men. On the question of the right of the workers to decide for themselves to which union they will belong, I do not think there need be any difficulty what ever in dealing with any claim if it is put forward by an organisation to which the workers belong making the claim, and any decision given by the Post Office for or against that claim ought to be accepted by the typists, whatever may be the society to which they belong I hope,

    2299
    for the maintenance of good relations between the Post Office authorities and their servants, that there will be no attempt to stand in the way of any particular body of servants choosing the trade union to which they wish to belong, for any such attempt would be an interference with the liberty of the subject. But it may be that the typists will eventually get into a society which will cater more immediately for their wants.
    8.0. P. M
    Mr. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury): I rise for the purpose of answering, in as few words as possible, the appeal made to me by the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Holt) to give reconsideration to the case of the K Company men. I do not propose, in view of the suggestion I have to make to him, to argue the case at all this evening, but I will tell him exactly how the matter stands to-day. The decision which the Treasury have, been asked to give has required a great deal of consideration, because, although the number of men affected is not large and the amount of money involved is not great, there are a number of complications which perhaps do not appear on the surface of the case, but which render it very necessary to be very careful from a monetary point of view. My hon. Friend will remember that he put down a question to me a month or two ago, and that, in answering it, I expressed a hope that we might have an opportunity at an early date of conferring together on this subject, because I felt he had not been fully apprised of the point of view which we hold at the Treasury. But, and I expect it is because we have both been pretty fully engaged lately, we have not yet been able to effect this meeting, so I offer him definitely now that, on as early a day as possible, we shall hold a conference at the Treasury, at which I hope some representatives of the Post Office will be present, and then the hon. Member will be able to put the case in which he is interested, and which he knows so well, having dealt with it in the Report of his Select Committee. If that be done, I can promise that there shall be no delay in coming to a decision on this question, which I agree with him, whatever the decision may be, is now over-ripe for settlement. I hope that that will be satisfactory to my hon. Friend.
    Mr. HOLT: I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend for his offer. I accept it with pleasure, and I shall be very pleased to wait on him at the Treasury on as early a day as can be arranged.
    Mr. ROWLANDS: I want to ask the Assistant Postmaster-General, who has promised to give consideration to a question affecting sailors, not to take too long a time in arriving at a decision. Like the hon. Member who brought this question before the Committee, I have been astounded at the replies received to the various questions we have put. I have in my own Constituency, among the river side population, many men who feel they have a very just grievance because they are not put on the same conditions as the soldiers. We contend that the advantage given to the soldiers is one to which sailors on active service are equally en titled, and if the concession can be made I am sure it will be most highly appreciated, I think the Postmaster-General, in an answer which he gave on this subject, made a slight mistake in advancing reasons. He suggested the only difficulty was in regard to postage stamps. But surely this is a concession which ought to be given to men who are bearing the brunt of the struggle in the interests of the rest of us at home, and I therefore hope that the Post Office authorities will give the matter most earnest consideration and arrive at a decision as quickly as possible.
    Colonel COLLINS: I, too, hope that this concession already granted to the soldiers will be extended to the sailors as quickly as possible. I think there arc reasons for pressing the Amendment to a Division this evening. I have listened to a greater portion of the Debate, and I think the House cannot be satisfied with the answers given on some of the subjects raised this afternoon. For instance, on the question of the Whitley Report we have had an assurance that the matter is going to be considered by the Post Office, and that the subject will be laid before the War Cabinet. But, as the Committee well knows, the Admiralty has already moved in this matter, and surely the Committee is entitled to ask itself whether the Post Office ought not also to have moved and to have brought this new organisation into being throughout the Department. During the last hour and a half we have had many grievances discussed, and if the Whitley Committees had been brought into existence many of those

    2301
    topics would have gone automatically to those bodies and the grievances which take up so much of our time in this House would have been solved. I hope, therefore, my hon. Friend will press this Amendment to a Division this evening, because on the two main subjects which we have debated we have not yet received any definite assurance such as I think the Committee is entitled to. I am anxious to ask the Government as to one farther point. In the early part of May I asked a question of the Assistant Postmaster-General with regard to the Post Office Estimates, and whether the Post Office accounts would in future be presented in a more complete fashion1? I got an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that he would communicate with the Treasury on the subject. I wish now to ask whether the Estimates to be presented for the forthcoming year will be so framed as to enable Parliament and the public to understand which sections of the service are paying, and which are being carried on at a loss? I have no desire to develop this point this evening, but unless I can have some assurance in regard to it I certainly shall vote for the Amendment. In the White Paper which has been issued in regard to the Post Office Estimates the expenditure is put down at £26,000,000 and the receipts at £35,000,000. On a commercial basis the expenditure is £42,000,000 and the receipts £45,000,000. In other words, the accounts presented to Parliament are quite misleading, and fail to give a true picture of the financial position of the Post Office Unless I get some assurance from the Postmaster-General that this matter is going to be considered in a sympathetic manner during the coming year, I shall have to go reluctantly into the Lobby in favour of the Amendment.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: I did not, unfortunately, arrive in time to hear the Post master-General's statement, but I rather gather from what has been said by the Assistant Postmaster-General that a question affecting the Post Office engineers has been considered. Now there are a number of engineers employed by the Post Office whose case I brought before the predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman two or three years ago. They number seventy or eighty. They were engaged on certain terms, but subsequently a fresh class was created and the effect of that was to postpone their promotion and to
    2302
    prevent their going on with the kind of work for which they were engaged. The grievance affected, I believe, eighty men. There have, I understand, now been some eight promotions, but the remainder of the men labour under a great sense of grievance, because they are not receiving the salaries which they claim they are entitled to. They appeal for a reconsideration of their case, and they draw attention to the fact that in these times of high prices they are in a much worse position than they would have been had they continued on their normal duties. I also want to raise a question arising out of the upset of the railway arrangements of the country. An enormous number of parcels formerly sent by railway are now sent by post. The Department refuse absolutely to accept any liability for damage done to a parcel containing liquids, no matter how carefully that parcel may have been packed. Every body recognises that the present staff cannot be expected to be as skilful as the ordinary regular staff of the Post Office, and as a consequence great damage is caused to parcels. Had they as they would have been in normal times, been dispatched by railway, the railway companies would have accepted responsibility for damage done, and I would suggest that, if the Post Office undertakes the duty of delivery and accepts payment for the same, it should also accept responsibility and make good any damage done to the article while in its charge. I had brought to my notice some tune ago a case in which a parcel was never delivered. The Department made inquiry about the missing parcel and could not prove delivery, but because the sender was unable to prove delivery— he had nothing to depend upon but the assertion of the person who ought to have received it but did not— the Department, because of the inability to prove a negative, which is an impossible thing, disclaimed liability for the missing parcel. May I suggest that in cases of that kind, seeing that business men are now compelled to use the Post Office instead of the railways, the Department ought to take the same responsibilities as private carriers?
    Amendment negatived.
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    Resolution to be reported To-morrow; Committee to sit again To-morrow.

LAND ACQUIEED BY WAR DEPARTMENT (CIPPENHAM).

  MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT.
  Captain CARR-GOMM: In consequence of what occurred at Question Time, I beg to move, "That this House do now adjourn."
  I make this Motion for the purpose of calling attention to a matter in connection with the taking over by the War Office, or a Department of the War Office, of certain agricultural land in the county of Buckinghamshire. I asked a question of the Chancellor of the Exchequer with a view to obtaining from him permission to have a discussion in the House before this very serious undertaking was put in band and with a view to obtaining an explanation by the Government Department themselves of the whole facts of the. case before the expenditure was incurred and before the work was put in hand. The right hon. Gentleman referred me to a question which was raised in this House and answered on a former occasion, on the 5th of June, and he said he could add nothing to what was said on that occasion. I think, perhaps, as this is an important matter, and a new matter to-day, I shall be in order, and shall assist the House by reading the question which was put on that occasion and the answer given by the Government. The question was asked by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Buckinghamshire (Colonel Du Pre), and was as follows:
  "To ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether his attention had been called to the fact" that about 600 acres, comprising some of the best corn-producing land in the country, is about to be taken for military purposes at Cippenham, near Slough; whether this action will diminish the food supply of the country at a critical juncture and discourage the efforts bring made to increase that supply; and whether he will make representations with the object of preserving this land for the continued production of food?"
  My right hon. Friend (Mr. Macpherson), who spoke for the War Office, said that his right hon. Friend had asked him to answer this question, and he proceeded:
  "The land in question has only been taken up after full and exhaustive consideration by the War Cabinet. Due cars will be exercised to harvest as much of the produce as possible and to ensure this the Directorate of Lands is working in close touch with the tenants of the area affected."
  My object to-night is to obtain from my right hon. Friend a statement as to the
  2304
  full and exhaustive consideration which was given by the War Cabinet to this matter, in view of the very curious nature of the whole business, and also to ask him to explain to us the methods the Directorate of Lands proposes to adopt in order to ensure that the prospective harvest of this year is obtained from this area. I wish to take up the attitude of the general public in that part of the world. I have known it for some twenty years, but I do not speak for it here to-night. The position of the farmer in this business will be brought forward in the House by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Bucks, who is fully informed and will deal on first hand information with the points of which he is in possession from the point of view of the farmers and the local inhabitants. I wish to speak more from the point of view of the general public. I have in my hand a map of the area which is in question, and I would say at once that it is obvious to everybody that is connected with this part of the world that the Great Western Railway runs pretty well through the whole area, and a portion of the Great Bath Road runs through a considerable section of it. It is a very well known part of the world. The action of the Government in this matter is arousing, now that the whole subject is being made known, great interest, and if this policy is persisted in I venture to say that it will be a standing advertisement, in these days when advertisements are very widely used, of Government ineptitude. This.portion of the Great Western Railway passes right through it, and the public who use that line in great numbers have before them this extraordinary case which I am going to bring before the House. I know this part of the world, and no doubt many other hon. Members know it too, and I speak here and now having in my hand evidence given to me by residents that this area is, as the question of my hon. and gallant Friend truly says, a most valuable food-producing area. This district which is proposed to be taken for military purposes is a valuable food-producing area. I will not trouble the House by reading any extracts, because I think my hon. and gallant Friend has certain important documents to bring before the House. I will only read this one extract I have received from a resident of over twenty years in the district, speaking from first-hand information. He informs me that

  2305
  "This land has been brought for years past, into the highest condition of agriculture by some of our most successful and most scientific fanners."
  He gives the names which are well known to people who know that part of the district.
  "It is now growing for the most part a splendid crop of wheat which is now 3 ft. high."
  There is also a portion of this land under oats.
  "This is altogether about l½ square miles. At least (500 acres of it is now growing crop. The rest is market garden, and glasshouses."
  And he says:
  "Even putting the harvest at a low figure of 5 qrs. to the acre"
  that will mean that you will get now from this area about 3,000 quarters of crops, or 24,000 bushels. Looking at it purely from the point of view of the general public, I say in the spirit of the question originally put by my hon. and gallant Friend that this is really a matter not altogether of the War Office point of view, but of the Food Ministry point of view. It is a question of food. We are sacrificing here an area capable of producing this great amount of food. You are throwing on the scrap heap a piece of land on which, to my knowledge, over twenty years of labour and scientific farming have been expended, and you are producing in the farming agricultural interest great unrest and in the public mind bewilderment. I said at Question Time, and I say now, that what adds to the bewilderment of the public in this matter is the fact that in this neighbourhood there are large open spaces at the present time which do not produce food or which only produce food to a very small extent.
  I will bring before the House four classes of open spaces in the neighbourhood which every member of the public interested in that part and who passes through on his way to London and else where knows about. I put them forward because no doubt my right hon. Friend will say this is a good area for military work, and will ask what is our alternative. The man in the street who looks round in that county and neighbourhood sees a great number of private parks. No doubt my right hon. Friend will say, "Of course, private parks contain a good deal of wood, and we shall have to cut down those woods." I have on former occasions asked Government Departments about so-called temporary buildings. I have seen brick and stone erections being put up in the London parks, and I have asked why
  2306
  they are made of these particular materials, and I have been told that they are temporary buildings, but that they cannot be built of wood because the Controller of Timber is unable to get the timber. If these private parks which are in existence in this district contain wood lands, surely it would be in the public interest to cut down some of this wood. Then, curiously, there happen to be in this neighbourhood a consideration number of golf courses. I will not mention names, because I understand in Debates of the nature it is not advisable to do so. [AN HON. MEMBER: "Are there any bunkers on them?"] There are plenty, and perhaps my hon. Friend has had experience of some of them. I believe within 5 and 10 miles of this area there is certainly one very large racecourse, and I do not know that there are not two race courses in the immediate neighbourhood, and there are also a considerable number of commons, some of which are of good grazing land and some of which are grown over with gorse. On the subject of common land, I have been told that the War Office have already taken over a good deal of common land, and when you art1 talking about war requirements I do not believe the public desire in any way to stand in the way of the War Office when it says that certain things are absolutely necessary.
  The attitude of the general public is certainly straightforward. It is absolutely loyal and determined to win the War, and that is one reason why I take the strong view that I do of the action of the Government. The public are not taking up this attitude because they wish to hinder the War. It is the fashion nowadays for Government supporters to taunt those who criticise the Government by crying, "Get on with the War." I am not afraid of anybody getting up now and telling me to get on with the War. I believe the public are fully determined to get on with the War, but they wish to be well led. In mentioning these four avail able alternatives, I do not specify the places, but no doubt my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Bucks could do so more in detail. I am afraid the public are going to see this food producing area taken over for military purposes, and they have in their minds two things. First of all, there is the very regrettable and recent case of the loss of well over half a million pounds of public money in a similar undertaking for war

  2307
  requirements. They also have in their minds the fact that they are being daily urged to do all they can, as individuals, as landowners, as tenant farmers, and as smallholders, to increase the produce of the land. Landowners are urged to cut down trees and to turn grazing into arable land and in other ways to do what they can towards producing crops for the harvest. At the very same time they see a thing like this, which will be a standing advertisement of Government incompetence and which will remain by the railway 30 that everybody who passes through on the line can see it.
  I take the view that Members of Parliament to-day have two important duties to perform. Every day, and it has been in creasing in the last few days, there is strong pressure upon us from outside to control public expenditure. We are setting up Committees, and reports are furnished, but that does not satisfy the public. They have been sated and gorged with Committees, and they say, "For Heaven's sake stop the expenditure," and I believe there is no more important duty— and I say this to the loudest and most industrious of my colleagues who shout "Get on with the War"— than to try and control public expenditure at the present time. It is for that reason that we take up this attitude and demand a Government explanation on this matter, because we feel that you are embarking upon a series of great Government Grants of money. The Leader of the House has always been very courteous to me, but I rather regret the tone of his replies to me on this question. I think he did not realise the strength of our case here and of the demand that we should control expenditure before it has effective force. Here is an opportunity, it seems to me. I am not raising this question from the point of view of the farmer who grumbles or in the interests of any local section of the community. I believe the case that my hon. and gallant Friend will bring forward will show that the people of South Bucks are the most loyal and the most energetic citizens in this country, but they look upon it from a larger standpoint, and they feel that this expenditure is not being wisely embarked upon and that you are destroying a very valuable source of food supply.
  The second point I wish to bring for ward is this. I do feel that another duty of a Member of the House of Commons
  2308
  is to act in some small degree— and I think my right hon. Friend will agree with me here— as a connecting link or as a liaison officer or soldier between the Government and the country. Let me implore my right hon. Friend to listen to this point. The Government are all powerful. They can crush our Motion. They do not mind our moving the Adjournment of the House. They have a majority in this House, and with the power they have up to a point, they do not mind. But the duty of the House of Commons is to act as a connecting link between the Government and the public, and on an occasion like this, when the public, loyal and devoted as it is, is bewildered, it is our duty to obtain from the Government some redress; otherwise the Government is running the risk of getting into the position of a Government which we all hold up as a standing warning to other nations. By the contradictory Orders, by the contradictory policy of the Board of Agriculture and the War Office, and the way in which the public is bewildered, you are sapping loyalty which is freely given to you.
  Therefore, I claim we are perfectly right in demanding two things from the Government— first of all, that this consideration which they say the War Cabinet has given to the matter shall be more clearly explained. I mean that they should state not merely -whether they take the report of an official who travelled round in a motor car and saw it, but that they should look at the whole neighbouring countries and all the facts of the case before embarking on an enterprise such as this, and they should be considerate. Let my right hon. Friend explain more clearly what steps he has taken with regard to this harvest. The Minister of Agriculture, in one of his speeches I think, implored the country to realise the fact that the War was going to be won on the cornfields of this country, and he urged everyone in agricultural life to do his utmost. Let my right hon. Friend realise that he must satisfy the public in this matter. If he does that, I am sure the people of that locality and elsewhere, who road with amazement what is going on in this connection, will support the Government, but if he goes on with his majority behind his back, and feels convinced that his Department and its officials are quite strong enough to ride rough-shod over local opinion and public opinion generally, then I think it is quite possible his Government and all

  2309
  the officials of the great Government Departments, and his powerful majority in the House of Commons— it is quite possible that that big edifice which is built up will fall to the ground.
  Colonel DU PRE: In rising to second the Motion of my hon. and gallant Friend, I desire to state frankly to the House that I am in some degree an interested party to the extent of being the owner of a portion of the land that is in question. Under these circumstances, I hope the House will understand that it is only the great urgency of the question, and the strong duty I feel to my Constituents and the agricultural community, that I have risen to take part in the Debate at all. I second the Motion on the ground of the value of this land for food-producing purposes for the nation. The land in question is situated at Cippenham, near Slough, and members who travelled on the Bath road previously by motor car, or, in these days, by the Great Western Railway, will see it on both sides of the railway soon after passing Slough. From time immemorial this land, which has passed down in the same ownership from father to son, has been known throughout the Home counties as the best corn-producing land. Perhaps that is a large claim, but undoubtedly Cippenham Farm arid the bind around it is well-known as the show farm of the Home counties, and since this scheme was mooted some months ago, not only locally, but far beyond the locality itself, protests began to come in. The President of the Board of Agriculture, I believe, has personally approached the Government, and the Bucks Agricultural War Committee has, I know, done the same thing, but apparently to no purpose whatever. It has been most difficult to obtain any information at all from the Department concerned about this matter, and therefore I wish I could inform the House for what purpose the land is required or what the urgency of the question is. I have been utterly unable to get any information at all from the Department, and I should like to tell the right hon. Gentleman that on the 3rd June last I wrote from this House to the War Office, putting this case, and asking as a Member for the constituency, and as part owner of the land, that I should be afforded an interview with the Quartermaster-General, in order that my point of view might be put, and in order that reasons might be given to me and
  2310
  those interested in the matter so that we might be satisfied on the point. The right hon. Gentleman may be interested to know that from that day to this I have "not had even an acknowledgment that the letter has been received.
  The UNDER-SECRETAITY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson): Did the hon. and gallant Gentleman write to me?
  Colonel DU PRE: I wrote to the Secretary to the War Office in the usual manner nine days ago. Again, when this question came up, it was clear that, whether the measure should be reconsidered or not, there was the question of the growing crops on the land, and I put down a question to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, which my hon. and gallant Friend the Mover of the Motion read to the House. I would call attention to this part of the answer:
  "The land in question has only been taken up after full and exhaustive consideration by the War Cabinet. Due care will be exercised to harvest as much of the produce! as possible, and, to ensure this, the Directorate of Lands is working in close touch with the tenants of the area effected."— [OFFICAL REPORT, 5th June, col. 1567.]
  The House will scarcely believe that this morning I received a letter from a resident of Cippenham, whose name I have here, and can give to the hon. Gentleman, if necessary, in which he says:
  "Since writing the enclosed letter my neighbour— — "
  whose name also can be given—
  "asked me to examine his field on which the military commenced operations yesterday (Monday). There were twenty-seven men turning up by the roots the growing crop of wheat, and clods of earth. … It is a most deplorable sight, especially so close to the harvest as we are now, and this action is absolutely contrary to the answer given by Mr. Macpherson to a question in the House."
  I think the House will now see the justification for moving this Motion, and I hope, whatever else may happen, the right hon. Gentleman will instantly telegraph to stop these proceedings. I wish to raise one other point. Not only are there corn crops growing on this land, but there are also buildings. One building is the Isolation Hospital for the Eton Rural District. This hospital was built at a cost of some thousands of pounds after a great deal of trouble had been taken in getting the site. It serves not only the local district of some nineteen parishes, but also serves Eton and Windsor. So far as I under stand, under this scheme it is proposed to demolish this hospital, not, as any reason-

  2311
  able person would suppose, because the hospital is in the way, or because it is needed, or because its removal is necessitated— as I understand it, the reason given for destroying this hospital is that the gravel underneath the hospital is required for other military construction that is going on. I have further been told that within a stone's throw of the hospital there is double the amount of gravel that can ever be needed by the military to be got at half the value of the hospital as it stands. I really do ask the House, Can folly go further? Whatever other action is taken upon this matter, I do ask that this piece of folly should be put a stop to.
  If I knew the purposes for which this land was required, I feel I could be more helpful to the right hon. Gentleman by perhaps suggesting that he should get another site; but I am utterly in the dark as to what purpose this land is required for or what are the urgent considerations involved. I am afraid I cannot guess. Therefore, I cannot deal with it. I do, however, say this— I do lay stress on it!— the agriculture aspect on the growing value of this land. All over the country farmers have been ordered to plough up pasture land, and have done it sometimes in many cases at great sacrifice to their own interests. They have done it willingly, and no county in England has done more in that way than has the county of Bucks. What, then, are the feelings of the farmers when they see what is going on? What answer docs the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary suppose they will give when next they are appealed to, when they see with their own eyes, on this most valuable land in the county, these growing crops, wantonly— so far as I can nee - with no good reason just before the harvest, destroyed before their eyes? The point is of more than of local interest. It is widely known. It has been adversely commented upon in agricultural circles over a wide area. In view of the great discouragement that this action must give! to those who by another Government Department are being urged, indeed ordered, to grow more food, to undertake the important task of more food production, I do beg that the Government may see their way to reconsider the decision come to in this case so that this splendid land may be retained for its proper purpose, that of producing food for the nation.
  Mr. MACPHERSON: I have no reason to complain of the two speeches which have just been delivered. My hon. and gallant Friends have presented their case, it is true, with vigour, but with fairness from their point of view. I feel sure, therefore, that if the War Office can give a satisfactory explanation of the reason for taking over even this valuable agricultural land at the present time my two hon. and gallant Friends, and the House, will be satisfied with the explanation which it is my duty to put before the House. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rotherhithe has talked of the bewilderment of the country in regard to this particular case. It is true that we have not publicly, so far, offered, any explanation as to why we want this particular land, or as to the urgency of our requirements. I would disagree from my hon. Friend- and I hope he will agree I am right— in the description of our action as being a "typical advertisement of Government ineptitude." I hope that at the end of my remarks he will be able to agree with me that it is neither undue interference nor ineptitude. For the last two years we have found it increasingly necessary to provide, in the interests of economy— a point that will interest my right hon. Friend the Member for Cleve land— a large central workshop and store for spare parts. If during those two years we have found it increasingly necessary, it has become doubly necessary during the last two months. I am not going to enter into details as to what has happened in France. I do not expect the House will expect me to do so. I hope the House will be assured when I say that events in France have made it doubly necessary for us now to have this great centralised station for the purpose I have indicated, as near to London, as near to the manufacturers, and as near to the centre of things as possible. We had two alternatives before us. First of all we might have acquired buildings which are not now in use, or which, if used, are not used for great national purposes. That would have deprived us of the necessity of securing a site or a building upon that land. Every Department concerned made the most thorough search all round the particular locality where they would wish this centralised depot to exist, but all in vain. It was perfectly impossible for us to find any existing place suitable for this purpose. There was a second alternative, and that was to find

  2313
  a new site, and that alternative is the one which we had perforce to adopt.
  This site must of necessity satisfy certain conditions, and if I may I will try as shortly and succinctly as I can to explain what are these definite conditions. In the first place, in the interests of economy and efficiency, it must be within twenty-five miles of London. I say that for these reasons: First of all, the transport in this country is in the centre, and it is obviously necessary, if we have a great centralised depot for the supply of spare parts for the repair of innumerably damaged wagons, that we should have that centralised depot as near the centre as possible. Again, it is most necessary that the depot must be near the War Office, the Ministry of Munitions, and the Air Ministry, and not only near those Departments, but also near the most prominent manufacturers who deal with these various Government Departments in material for these particular mobile machines. It is also necessary, from the efficiency point of view that a Department of this gigantic nature should be in close touch with the headquarters of those Government Departments. It is also necessary that the highly-trained civilian staff should not be asked to leave the place in which they live at the present time to go to any districts further off— as a matter of fact it would be extremely difficult, to persuade that highly-trained civilian staff to leave their present abode and go to another. That is only a subsidiary point.
  9.0 P.M.
  It is absolutely necessary that this centralised depot should be near a railway, and near a main road and canal, as it happens to be in this case. My two hon. and gallant Friends have made a point for mo without knowing it. They say that this centralised depot can be seen from the railway station and the Bath Road. I agree that is one of the most important factors in the case. It was essential for us to choose a site near the great lines of communication, such as the Bath Road, the Great Western Railway, and the canal. Why is it necessary that we should have it near the Great Western Railway? I think this will be obvious to my hon. Friends who are interested in the question of economy. I was astonished-, in fact T was agreeably surprised, to find that an hon. and gallant Friend of mine who is well known to my right hon. Friend spoke to me just before this Debate. He was deeply interested, and he has been the first to bring the ques-
  2314
  tion of economy before the House, but he told me that he supported this proposal because of the fact that it would be economical. I was dealing with the fact that this particular centralised depot must be near the great lines of communication. It is absolutely necessary that it must be near the great thoroughfares, the roads, and the canals, and the Great Western Railway. It is necessary to have it near the Great Western Railway because this particular line serves all the chief manufacturing centres, and almost all the goods which come into the depot must come from the great towns on this line. [AN HON. MEMBER: "And the London and North-Western !"] This line affords easy facilities without going through London for shipment to all our ports to the theatres of war all over the world.
  Again, it is necessary for the purposes of this centralised depot that the soil should be gravel soil. At the present moment we cannot procure sufficient steel for our purposes, and consequently it will be necessary for us to use a very large amount of ferro-concrete. Not only is it necessary that the soil should be adaptable for this purpose, but it is necessary for the particular purpose of the centralised depot that there should be a gravel soil, because on a gravel soil it is very much easier to stand the very large number of vehicles which we are bound to send there in course of time both during the War and on demobilisation. The next point is that it is absolutely necessary that the ground must be level. I can assure the House, speaking for the Government and more particularly for the War Office, that we have no desire to take a single rood from agriculture in this county, and we would most willingly have taken the private pack referred to, the golf courses, or the race courses if they had satisfied the conditions which I have just adumbrated. But they do not do so in any single case. I know the golf course to which reference has been made, and I know that there are a great many bunkers, but that ground is not suitable for our purpose, and it does not satisfy a single one of the conditions which I have laid before the House. Again, the race-course does not satisfy those conditions, nor do the private parks. The only place near London which does satisfy those conditions is the ground which we have reluctantly taken over for this particular purpose. The House would perhaps like to know why I say" reluc-

  2315
  tantly." I have given one reason, and it is because none of us wish to take over from agricultural uses any soil of the kind which my hon. Friend has described to the House. This particular case came before me. I saw that it was a question of taking over 600 agricultural acres, and the moment I saw that I at once said, "This is a question for the Food Production Committee." I said that before I would sign the taking over of this land I must be assured that the Food Production Committee had had an opportunity of stating their case before the Priority Committee, before the Treasury, or before the War Cabinet. It is an open secret that the Priority Committee and the Treasury have agreed to the purchase of this land. It is also an open secret, for it was stated in reply to a question in this House, that the War Cabinet have also agreed. Let me explain what happened. The War Cabinet were approached, as they usually are approached where two Departments, I will not say, are at loggerheads, but have a legitimate difference and legitimate points of view to place before them. General Smuts was appointed by the War Cabinet to consider this case. Be postponed a definite decision upon it until he was absolutely assured that every other place suitable, or likely to be suitable, had been investigated by the Director-General of Land and by the Food Production Committee. He heard the representatives of the Departments. He heard the representative of the War Office, and he heard the representative of the Food Production Committee. With those two representatives he went through each individual case which was brought before him. He applied the tests which I have laid before the House, and by the process of elimination he came unhesitatingly to the conclusion— with which conclusion the representative of the Food Production reluctantly agreed— that this was the only place available which would satisfy those conditions.
  I am satisfied in my own mind, and I am sure that the House will agree with me, that everything that was possible was done to find an alternative site. If we had jumped upon this site without any previous investigation of any sort or kind, then the House and the country would have had a legitimate grievance, but I ask the House to believe that we do not take over these pieces of agricultural soil, good, bad, or indifferent, unless we are
  2316
  absolutely satisfied that we have tried every possible alternative. It is true that we have had cases— and I may mention it quite frankly— where the Royal Flying Corps, as it was in the old days, had taken, -without very much previous investigation, land which they ought not to have taken, and— I can speak quite frankly— my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary (Mr. Forster) and myself summoned a conference of every body connected with the taking of land and everybody connected with Departments which might be likely to take land, and we have laid it down that no piece of land shall be taken in this country for munitions, or for the Army, or for the Air Service, until it has been declared as a suitable, and as the inevitable, plot of land by all the Departments concerned. That test has been applied in this case. It has been submitted to every single person concerned.— [An Hon. Member: "And approved?"] — And approved in the sense that I have just mentioned. The Food Production Committee brought it very properly before the War Cabinet, and the case was heard by the representative appointed by the War Cabinet. The Food Production representative came to the conclusion, by the process per exclusionem unius that this was the only suitable land within the vicinity of London which satisfied the conditions which I have named.
  Sir C. HOBHOUSE: He consented, and was not overruled.
  Mr. MACPHERSON: He consented. You can put it how you like. He was satisfied, after hearing the discussion on the case brought forward. General Smuts came to the conclusion unhesitatingly that this was the only site suitable for this purpose. I hope that I have satisfied the House that we have taken all reasonable precautions.
  Captain CARR-GOMM: Was the land at Wormwood Scrubs considered?
  Mr. MACPHERSON: I do not know whether that was considered or not, but I have satisfied myself that a great many places and sites all round London were considered and were tested in accordance with the conditions which I have explained to the House. It is necessary in the interests of economy to have this central depot. I have explained how enormously it will increase the economy of Army expenditure. There is another point, and I think it is also very impor-

  2317
  tant. At no time in the history of the War has there been a greater necessity for what I may call shortly the mobility of the British Army. I am not going to explain what is happening in France, or what at any time may happen, but there is an enormous need for having at our disposal near at hand, when we cannot have them in France, a great accumulation and a great surplus of spare parts, some of which have been prepared and some of which are in the making. That is a most important point, and one which has a direct and most important bearing upon this particular site. I do not think that my hon. and gallant Friend raised any other particular point, except that he wanted to know what we are going to do with the harvest at the present time. Nobody regrets more than I do that any harvest, however small in quantity, should be destroyed at the present time, but I can assure the House that so far as my investigations go, there will not be 600 acres destroyed as suggested. There will certainly not be more than 100 acres. What does that amount to I One does not wish to belittle even the smallest quantity of food in the country at the present time, but, taking it in the ordinary way, that one acre would produce 5 quarters of corn or wheat, all that will be lost at the present time will be about 500 quarters. That is. nearly about the quantity that we spend in France in a sixth of a day. If my contention is right, you have this proposition: Whether we should sacrifice those 500 quarters, which might easily be produced from some other soil, or whether, in the great emergency which I have attempted to describe you should allow inefficiency and great difficulty in our mechanical transport system. The War Office has come to the conclusion that it is necessary in the interests, not only of economy, but in the interests of that great mechanical transport, system, that we should have this place near the lines of communication and near the great centres. If the Food Production Committee representative, while, of course, he could never be satisfied if any land, however poor it might be, were taken away from his.direct purposes at the present time, felt, after the discussion he heard before General Smuts, that it was in the highest national interest that we should have this particular land at this particular time, I hope the House will agree with the decision of the War Cabinet.
  Mr. R. McNEILL: I am quite certain that my right hon. Friend has made the strongest possible case that could be made in answer to the Motion before the House. But I do not think it will do. It appears to me to be an entirely unsatisfactory answer, and I cannot share his confidence that it will prove satisfactory to the House. I should like to point out where it appears to mo that my right hon. Friend's arguments entirely break down. He does not deny for a moment that there is a strong case to meet. That was pretty obvious, because the case is this, that the War Office at this time, within a few weeks of harvest, are taking a large quantity of valuable land; that they arc; destroying more or less the coming harvest; that they are sacrificing that land for agricultural purposes, not merely for the present harvest but for the future; and that they are also destroying a valuable hospital. That as the ease they have to meet. My right hon. Friend comes here and says that this is the only land procurable within a certain distance of London which meets certain conditions. He tells us that various authorities who have been consulted agreed, after inspecting other sites and examining this land, that this is the only procurable land which answers to those conditions. The whole argument of my right hon. Friend depends on whether or not the conditions which he lays down are themselves reasonable. If those conditions are not reasonable, then the endorsement by General Smuts and the other authorities entirely falls to the ground. They have been asked whether other land satisfying those conditions could be found, and they say "No." As I listened to my right hen. Friend I formed a very strong opinion that those conditions are not reasonable, and that the War Office had no right to lay it down as an axiom that land satisfying those particular conditions must be got. I quite agree that, if land satisfying those conditions could be got without doing any other mischief or damage, probably it would be more convenient and more advantageous for the purposes they had in view, but that is quite a different thing from saying that they were so obligatory that no sacrifice of land or hospital or anything else must be allowed to stand in the way of satisfying all of them. Let me take one or two of them, because I do not pretend to remember all that my right hon. Friend enumerated. Let us take it that it must be within twenty-five miles of London.

  2319
  My right hon. Friend says it must be within that distance of London for the convenience of the employés, in order to be near the various Departments, and so forth. That is very desirable, but does my right hon. Friend mean to say that if suit able land could be obtained thirty miles from London it was worth while destroying this valuable agricultural land and this hospital in order to be within twenty-five miles instead of thirty miles of London] Again, the right hon. Gentleman says that the land must be level. Why? He never explained why.
  Mr. MACPHERSON: I said it must be level for standing lorries and wagons.
  Mr. McNEILL: But there are degrees of levelness. When I interjected a remark as to there being bunkers upon this golf course I was assuming that the land was intended for an aerodrome. If it had been intended for an aerodrome, in which case it would not come under my right hon. Friend, I might have understood that it was very essential to get land perfectly level. I dare say that, for the purposes they have in view, in the ordinary rough sense level ground is very desirable and probably ought to be obtained, but it cannot be necessary for the purposes for which this particular factory is used that the whole of the land should be as level as a billiard table. Such part of it as it is necessary to have level could be levelled, because it is not beyond the resources of engineering to make ground level which is not level to start with. My right hon. Friend says it must be a gravel soil. Why? Because, he says, they are going to use a lot of reinforced concrete. Another reason he gave why it must be gravel soil was because there would be so many vehicles to drive over it, and the vehicles required a gravel foundation. I do not see the necessity for that at all. It might lie desirable, if we could get it, but it is quite possible to make a macadam surface and, indeed, quite possible to make a concrete surface. Therefore the idea is absurd that they must take this particular piece of around because it happens to be on gravel soil and for that purpose, as my hon. and gallant Friend pointed out, actually to destroy a hospital in order to get at the gravel which is underneath the hospital. To come down to the House of Commons and suggest that this transaction, which prima facie is an outrage, and to defend it upon the ground that these conditions had to be
  2320
  fulfilled shows that the right hon. Gentle man is absolutely out of court, because the moment you begin to examine the conditions you find one after the other is not satisfactory. Any Member of this House, if he were not tied down by these particular stipulations, could find land within much less than twenty-five miles of London reasonably suitable for all the purposes that are required which would not involve this particular demolition of a hospital and the destruction from agricultural purposes of what we have been told is the most valuable agricultural land in the Home Counties. I myself quite recently pointed out between London and Pinner, close to the North-Western Rail way— my right hon. Friend speaks about communications— and close to a main road, plenty of land quite level enough for this purpose, not perhaps gravel, but clay, which, although no doubt valuable as agricultural land, is devoted entirely to the growing of hay, where it would have been quite unnecessary to employ men to root out wheat within a few weeks of its coming to harvest and which would have been amply sufficient for the purposes of this factory. My right hon. Friend has entirely failed to convince me, as I think he will fail to convince the House of the necessity for this deplorable operation, which must have caused the greatest heartburning among the agricultural community, and indeed among all who want to see our operations carried on not only with economy but with common sense. It is most deplorable that no stronger case could be made out for the transaction.
  Mr. SHERWELL: I hope my right hon. Friend will not think me disrespectful if I suggest that in using one form of argument for the defence of this extraordinary action by the War Office he has unwittingly laid himself and the War Cabinet open to an indictment of a much graver kind He told us that for the past two years the urgency of some such accommodation as this had been growing, and that the effect of the present German offensive had made that urgency so imperative as to necessitate a decision, almost any decision, at the hands of the War Office and the War Cabinet. Does he contemplate the effect of that admission on the minds of those who are trying to give a just-appreciation to his argument? What confidence can we possibly repose in the decision of the War Cabinet, or of the War Office, or of any of the authorities

  2321
  quoted by him as having been consulted, if we start with the frank admission by the Government that they have for two years known that this accommodation was imperatively needed, and that the urgency of the need grew day by day, week by week and month by month, and yet it is only when the German offensive, which was calculable, which was contemplated by the Government, which they say they expected and which gave them no surprise, commences that they proceed to make accommodation for this urgent need? That constitutes in my judgment one of the gravest indictments of the competency of this Government to con duct this War in an efficient and successful way. The Government, I will not say was appointed— it appointed itself on the sole ground that it was to be an efficient Government for the conduct of the War, and yet we have to wait for this momentous, this most grave, it may be most tragic offensive, before the Government is alive to the necessity of action in this direction. My right hon. Friend, in outlining the considerations which govern the Government's decision, laid consider able emphasis on the fact that one of the advantages of this site was that it lay within 25 miles of London. So far as we lire able to gather the outlines of the Government plan, the accommodation to be provided is not a mere warehouse. It is not to be accommodation of a mere distributing character. It is accommodation which is to be for manufacturing purposes. Will he seriously suggest that a site within close vicinity of London, within, say, a range of 25 miles, a site which is necessarily, by its proximity to London, far removed from the- sources of supply of iron, steel, and coal, is necessarily an ideal site for manufacturing purposes. He has emphasised the advantages from a distributive point of view, but he has wholly ignored the great disadvantages from the manufacturers' point of view, and, after all, this is a manufacturing enterprise.
  I suggest to the Leader of the House that the country is far more greatly concerned and disquieted than probably he imagines by these almost daily recurring instances of precipitate and apparently unwise action on the part of some Government Department. You cannot possibly expect the country, and in particular the agricultural community, to take seriously your urgent and grave exhortations to produce up to the utmost possible limit if
  2322
  you from time to time— for this is not a solitary instance j we have had discussions previously on similar acts on the part of the Executive to this— give them object lessons of this kind before their very eyes. I am quite unconvinced by the arguments which my right hon. Friend has used. I admit that from the ordinary Depart mental view he made an extremely good appearance at that box. I believe he put up as good a defence as it was possible for any Departmental Minister to put up, but he really has not grappled with the very essence of the matter. The moral effect is far more important than some of the material considerations which he possesses, and I cannot help thinking he was semi-conscious of the weakness of his case in advance when he actually presumed to suggest that one of the considerations which had determined the Government's decision was the disinclination of the workers concerned to leave their present homes. Whenever has the Government shown the same tenderness of spirit towards any other class of workers in the country? That is not a ground of the decision. It is not even, as he called it, a subsidiary consideration in a decision of this kind. I believe the Government has done itself infinite harm by the action which has been exposed in Debate in the House of Commons to-day.
  Brigadier - General McCALMONT: Having lately resided in this part of the country this incident came to my notice and a question appears on the Paper for to-morrow in my name. I did not support my hon. and gallant Friend this afternoon when he asked permission to move the Adjournment of the House because I felt that it was not perhaps a suitable opportunity to embarrass the Government as regards its allocation of time. Having heard the Debate I wish I had supported him. There is one point I am quite certain my right hon. Friend must have forgotten to refer to in his reply. My hon. and gallant Friend (Major Du Pre) told the House that he wrote to the War Office some nine days ago, as representing that part of the country and as himself an officer, and presumably if there was any question of secrecy his loyalty was above suspicion, and asked to be told the object of all this. He did not even got." refusal. He got no answer at all. If the ordinary private Member is going to be treated by the Government in this way the Government cannot blame us if it gets Motions for the Adjournment. It seems to

  2323
  me my hon. and gallant Friend took the only course which was possible. He was most anxious not to make this a public matter. He gave the Government every opportunity of putting before him the. urgent necessities of the case. They declined to take any action in the matter and so they have their time, if they like to call it so, wasted this evening. It seems to me what the Government did in this case was that they first pitched upon their site, they then told the other Departments they had got to have it and asked them whether they were going to object to that one site which was possible or were not. They first of all selected the Great Western Railway, they selected their distance of twenty-five miles and selected the various things which the hon. Gentleman has referred to, and then they said to General Smuts, here is the piece of land we must have for this purpose. Will you go and meet the other Departments concerned and explain to them that this is the only one place which will suit us, and see that they raise no further objection?
  The question of the hospital has not been very much referred to. It may seem a small matter but I do not think it is quite such a small matter as it would appear when you began, and to get a site for a fever hospital is also not an easy matter. I am informed that in this district it was a matter of extreme difficulty to get a site for this hospital, and if it is removed the difficulty of getting a new site will not only be very great, but when they find the new site which they think they have found, the amount of compensation which will have to be paid to the owner will be a very large sum for the ratepayers. This hospital serves no fewer than nineteen parishes, as well as a very large town, and was set up at no small cost. It is to be removed from a district which, so far as I know, is not by any means bare of gravel pits, in order to get the gravel which is under one of the buildings. I consider that some further explanation might have been given by my right hon. Friend on that subject. I think my right hon. Friend made a great deal too much of the 500 quarters in his speech. He talked as if the whole matter was a question of 500 quarters. As a matter of fact, he must realise that some of the best growing country in the Home Counties is going to be taken, not for this year's crop alone, but for good, and will not be avail-
  2324
  able for any future crop. Six hundred acres are going to be taken for good, and will be lost for food production in this country. Coming down to the House to night, expecting to hear that there was a satisfactory explanation; and that there were some real reasons which caused the Government to take this rather arbitrary action, I must say that I, for one, am profoundly disappointed by the explanation.
  Sir C. HOBHOUSE: will not delay the House long, as the right hon. Gentle man (Mr. Bonar Law) intends to speak. Two reasons made me support the Motion for the Adjournment, and compelled me to speak this evening, although I have deliberately refrained from doing so up till now. One reason why I supported the Motion for the Adjournment is that for thirty years I have been travelling up and down on the Great Western Railway looking at this particular area which is now in dispute. Right through that period when corn growing was abandoned in great portions of the West of England and in the counties of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, this particular area was always cultivated with wheat. It was always one of the best-producing wheat areas, and now, at a time when wheat is more valuable than it ever was in the history of this country, this land is going to be put out of cultivation for ever. That is the first consideration. The second consideration is this: It may be true that for various reasons it is necessary to have this motor transport camp on an existing line of rail way, but that ought not of itself to be an absolute necessity. When this ground which is being broken up is traversed daily by a large number of agriculturists in the West of England it becomes a matter of notoriety and of conversation amongst them as to what is going on in this particular area. Coming Up to London last week I heard in the carriage in which I was sitting a discussion going on as to what was being done in this particular area, in which it was obvious that the crop was being deliberately destroyed. I think every speaker who has addressed the House has pointed out that two Departments of the State are urging agriculturists everywhere to grub up land, to plough up land, to bring land into cultivation which is out of cultivation for the purpose of growing food, and more particularly for the purpose of growing corn, and at a time like this you give them an object lesson in the destruction of corn. They have not the advantage of hearing

  2325
  the powerful explanation, and the first explanation, which has been given by the Under-Secretary. I echo the sentiments of hon. Gentlemen behind me that no one could have given a better explanation. The right hon. Gentleman has been a most plausible speaker. I use the word "Plausible" with all due respect. He gave a most plausible account of a very difficult explanation, but I am a little inclined to think that he over-explained his case.
  I need not go into all the details which have been alluded to by other speakers, but let me remind the Under-Secretary that there is fresh in the memory of this House the Loch Doon case. As to the argument which was used about the impossibility of finding another site, the suit ability of the site, and the necessity of the different requirements, it was found at Loch Doon that the requirements could be got elsewhere at a great saving of public money and public convenience. Therefore he must not be surprised if the House approaches his explanation with a certain amount of suspicion. He made a wonderfully good case for himself; but we have not been told whether this site was not thrown at General Smuts' head and whether he was asked, "Do you approve of this district and this site?" Was he allowed to look elsewhere for another site? Could you go to some place near the great manufacturing centres in the Midlands of England where you would not have to bring coal, where you would not have to bring iron, where you would have a railroad, where you would find a level surface, and where you would find a whole network of canals, and not a solitary isolated canal, and where you would not have to move your skilled staff? It was news to the House that that skilled staff was in existence. I wonder where they were brought from. I do not know where they have been collected or where they are being housed now. The whole subject of this skilled staff which hesitates to move, and which the Department are frightened to move, is remarkable. All this is news to us. For these reasons I confess that I do not regret the action I took this afternoon in having helped to bring this subject forward for discussion.
  I suppose I may be accused of being prejudiced in this matter, but I do assure the right hon. Gentleman that the action of the War Office has created to my personal knowledge great prejudice in the minds of agriculturists in my own part of the world who move backwards and
  2326
  forward to London. It is said that the War Cabinet gave a full and exhaustive examination of this subject. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, who answered the question, gave us to understand that it was not the War Cabinet, but that it was a single member, and a most competent member, of the War Cabinet who took it into his personal and single consideration. General Smuts is overwhelmed with work. He has got a great number of subjects to consider from many points of view, and of vastly more importance than this. A mistake has been made, and I submit that reconsideration of the subject would not reflect upon the judgment and good sense of General Smuts, but would take away the sense of, I will not say ineptitude, but the sense of mistake which has been made by the War Cabinet and the War Office in taking this site. Every Member who has addressed the House has spoken against the explanation that has been so well offered by the Under-Secretary. Would it not be wise, under the circumstances, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer would reconsider this subject, stop this destruction of a growing crop, and put an end to what is believed to be, rightly or wrongly, a great scandal in the way of destruction?
  The CHANCELLOR Of the EX CHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law): I did not mean to take any part in this discussion, but I think perhaps, as representing the War Cabinet, which had the final responsibility, the House would expect me to say something in connection with this Debate. The first thing I would like to say is that we must have a sense of pro portion, in all these things— that there must be some regard, not to one aspect of the case only, but to other aspects, and each must be weighed, and a decision reached with the balance of advantage and disadvantage taken into account. I am not going to deal— because I am not competent to deal— with the merits of this particular site. I listened to the speech of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Macpherson), and I agree with those who praised it as a speech, but I do not agree with those who think he was making the best of a bad case. I think he made a good case. That is not the point of view I am going to put before the House. What I think about it is that a question of this kind should be properly considered, that if the House be satisfied, as I think it will be, that every considera-

  2327
  tion was given to this particular matter, then I believe that that is as much as can be expected by the Government.
  Let me deal for a moment with the question of the site. The assumption seems to be that every sensible man in the House and out of it, except presumably somebody in the War Office and somebody in the Cabinet, who is responsible, thinks it monstrous that at a time like this, when such efforts are being made to increase the food supply of the country, a portion of the wheat crop should be destroyed for a purpose such as this. I can assure the House that that very consideration prejudiced against the proposal everybody who had had anything to do with it. That was pointed out by my right hon. Friend him self. It is not as if the War Office had jumped at a particular site, and tried to rush it through. That has been done, and admittedly done, in the stress of emergency in other cases. That is not the case here. It was the War Office itself which realised how unsuitable this was on the ground of agricultural considerations, and that, therefore, before a single step was taken it should be regarded from that point of view. I wish the House to take this into account. It is not as if the War Office had laid down certain conditions and said, "Now, you have got to go round and find a piece of land to fulfil all these conditions, and nothing else will suit." That was not done at all. It said that these conditions were an advantage, and that this land gave these conditions.
  What actually happened was this. The matter was put into the hands of Mr. Weir, who, as the House knows, has dealt largely with these things for the War Office, and who, as those who are members of the Select Committee on Finance will readily recognise, does not look at these questions from the point of view of the hard and fast military man, who must get what he wants without regard to expenditure, but looks at them from the point of view of the business man who tries to get what he wants at the best price, in order to carry out the work that is required. Mr. Weir told us before this site was selected that he had engineers who are assisting him on this work, going all over the country looking for suitable places, and it was as the result of these examinations that this site was fixed upon. Then it is said we are going away
  2328
  from manufacturing districts, and also that the housing accommodation of the people who work has to be taken into account. I am not competent to meet all these points, but anyone with any know ledge at all of manufacturing business knows that the supply of labour, especially at a time like this, is one of the most important factors in starting new works of any kind. These engineers came to the conclusion that from that point of view it was a great advantage, and as the result of all these examinations, the experts advised that this was by far the most suitable site.
  Then I turn to another point put by my hon. Friend. He says quite truly that perfectly level ground is not an absolute necessity of the case. It is not. Probably perfectly level ground cannot be got, but he went on to say that you can level it, or if the ground be not hard enough to bear the traffic of these motor lorries, you can macadamise the roads. That is where a sense of proportion has to come in. All that will cost money; and you have got to put that against the obvious loss to the country in taking away agricultural land at this time. I can make that point quite clear to the House by pointing out that new factories, within the experience of everyone having anything to do with business, spring up, and sometimes it pays a man to offer far beyond the real value of the land in order to secure a site which is ideal for his purposes, because he knows that the initial outlay will be repaid to him over and over again by the advantages in the site of the working of the business subsequently. That has to be taken into account, and has to be set against the obvious disadvantage of taking agricultural land at a time like this. That is sufficient as regards the site; but I wish to put this other point to which I attach more importance— that is whether or not this was properly considered. Mistakes may be made. I do not believe that a mistake has been made here, so far as I can judge, but the real point is that the Government should not act precipitately, that proper consideration should be given, and that all the advantages and disadvantages should be taken into account. My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield complained of the fact that if there were need for this work it proved that it ought to have been done long ago. I do not think that quite follows.
  Mr. SHERVVELL: I simply took up the remark of my right hon. Friend that there had been a growing need of this to the knowledge of the War Office for the past two years.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not think that that quite follows. A need of this kind becomes plain, but the pressing nature of it grows. In the case of this work, nobody questions that it was necessary. I am not defending that. I am assuming that it is necessary, but the need of it grows. What made it more pressing for the moment— I do not know whether my right hon. Friend mentioned this— and, therefore, more necessary, was that some of those repairing shops which we had in France have been lost owing to the German advance, and it was necessary then to act more suddenly than otherwise would have been the case. Now, it is accepted, first of all, that the War Office themselves invited consideration of this proposal, since it affected food production. The site was examined by the Lands Department, which is under the War Office, and by this Committee, and the Agricultural Department took the view which everyone takes at first sight, at all events, not merely— and I think that this is what interests us chiefly— that you are going to lose this food, but bearing in mind the moral effect on agricultural people of doing this at a time when you are urging increased food production, and naturally objected very strongly to it, and I do not think they have been convinced yet.
  But now I come to the final consideration. I think that my right hon. Friend implied that the War Cabinet had a great deal to do, and could not go into this themselves. That is true; and I would remind the House that with an ordinary system of Government, and in ordinary times, a question of this kind does not come before the Cabinet at all. The Department decides on its own responsibility. Owing, perhaps, in the part to the trouble which had arisen in previous cases, the subject was brought before the War Cabinet. The view we took was that this was not the kind of question which could be settled by a statement on one side or the other, and that it required examination by experts. We did what is done nearly always in similar cases. We said that the Cabinet as a whole cannot take the time to discuss this matter, and I think it is equally true that if the Cabinet were not able off-hand to decide on the merits of this question, the House of
  2330
  Commons is equally unable to come to a decision. What happened? We appointed one of our members to go into the matter. Somebody suggests that he was got hold of by the War Office, and that it was said, "You have got to convince other parties that this is the only possible site." He started, as I started, and as the House started, with a prejudice against taking this land at all. I have seen him myself this afternoon, and we discussed the matter. He made an exhaustive inquiry into the question with representatives of the Departments interested, and withheld his decision until the examination of every other possible site had been made. That having been done, General Smuts came to the conclusion that this site, in all the circumstances, was the right one for the purposes the Government have in view.
  Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Were other sites submitted?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Yes
  Mr. R. McNEILL: Before General Smuts was invited to make his inspection, were the conditions referred to by my right hon. Friend put before him as essential?
  10.0 P.M.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I heard my right hon. Friend, and I do not think that is a fair conclusion at all. He pointed out what were the needs of a site for our purposes, and what the experts were asked to do was to find a suitable site for carrying out a business of this kind. What was done was to try and find a site best suited to the purposes in view, and this site has been chosen as fulfilling that condition. I am extremely sorry that the Motion for the Adjournment should have been moved. I think it should be remembered that this is war work, and that it is needed. I think that it will have a bad effect upon the country outside if it appears that the House of Commons is nagging over a small matter of this kind. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] I am only saying what might be thought. If you are satisfied, as I am myself, that the Government did take every reasonable precaution to prevent a mistake being made, then I think it would be a pity to give the impression that the House of Commons is not satisfied with the action that has been taken
  Mr. H. SAMUEL: I do not think it can be said that the House is nagging over this matter; I do not think it approaches

  2331
  the subject by any means from that point of view. The House of Commons was, in fact, much shocked by the description of what was happening. Those who heard the speeches of the Mover and Seconder of this Motion, and certainly a very much larger proportion present now than there was then, were deeply impressed by what they said. There is unquestionably a good deal of uneasiness with regard to the action of different Government Departments. Case after case of expenditure is being constantly undertaken, and unsuitable land is chosen by arbitrary action, and taken by the Government Department, but which, after examination, is shown not to be suitable, and I am sure that the country feel that the House of Commons would be doing less than its duty in not paying attention to matters of this kind. It may be said that this particular instance is a small one, but, of course, these small things eventually become immense as a whole
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not wish to be misunderstood. I think the House of Commons is absolutely right in discussing these matters, but I thought it was a pity the Motion for the Adjournment had been moved.
  Mr. SAMUEL: In the circumstances it is necessary, because the work of destruction is now proceeding. Let me give the simple facts, which have not been heard by many hon. Members who were not here when the Debate opened The War Office were anxious to obtain an area of about one square mile; it was most urgently needed for sheds for motor traction vehicles, assembling workshops, and repair shops, and, as I understand, they set out to find a piece of land. They found this piece of land, which was universally held in the district to be one of the very best pieces of agricultural land in the country. The particular farms are well known in the whole neighbourhood, because of the very valuable and highly cultivated land. At this moment a considerable number of soldiers have been set to work to root up the growing crop and roots from this land. On the same site there is a hospital, which has been erected after great trouble, and which serves a considerable area That is about to be pulled down, in order that the gravel under the hospital may be used for making ferro-concrete in order to provide the buildings required. The Member for the constituency approached the War
  2332
  Office by letter, nine days ago, and hp asked what was the necessity for this situ being taken, and to this day has received no acknowledgment of the letter. All these things impress the House as being wrong. Then my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to the War Office, with his usual ability, arose to make the War Office reply. He did so with very great plausibility, at any rate, until the reply is examined carefully in detail. He said that this site was chosen because certain conditions had to be fulfilled. What was the case he laid before the House? It was necessary to have a site on the Great Western Railway, because it communicated with districts from which these things came. It was necessary to have a site within twenty-five miles of London. It was desirable to have a site on a canal. It was also necessary to have a site with gravel for making ferro-concrete. Search was made for a place with these qualifications, and the only site that could be found in the whole country fulfilling these conditions was the particular piece of land now being taken ! When my right hon. Friend was speaking, I thought I had heard that speech, or a very similar one, before, not from him, not with respect to this case at all, but during the inquiry which it was my duty to conduct as chairman of a War Office Sub-committee of the Select Committee on. National Expenditure into the case of Loch Doon. I spent two mornings examining a very considerable number of witnesses as to the reason why Loch Doon was suggested, and one after another said it was regarded as essential to fulfil certain conditions. There must be a sheet of calm water, there must be a hill side, a level place for an aerodrome, and a large tract of sparsely inhabited country. Search was made for a locality which fulfilled those conditions, and there was only one in the whole of Great Britain, and that was Loch Doon!
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): Has an alternative site been found fulfilling those conditions?
  Mr. SAMUEL: It has since been found that it was not necessary to have a piece of water and it was the price of water which limited the position and area to be selected. With regard to these particular conditions, everything depends on the question whether or not they are

  2333
  really essential. Why should the place be within twenty-five miles of London? Because, said my right hon. Friend, it is necessary that it should be in close touch with the Ministry of Munitions, with the War Office, and with other Government Departments situated in London. What was wanted was a square mile of land on which motor tractors could be collected. There was to be a repair work shop and an assembling workshop, and it must be within twenty-five miles of London in order to be in close touch with the Ministry of Munitions and the War Office. Thirty miles, I suppose, would make it impossible, while forty miles would be inconceivable. It must be within a certain radius of Whitehall. My right hon. Friend also said it must be within reach of the highly skilled staff which would be engaged on the work. Where is that staff now? Is it in Slough or is it in London? Is it suggested that the staff should travel up and down from London every day? Is it for that reason it must be within twenty-five miles of London? All these contentions, when examined, are found to have an exceedingly flimsy basis, if indeed they have any basis at all. One is led to the conclusion that the War Office has tied itself quite unnecessarily to a very small area for possible sites, instead of going wider.field and trying to avoid occurrences such as are taking place on this land to-day. There must be an immense number of areas to be found in the southern part of this country, where there is plenty of gravel to be obtained without having to pull down a hospital in order to get at the gravel bed which lies underneath it. All these points by no means bring conviction to the minds of those who heard my right hon. Friend's speech. What I want to know is this: Whether General Smuts felt himself at liberty to review the whole matter de novo? My experience from examining Government Department and other experts, is that the Department fixes the conditions. They say: "We must have this or that; we must have a hillside, or a piece of water, or an uninhabited area, or we must have a level space," and then the other Departments are brought in and have to accept these as absolutely necessary conditions. They say: "We are not experts in instruction in aerial gunnery; we do not know whether the conditions are correct." The Land Department, the War Office, the Engineering Department, the
  2334
  Scottish Department, and the other Departments consulted as to Loch Doon were not able to go behind the Royal Flying Corps and to examine whether the conditions laid down were necessary or not.
  Mr. SPEAKER: I would remind the right hon. Gentleman we are not now dealing with Loch Doon. The right hon. Gentleman's speech seems to be more occupied with that than with the Question immediately before the House.
  Mr. SAMUEL: It was the similarity of the two cases, I am afraid, which misled me. The point I am endeavouring to impress upon the House is this, that in this case possibly as in that case, it has been for the War Office, the Department concerned, to say these are the conditions which we must have; it is for us to lay down the conditions, and the other Departments come in and have to accept those conditions— the Finance Department, the Food Production Department, the War Cabinet and General Smuts, have to decide on land only that fulfils those conditions. That is how I read the case. We want an explanation how it is this particular piece of land was chosen. Many of those who heard the Debate think that a more suitable piece of land might have been chosen on the Great Western Railway, nearer the great centres of manufacture, where skilled labour is easily available, where there would be no necessity to destroy a great area of growing crops only two months before the harvest will be reached, and where there will be no necessity to pull down an existing building at very considerable cost to the State and to the great scandal of the neighbourhood.
  Mr. PRINGLE: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has complained, in relation to this Motion for Adjournment, that those who have taken part in this Debate have acted in a nagging way towards the Government. I think hon. Members who have listened to the greater proportion of the speakers, as I have done, will agree that this spirit has been peculiarly absent from the whole discussion, and, if the right hon. Gentleman wishes to draw a correct conclusion from what has occurred, he will be driven to. this conclusion, that it is always wise in a case of this kind, when the Department is questioned, not to give the minimum of information, but to give the House the maximum of information which

  2335
  is consistent with the national interest. But that -was not the policy pursued in the present case. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Bucks, as we have been told to-night, acting as Member for the constituency, days ago applied to the War Office for information and has not 3ret received even an acknowledgment. Several questions have been put in this House on this particular question, and the information, offered by the Department concerned has been, I think every body will agree, of the most in adequate description. Had there been the least attempt to satisfy the curiosity of hon. Members concerned, and to give the information which was required by the House and by the country. I do not believe for a moment that this Motion, for the Adjournment would have been made or would have received the support of hon. Members who rose to back it. The discussion has proved conclusively that the Motion for the Adjournment was justified, and, further, that if the Government desire to avoid such Motions and such discussions in the future, the best policy for them to pursue is to be more frank and more candid with the House. I do not desire to enter into the merits of this case. I think they have been adequately dealt with by other speakers. The case that has been presented by my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary with such plausibility and eloquence, and by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has not carried conviction to the House. The case which has been put forward by the War Office is by no means conclusive. We have been told that the need for this particular site for this specific purpose has arisen owing to certain events in France. We do not desire to enter into those causes, but what has the Government done? They have insisted on a site within twenty-five miles of London. Is it not conceivable that other events may happen in France which may make a site within twenty-five; miles of London by no means the most appropriate site for these purposes^ I do not wish to enter into those possible events, but I may remind the Leader of the House that this hypo thesis which I am mentioning was stated to the public by General Smuts in his speech in Glasgow on receiving the freedom of the city. If that hypothesis was so near and probable as to justify General Smuts in mentioning it to a public audience in Glasgow, surely it was equally -
  2336
  advisable for the Government) to have it in its mind in deciding upon this particular site. Apparently that matter has been altogether overlooked. I believe that taking the requirements put forward by the War Office a far more suitable site for this particular purpose could have been found on another part of the country, a site also far more accessible from the point of view of the skilled labour required, far more appropriate from the point of view of communications than that of Slough, and on the whole as accessible for official purposes as a site within twenty-five miles of London. I should like to know how far from London the experts of the War Office went in their search for a site. We have never been told. We have not been told whether this twenty-five mile radius was regarded as an absolute sine qua non. If it was, I should regard it as a very un-fortunate test to apply.
  Mr. MACPHERSON: It was not.
  Mr. PRINGLE: If it was not, then I should like to know what sites were inquired into in other parts of the country? After all, there are many parts of England where there are level sites in the vicinity of great industries, where there are large skilled populations, and where I have no doubt gravel can also be found. In these circumstances I think everybody who has listened to the Debate will agree that it is a singularly unfortunate occurrence that has taken place, that it is one which is likely to cause great uneasiness in the minds o! those familiar with it as to the general manner in which these matters are treated by the Government, that in all the circumstances I think my hon. and gallant Friend has been thoroughly justified in the course which he has taken, and that if the Government in future deny information to the House as they have denied it in this case they may equally expect a similar course to be adopted.
  Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and negatived.
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

WOMEN MOTOR DRIVERS (FRANCE).
Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 13th February. proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
Mr. ARNOLD WARD: I desire to call the attention of the House, on the Motion for the Adjournment, to the case of Lady Angela Forbes, which, in its earlier form, has already been before both Houses of Parliament this year. After the incident which ended with the taking over of Lady Angela's canteen in France by the military authorities in a manner entirely honourable to Lady Angela Forbes, this lady offered her services to the French military authorities. Those services were accepted, and on the 11th May Lady Angela made a contract with the French Army to supply them with a unit of twenty British female motor drivers for hospital work. This lady came to London to make the arrangements for carrying out this contract. She recruited an admirable body of female motor drivers, and she saw the Departments of the British Government concerned, the Department of National Service and the War Office, and -she obtained the consent of all the Departments to these women leaving the country for the service of the French Army, and on the 16th May, now four weeks ago, the Army Council agreed that the women might proceed. In fact, nothing could have been more helpful and sympathetic than the attitude of my right hon. Friend And the attitude of the Army Council. A part of the arrangement with the French Government was that these motor drivers were to proceed at once to take up their duties. It was arranged, I think, that they were to proceed not later than the 26th May. Lady Angela returned at once to France to complete arrangements, and to be followed by the drivers. After Lady Angela's return a difficulty arose here in London, and this was the first time any difficulty whatever had been suggested in the case. A difficulty arose with regard to the giving of a visé to the passports for these ladies to proceed. I should despair to try to unravel or explain exactly the formalities of viséing a passport, but it appears that in this case the authority which arranges for the viséing is the French Red Cross Society, under the auspices of the French Embassy. The French Red Cross Society were un willing to afford the visé to these pass ports, and on the 26th May the ladies were ready to proceed to France but they were not allowed to go upon their journey. The French military authorities were exceedingly annoyed at this delay, and on the 3rd June— that is, nine days ago—they addressed to Lady Angela in Paris
2338
a letter of remonstrance and complaint with regard to the delay which had occurred. I endeavoured, in Lady Angela's absence, to arrange the matter in London, and paid a number of visits to the French Embassy, culminating on the 5th June in an interview with a distinguished diplomatist, M. de Fleuriau, Councillor of the French Embassy, who pointed out to me that there had been certain difficulties in the way of affording a visé, but he assured me that if instructions to that effect were received from the French Government, the matter would be put through at once. On the following day, 6th June, orders were telegraphed by the French War Office to the French Embassy. I have been given a copy of the telegram, a translation of which is as follows:
"Please deliver ordres de mission after verification of reference, to twenty motor drivers recruited by Lady Angela Forbes, to form a unit at the disposition of the French Sanitary Service."
Since that date repeated applications have been made by, and on behalf of, these ladies to the French Red Cross Society. Very considerable expense has been incurred in providing for the uniform and outfits of the ladies to proceed to France, but, notwithstanding those instructions, up to this day it appears that the French Red Cross Society has been absolutely unwilling to verify the references of the drivers, or to allow them to proceed, or in any way to carry out the order which was sent from Paris. In the meantime, Lady Angela herself received an order from the French Government to proceed to London and investigate the matter. I have exhausted every channel of inquiry, every ordinary method, in order to solve this mystery and get it put right, and I felt that no other course was open to me but to bring this matter before the House of Commons this evening. In doing so, I desire to make no reflection whatsoever upon either the counsellor or any member of the French Embassy.
Mr. SPEAKER: I do not quite see how the hon. Member connects His Majesty's Government with this matter The com plaint seems against the French Government. What relevance has it to His Majesty's Government?
Mr. WARD: His Majesty's Government have interested themselves from start to finish in this matter, and the Army Council have passed a resolution assenting to the transaction, and I think it is in the Gov-

2339
ernment's interest, and that of everyone, to see that in one way or the other the suspense is terminated. All I have to add is to entreat the good offices of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and to ask him to use his good offices to solve the mystery. It may be that there is some intrigue working which I do not know, or cannot imagine. May I recall words used by the late Secretary of State for War in the House of Lords on 5th February when he dealt with this very case. Lord Derby said:
"I understand that Lady Angela Forbes is prepared now to take up other war work, and I shall sincerely regret if the recent incident interferes in any way with her doing so."
These ladies have done no wrong what ever. All they have done is to show their zeal to help our gallant Ally. They feel that they have not been fairly treated. I do, therefore, earnestly appeal to my right hon. Friend that their suspense may be terminated, and that they may be relieved from an embarrassing position.
The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Balfour): My hon. Friend has stated his case as it appears to him with moderation, and nobody has any reason to complain of that. But I would respectfully venture to point out to him, and the House, that this is not a subject in which the House of Commons can usefully intervene. I feel that Lady Angela Forbes and the ladies whom she has engaged as drivers for French work certainly have some reason to complain of the treatment which they have received. As I understand it, they have been distinctly invited by one important French Department to carry out certain contracts and perform certain services, and that another French Government Department has so arranged matters that that contract cannot be carried out. That is a very unfortunate state of things, but it is not one in which this House can possibly intervene. This is a matter entirely for the French Department, the French Red Cross Society, or their Foreign Office, or for the French Headquarters Staff— all those who are concerned with the provision of personnel and material for war-work in France and for Red Cross work in France. They may or they may not between them have so arranged matters that Lady Angela Forbes and those whom she recruited for French work find them selves unable to complete the task to which they so heartily set themselves in the common interest, which they were
2340
prepared to carry out to the full, and which they were desirous in the interests of both countries, and of the Red Cross in general, to do their best to bring to a successful conclusion. But, after all, this work was engaged in by English women, and though those whom this lady engaged to assist her were Englishwomen,, it was work for French Departments, and was to be carried out in the interests of French Departments. If, by some misunderstanding amongst these Departments, these patriotic endeavours in the interests, not of Great Britain alone, or of France alone— if these endeavours are frustrated, I do not think this House can put the matter right. I am not sure that a Debate in this House will help to further that cause. I have no explanation to give of what has occurred. So far as my knowledge goes, my hon. Friend accurately represented the various incidents that have occurred. Evidently Lady Angela Forbes and those who support her in this public work have been put to labour, inconvenience, and expense, all of which have proved, unfortunately, abortive. How ever much we may sympathise with the position of Lady Angela Forbes in the matter, I do not think that it is a question in which this House can intervene or usefully express an opinion. It is a matter purely of French administration, for the administration of French departments in France, for the administration of the French Red Cross Society, and I suggest to my hon. Friend that, having made public his view of this case, the matter should not be pressed further.
Unfortunately, I can do nothing to help him, because I have no title as Foreign Secretary to intervene in what is purely a French Departmental affair. I should only be doing harm to the common cause, I should only be impairing my relations with the French Embassy were I to meddle in a business which, after all, is not mine and not ours, and not that of the British Empire whose foreign relations are for the moment entrusted to my charge. I hope my hon. Friend, after hearing what I have said, I trust with impartiality, will not think it necessary to press the matter further. I have given him, as fairly and honestly as I can, my opinion upon this question, and I think it may now with advantage be allowed to drop.
Question put, and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-three minutes Before Eleven o'clock