Commons Sitting of 15 May 1918

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill,
Read a second time, and committed.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill,
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Ashford, Bradford, Gainsborough, Shipley, and Sidmouth," presented by Mr. STEPHEN WALSH; supported by Mr. Hayes Fisher; read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 35.]
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill,
"To confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Batley, Bognor, Lancaster, Shrewsbury, and Todmorden (Rural)," presented by Mr. STEPHEN WALSH; supported by Mr. Hayes Fisher; read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 36.]
Local Government Provisional Order (No. 5) Bill,
"To confirm a Provisional Order of the Local Government Board relating to Kendal," presented by Mr. STEPHEN WALSH; supported by Mr. Hayes Fisher; read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 37.]
Local Government Provisional Order (No. 6) Bill,
"To confirm a Provisional Order of the Local Government Board relating to Swansea," presented by Mr. STEPHEN WALSH; supported by Mr. Hayes Fisher; read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 38.]
Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill,
"To confirm a certain Provisional Order of the Local Government Board for Ireland relating to the county borough of Limerick," presented by Mr. LONG; read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 39.]

MEMBERS HOLDING OFFICE UNDER THE CROWN.
Return [presented 13th May]; to be printed. [No. 58.]
TRADING WITH THE ENEMY (AMENDMENT) ACT, 1916.
Copy presented of Report to the President of the Board of Trade by the Committee appointed to advise the Board of of Trade on matters arising under the Trading With the Enemy (Amendment) Act, 1916 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
NAVAL AND MARINE PAY AND PENSIONS ACT, 1865.
Copy presented of Order in Council, dated 11th May, 1918, approving a Memorial of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
MINISTRY OF FOOD.
Copies presented of Sale of Sweetmeats (Restriction) Order, 1918, London and Home Counties (Rationing Scheme) Order, 1918 Directions, Meat (Maximum Prices) Order, 1917 Directions, Order revoking the Dried Fruits (Restriction) Order, Greek Currants (Maximum Prices) Order, 1918, and Order amending the Foreign Holdings (Returns) Order, 1918, made by the Food Controller under the Defence of the Realm Regulations [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
NATIONAL SCHOOL TEACHERS' (IRELAND) PENSION FUND.
Copy presented of Account of Receipts and Payments in respect of the Capital and Income of the Fund for the year 1917 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
HORSE BREEDING BILL.
As amended, to be printed. [Bill 40.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.
    ROYAL NAVY.

      EXPLOSIVES WORKS (OVERSEERS).
      Colonel W. THORNEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that three girls have been appointed over seers in the men's department at an explosives works; if he is aware that the workmen are resenting women being employed as overseers in such departments; if he can state whether discharged soldiers can be appointed for such work; and if he will take action in the matter?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): Yes, Sir. Women overseers are in certain cases employed as assistants to Admiralty inspectors. Their duties are confined to observation and notation. No executive or disciplinary action is entailed. They do the work very well. As regards employment of discharged soldiers and sailors, I can assure my hon. Friend that we do our very best in every direction to find these men employment. And as regards the point that workmen resent women being so employed, I would point out to my hon. Friend that there are large numbers of cases where men are appointed to supervise women's work, and necessarily so.

      SUBMARINE MENACE.
      Mr. GEORGE TERRELLasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the precedent that the Government have now offered a substantial monetary reward for inventions regarding oil fuel, he can see his way to recommend that suitable rewards be offered to inventors who can devise an invention for over coming the submarine menace?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: As previously stated, it is not considered necessary or advisable to adopt the policy of offering large rewards in advance for the invention
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      of means of combating the submarine menace. The offer of the reward of £2,000, to which my hon. Friend refers, for the solution of a limited chemical problem, the importance of which was probably not generally realised, within a specified period of time and subject to-certain specified conditions, has little or no direct bearing on the matter. Great prominence has already been given to the fact that suitable monetary rewards are and will continue to be made for useful anti-submarine inventions.
      Mr. HOUSTONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, on reconsideration, he can see his way to give information as to our successful operations in capturing and destroying enemy submarines round our coasts during the past three weeks?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply to practically the same question put by him on Wednesday last. My right hon. Friend the First Lord and the Board of Admiralty deprecate, as they have consistently deprecated, taking a short view in the matter of submarine warfare. On the whole, the general trend of submarine warfare has progressed quite satisfactorlly since the 1st January. The news from neutral countries from time to time published in the Press of this country, and the increased boastfulness and exaggeration of the enemy's published disclaimers, are proof of this, if proof were needed of recent successes. But the Admiralty is averse from taking the results, good or bad, of a short period. My hon. Friend has, of course, read recent communications in the Press describing encounters with enemy submarines. We shall continue to sanction the issue of these communications as and when the public interest permits.
      Mr. HOUSTON: Would it not be a fitting corollary due to the Navy, in view of the accounts published of the successful operations against Ostend and Zeebrugge, that this information should be given, and would it not tend to dishearten the enemy?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: The Navy is under no misapprehension as to the gratitude of this House and of the country for its services, but we publish what is possible subject to the public interest. Beyond that we cannot go.
      Major CHAPPLE: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is general disappointment at the fact that the standard of comparison has been altered in such a way as to withhold from the public the satisfactory news as to the gradual rise in the destruction of submarines, and would he not consider the possibility of reviving the weekly reports?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I think that my hon. Friend is too closely associating two different things. My hon. Friend asks for the reinstatement of the weekly list of ships sunk. We are giving a monthly summary, and if my hon. Friend will look at the answer given yesterday he will see that that matter is gone into.
      Major CHAPPLE: Is not that monthly tonnage largely affected by—
      Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must remember that there are 115 questions on the Paper, and if every question is followed by an argument we shall not go through half of them.
      Mr. HOUSTONasked the total number of steamers reported to have been unsuccessfully attacked by enemy submarines from 1st January to 30th April, 1918?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: The number of British steamers which were attacked by enemy submarines and which escaped undamaged during the period in question was 172. Similar information as to foreign vessels is not available.
      Mr. HOUSTON: How many of these vessels were damaged?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: That was given, I think, in the weekly list.
      Mr. HOUSTON: They are described as unsuccessfully attacked when they are really seriously injured.
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I will see what can be done.

      ENGINEER-COMMANDERS.
      Sir BERTRAM FALLEasked the Secretary to the Admiralty if he is aware that all engineer-commanders, Royal Navy, should by Order in Council retire at fifty years of age, but that, nevertheless, all such who reach that age during the War are retained in the Service and given acting rank and the lowest rate of pay, and do not receive the 25 per cent. addi-
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      tional (which all who retired before August, 1914, receive), and that the number of this rank is growing and the dissatisfaction is increasing; and if he will have these officers placed on the retired list and, if required, reappointed, and so allow them their fair rate of pay and rank?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: The facts are substantially as stated in the first part of my hon. and gallant Friend's question. As regards the second part, these officers, under the existing Regulations, if retired and reappointed, would not receive the bonus. This point, however, is under discussion with the Treasury.
      Sir B. FALLE: Has not justice been granted to men on the lower deck, and is it not only fair that it should be granted to these officers?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I do not think that the concessions to the lower deck is quite a parallel one with this 25 per cent., but, as I have said, the matter is under discussion with the Treasury.

      CLOTHING ALLOWANCE.
      Mr. C. DUNCANasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the clothing allowance recently granted to naval ratings is to be given to all active service and pensioned ratings who are at present employed on overseeing duties?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: Active service and pensioned naval ratings who are employed by the Admiralty on overseeing duties at ordinary naval rates of pay and who do not receive free replacements of clothing in kind are entitled to kit upkeep allowance at rates based primarily on the expense to which they are necessarily put for the maintenance of their clothing.

      WOMEN WORKERS.
      Mr. DUNCANasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that in November last his attention was drawn to the fact that in Chatham Dockyard the Admiralty were not carrying out the spirit of the Treasury agreement nor subsequent orders made by the Ministry of Munitions in that certain women now engaged on work formerly done by men were not receiving the rates of wages which the men would have received, and that particulars of specific cases were supplied; and whether he is now able to give a reply to the representations then made?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: The Clause of the Treasury agreement to which my hon. Friend refers is as follows:
      "The relaxation of existing demarcation restrictions or the admission of semi-skilled or female labour shall not affect adversely the rates customarily paid for the job."
      I have had before me a good many complaints about the carrying out of this undertaking. But, as a rule, it has been found that in the cases brought forward women were not doing the skilled men's job in its entirety, but only a portion, and in all probabilty the simpler portion of the job. We think our scale of payment for women is adequate and consistent with the letter and spirit of every undertaking which has been given. Of course, as my hon. Friend probably knows, where women are employed on piece-work, the piecework rate is the same for women as for men.

      ENGINEERING BRANCH.
      Mr. DUNCANasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether any representative of the engineering branch of the Navy was appointed a member of the Committee which is dealing with the pay and promotion of the engineering department of the Navy; whether he can state if any Report has been issued; and, if not, can he say when it is likely to be completed?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I presume my hon. Friend is referring to the committee set up by the Board, which is considering, amongst other things, the question of artificer engineers and engineer-lieutenants promoted from warrant rank. No engineer officer is serving on that Committee, but as the Committee is dealing with all branches, it would not be possible for each branch to be represented without making it too unwieldy. Representatives under Admiral Hyde-Parker are visiting the ports. They co-opt in each case three warrant officers as consultative members, and they hear witnesses. There is nothing to prevent them taking the view of artificer engineers, chief artificer engineers, and engineer-lieutenants promoted from warrant rank— and I imagine it is this class which my hon. Friend has in mind—in the course of their investigations. No report has yet been issued, and it is not yet possible to say when it is likely to be completed.
      Mr. DUNCANasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether it is proposed to increase the subsistence allowances paid
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      to officers and ratings of the Engineering Department of His Majesty's Navy engaged upon overseering duties, so as to meet the increased cost of living, as has been done in other Departments of the State?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: Presumably my hon. Friend's question refers to lodging and provision allowances. The question of increasing these allowances generally is under consideration.

      MINE-SWEEPERS.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the Secretary to the Admiralty why the men employed on ruins-sweepers in the Harwich Patrol area, and who have been paid 37s. 6d. a week without board, have not been given the increased pay granted by Navy Regulations last November; and will he inquire why Commander Lyne, His Majesty's ship "Ganges II.," has decided that the increased pay does not apply to the men under his command?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: It is assumed that reference is made to the case of certain mercantile ratings serving at weekly rates of pay, who have not hitherto received the increased rates authorised in November last to similar ratings already serving at monthly rates of pay. Orders have recently been issued directing that such of these men as are certified competent are to be placed on the increased monthly rates, and in addition are to receive an allowance of 1s 8d. a day in lieu of victualling, as from 14th November last.
      Mr. SNOWDEN: Will that answer apply to the men named in this question, who are in the Harwich Patrol?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: I cannot say, but if they come under the conditions stated in the earlier part of the answer, it will apply.

      MERCHANT VESSELS (CONTROL OF MOVEMENTS).
      Mr. HOUSTONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that a certain steamer in February last was loaded in Belfast and ordered from there to Falmouth, from Falmouth she was ordered to St. Helens, from St. Helens back to Falmouth, from Falmouth to Penzance, and from there ordered to St. Nazaire; whether she was loaded at

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      Belfast for St. Nazaire; and whether he can state who was responsible for ordering this steamer from port to port, thereby wasting time and tonnage and increasing risk to the vessel?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: The answer to the first and second parts of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the third part of the question, the vessel was ordered to St. Helens by a misunderstanding, which is regretted.
      Mr. HOUSTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this vessel was torpedoed?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: No, I am not.

      NAVIGATION LIGHTS.
      Mr. HOUSTONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether by Admiralty regulations vessels in convoy are compelled to carry stern lights; whether he is aware that on a recent occasion some thirty-five vessels left a French port and navigated in two columns or lines of ships, each ship in accordance with Admiralty instructions showing stern lights, with the result that the convoy had at night the appearance of a lighted esplanade; and will he explain how he reconciles these Admiralty instructions with his reflections upon British shipmasters and suggestions that they were responsible for exhibiting lights in a manner seeking trouble?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: Dimmed and shaded stern lights are used when circumstances render them necessary. As regards the statements made in the second part of the question, it has not been possible in the time at our disposal to verify these. But it is presumed that the vessels were showing lights ordered, as already stated.
      Mr. HOUSTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a feeling of dissatisfaction and discontent created in the minds of shipowners owing to the speech of the First Lord on the 5th of March?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: That was in regard to showing lights against orders. This is in regard to lights shown by ships in a convoy. My hon. Friend is dealing with another matter.
      Mr. HOUSTON: Will my right hon. Friend put this right, because it has caused a number of shipmasters to write to me?
      Mr. HOUSTONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, seeing that he complained that masters of British vessels did not systematically adhere to Admiralty instructions regarding lights while navigating and the courses or routes to be followed, he is aware that vessels leaving French ports sometimes receive two different sets of instructions, one from the British naval authorities and the other from the French naval authorities; and whether he will make arrangements that only one set of instructions shall be issued to British shipmasters when sailing from these French ports?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: The Admiralty are not aware that vessels leaving French ports sometimes receive two different sets of instructions. If my hon. Friend will supply me with definite instances of this having happened, inquiries will be made.

      MONROVIA (BOMBARDMENT).
      Mr. HOUSTONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has any information to the effect that last month a German submarine shelled the town of Monrovia, West Coast of Africa, and that afterwards the crew of the submarine landed, stole the whole of the gold deposited in the bank, re-embarked, and escaped with the same?
      The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Balfour): My information is that an enemy submarine appeared off Monrovia on April 10th and shelled the wireless telegraph station on the outskirts of the town. It appears from the reports received from the Acting British Consul-General that the crew of the submarine did not land, and I understand that there is no foundation for the suggestion that money was removed from the bank.
      Mr. HOUSTON: Has Liberia declared war on Germany?
      Mr. BALFOUR: Yes; I fancy that that is so.

    RUSSIA.

      BLACK SEA FLEET.
      Mr. ALDENasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the

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      German Army is in occupation of Sebastopol; and whether he has any information to the effect that the Russian Black Sea Fleet is in German hands?
      Mr. BALFOUR: The answer to the first part of the question is, according to my information, in the affirmative. I have no conclusive confirmation of the report that the Black Sea Fleet is in German hands.

      M. LETINOFF.
      Major HUNTasked the Prime Minister whether M. Letinoff is still in this country; and, if so, what steps have been taken to prevent him from advocating the principles of the Russian Revolution in this country?
      The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir George Cave): My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. If the question refers to M. Letinoff, the answer to the first part is in the affirmative. As regards the second part, all due precautions are taken, but, as I said in answer to similar questions in February last, it is not desirable in the public interest to discuss these matters by way of question and answer.
      Mr. SNOWDEN: Seeing that the House passed a Resolution congratulating the Russian people on the revolution, are we to understand that it is objectionable now to advocate the principles of the Russian Revolution in this country?
      Sir G. CAVE: It depends on the nature of the statement.

      EGYPT (DISCOVERY OF OIL).
      Mr. G. TERRELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the recent discovery and development of oil in Egypt; whether the effect is to at once make Egypt self-contained and independent of outside supplies; what the prospects are of export; and whether the results obtained are due to private enterprise?
      The UNDER-SECRETARY Of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Hewins): The development of oil in Egypt is receiving the close attention of my right hon. Friend the Member for the Strand, as the head of the Petroleum Executive. My
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      right hon. Friend desires me to say that it is not in the national interests that information should be given in regard to the second and third parts of the question. The fields are being worked by private enterprise, to which all possible facilities are being given by Government.

      SEAMEN'S AND FIREMEN'S UNION.
      Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to a speech delivered on 1st May last by Councillor Wright, of the Seamen's and Firemen's Union, in which he stated that during the past seven months he had been in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and had met some prominent German Labour leaders, including members of the Minority Socialist party; and can he state how a representative of this union has been able to meet these German Labour leaders?
      Mr. BALFOUR: I know nothing about the alleged speech or the alleged meeting with German Socialists. Councillor Wright was given a passport in connection with an international conference of seamen from Allied and neutral countries for the purpose of considering the murders committed on seamen by German submarines.

    MILITARY SERVICE.

      OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS.
      Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Under-Secretary of State for War (1) how gentlemen above the age of thirty-four and a half who have been refused admission to Officers' Training Corps solely on account of age are to have the same opportunities for obtaining commissions as those called up under the earlier Acts; (2) whether, as the Officers' Training Corps do not take cadets above the age of thirty-five years, all men of higher military age must first pass through the ranks before obtaining commissions?
      The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson): Admission to the Officers' Training Corps is not restricted to men below the age of thirty-five years, and thirty-five men over that age have been admitted during the past

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      month, but the establishment of these corps is limited, and all applicants cannot be accepted. Men who are called up to serve, and who fail to be accepted for the Officers' Training Corps, must pass through the ranks, and be recommended for commissions by their commanding officers in the usual way.
      Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will the hon. Gentleman see whether something cannot be done in the case of the older men of "between forty and fifty, who would have been treated as fit for campaign under the old Act, instead of now sending them through the ranks, seeing that otherwise they would have had to go through the ranks two years ago?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: Establishment for these corps is very limited. We have, first of all, to consider the claims of men who have been Volunteers during the whole of the War.

      RETIRED MILITARY OFFICERS.
      Sir GEORGE GREENWOODasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether a retired Army officer who is called up for service under the new Military Service Act will be entitled to be restored to his former rank?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: Officers on the retired list still hold their commissions.

      SOLDIERS UNDER NINETEEN.
      Mr. JOWETTasked the Undersecretary of State for War if he is aware of the dissatisfaction that exists among parents of soldiers under nineteen who have been sent into the fighting line; if he will take steps to prevent other youths of this age being put to this ordeal; and if, with regard to the youths who have already been sent to the front, he will arrange for their withdrawal behind the firing line on the application of their parents or guardians?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave yesterday to a similar question by my hon. Friend the Member for the Harborough Division.
      Mr. OUTHWAITE: In view of the fact that the French Government keep boys out of the trenches, why cannot our Government do so?

      SIXTH WILTSHIRE REGIMENT.
      Sir B. FALLEasked the Under-secretary of State for War if he can give any details concerning Private T. J. Smith, No. 27879, C Company, 6th Wiltshire, no letters having been received from him since 6th April, and his parents fear that he is missing?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I regret that this soldier was officially reported missing on the 10th April last, and that no further information has been received.

      ARMIES IN EGYPT (FURLOUGH).
      Colonel W. THORNEasked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he is aware that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction existing amongst the relatives of soldiers who are serving with the Armies in Egypt because they are not able to get any furlough; and if he is prepared to make representations to the commanding officers, with a view to getting a furlough for some of the men who have been out there for some time?
      Mr. ANEURIN WILLIAMSasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether the position of affairs now make it possible to give leave to men serving in Egypt, especially to those who have not been home for two years or upwards?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I would refer my hon. Friends to the answer which I gave-yesterday to my hon. Friend the Member for the Houghton-le-Spring Division. I am sure that the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief is taking steps to ensure that the claims of those who have been longest with the force receive every consideration.

      NATIONAL FARM AND DAIRY WORKERS.
      Mr. JOWETTasked the President of the Board of Agriculture if he is aware that the Cheshire War Agricultural Committee have withdrawn their protection from seven of the branch officers of the National Farm and Dairy Workers who took an active part in a recent strike, including in this action a president of the union, who is an experienced ploughman employed on a farm which has twelve men less to work it to-day than it had prior to the War, notwithstanding the fact that 30 additional acres have been ploughed; and if he will make it clear to all concerned that the Military Service Acts are not to be used for the purpose of victimising agricultural workers on account of labour disputes?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Richard Winfrey): The Cheshire War-Agricultural Committee possess no powers to withdraw or to give protection to agricultural workers whose exemption from service has been cancelled by the Royal Proclamation. If the hon. Member will provide me with particulars of the cases of victimisation which he alleges to have taken place I will have specific inquiries made and the results communicated to him.

      EXEMPTIONS (COLLIERY COMMITTEES).
      Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMSasked the Minister of National Service whether the Government have agreed to set up special colliery committees to deal with applications for exemption by men employed in collieries in South Wales, and to recommend exemptions; whether the grounds for such exemptions are, inter alia, that the workman is the main support of the family, that the family has already contributed a reasonable proportion of their members for military service, and that the workman was under eighteen years and eight months of age on 1st January, 1918, or was over twenty-five years of age on that date; whether in the Proclamation of 2nd April a man whose exemption is withdrawn thereby is only allowed exemption on personal grounds if he is the last surviving son of a widow of whom at least one son has died as a result of wounds received in, or sickness contracted by, service in the armed forces during the present War; and whether, having regard to the fact that Conscription was stated to mean equality of sacrifice, he will amend the Proclamation of 2nd April so as to give the same rights to exemption to the general public as to the miners?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of NATIONAL SERVICE (Mr. Beck): The answer to the first part of the hon. Member's question is in the negative. As regards recruiting from the coal mines, a proportion only of the young men employed at each pit are taken for military service. Those men who are to serve are either chosen by ballot or by age groups. In all parts of the country the methods by which recruitment from the coal mines should be carried out have been left practically entirely in the hands of the local regional officials of the Ministry of National Ser-
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      vice, in consultation with the local branches of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain and all concerned. This system has been very successful, and very little friction has occurred. The right of any miner between the ages of nineteen and twenty-three, who has been drawn in the ballot, to apply to a tribunal is subject to the same limitations as apply in the case of other persons of those ages.

      CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS.
      Mr. JOWETTasked whether a man who has obtained exemption on conscientious grounds is obliged to submit himself for medical examination if he receives an official notice calling upon him to do so?
      Mr. BECK: Any holder of a certificate of exemption is liable, whatever may be the grounds upon which his exemption was granted, to be required to present himself for medical examination or re-examination. In ordinary circumstances the holder of a certificate of exemption on conscientious grounds who is complying with the conditions, if any, attached to the certificate is not called up for medical examination.

      DISCHARGED SAILORS AND SOLDIERS.
      Major HUNTasked the Minister of National Service whether, in view of the uncertainty on the matter felt by discharged sailors and soldiers he can definitely state whether discharged sailors and soldiers have one year in which to find work of national importance or whether it is one month or thirteen months; and do the conditions vary with men discharged under different circumstances?
      Mr. BECK: I think I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that there are not many discharged sailors and soldiers who have not received full information as to the time during which they may find work of national importance. I may add, however, that an Instruction is on the point of being issued under which all men. who have not already been informed of the date on which under the former concessions they are to find work of national importance, and who fall within paragraph 4 b of the First Schedule to the Military Service (No. 2) Act, 1918, are to be allowed an "opportunity period" of six months from the date of their discharge or one month from 1st June, 1918, whichever is the later date in which to obtain such work.
      Major HUNT: Will the hon. Gentleman see that the matter is made quite plain in his Instruction, because the men complain to me that they cannot understand what the Regulations really are?
      Mr. BECK: As my hon. and gallant Friend knows, there have undoubtedly been many changes, and the subject is complicated; but we hope this new Instruction will be very plain, and enable each man to see definitely how he stands.

      ESTATE AND HOUSE AGENTS.
      Sir B. FALLEasked the Minister of National Service if he can explain the difference between an estate agent and a house agent for the purposes of the National Service Act?
      Mr. BECK: I assume that my hon. Friend refers to the Military Service (Withdrawal of Exemptions) Order No. 1, 1918, issued under the Military Service Act, 1918. The difference for the purposes of the Order is that the term "house agent" which appears in Part 1 of the Order is not intended to apply to persons whose principal and usual occupation is the administration or management of land and the development of real property estates, but does apply to those persons who, according to their principal and usual occupation, are engaged in the letting or selling of houses.

      WIDOWS (ONLY SURVIVING SON).
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the Minister of National Service whether he is aware that Herbert Horace Edwards, of 58, Milton Park, Highgate, aged twenty-nine, the only son and sole support of his widowed mother, has received a calling-up notice to take effect on the 14th May; that he was given non-combatant service by the House of Commons tribunal in June, 1917, that a calling-up notice served in December, 1917, was suspended owing to the death of his father in the previous July, and that he omitted to appeal until too late; and whether, in view of the urgency of the case, permission will be given this man to apply to a tribunal for exemption on the ground of exceptional domestic hardship?
      Mr. BECK: The case of H. H. Edwards was decided by the London Appeal Tribunal in June, 1917, but, owing to the death of his father, no calling-up notice was issued to him until December, 1917. Subsequently his mother, Mrs. Edwards,
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      applied for a, re-hearing of the case. This application was refused, and a calling-up notice has now been issued, which took effect yesterday. It will be noted that this man has been aware of his liability to service ever since his appeal to the tribunal nearly a year ago. The case cannot again be re-opened.

      BRADFORD TRIBUNAL (EXEMPTIONS).
      Mr. EDMUND HARVEYasked the Minister of National Service whether he has received any representation from the Bradford Tribunal as to the effect of the recent Royal Proclamation depriving men born between 1895 and 1899, other than certain sons of widows,. of any right of claiming exemption on personal grounds and, in particular, of its excluding from this right a man who is the sole support of blind and crippled parents, and other cases where hardship will be caused to the family by the calling up of the man in question; and whether he is able to make any modification of the existing arrangements to meet the position?
      Mr. BECK: The attention of my right hon. Friend has been drawn to the letter which was addressed to the Local Government Board by the Bradford Local Tribunal. As I stated, in reply to the hon. Member for Blackburn on Monday, the Minister of National Service fully recognises the great hardships which are involved in calling up for service in the Army young men who are members of a family which has already suffered losses. He has most carefully reconsidered the question of widening the personal grounds on which a man may appeal to the tribunal under the Proclamation of 20th April, but has come to the reluctant decision that it is necessary to abide by the present Regulations. My hon. Friend will appreciate the fact that the task of raising the essential reinforcements for the Army, while maintaining shipbuilding, food production, and the output of munitions, is one of intense difficulty, and that the difficulty would become an impossibility if any considerable number of men, otherwise available, were granted exemptions on personal grounds of hardship. I need hardly say that the Government deeply regrets that the present emergency forces them to exclude such cases as that referred to by my hon. Friend from the right to claim exemption on personal grounds.
      Mr. KING: Has any attempt been made to make our practice the same, or as

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      nearly as possible the same, as the practice in France and Italy, so as to have unity between the Allies?
      Mr. BECK: I am afraid I shall require notice of that question.
      Mr. HARVEY: Could not this particular class of case be reconsidered? It; is not numerous, and comprises men who are the sole support of a blind parent or parents—peculiarly hard cases.
      Mr. BECK: I admit fully, of course— anyone must—the peculiar hardship of such eases, but unfortunately there are a very considerable number of peculiarly hard cases—
      An HON. MEMBER: Blind!
      Mr. BECK: Well, there are other cases of similar afflictions. We really have looked into the matter very carefully, with every desire to widen the law. There are a great number of cases involved.
      Colonel Sir C. SEELY: Will the hon. Gentleman see that so far as it is possible proper compensation, allowances, and so forth, are provided for these cases, so that no hardship that can possibly be avoided results?
      Mr. BECK: I shall certainly see to that.

      CERTIFIED OCCUPATIONS.
      Colonel Sir H. GREENWOOD: asked the Minister of National Service if he will state to what extent the List of Certified Occupations (R. 136) is regarded as work of national importance for the purpose of the concessions to men who have been discharged from the forces as disabled, and whether any special consideration can be given to the cases of disabled men to whom their former employers have paid wages while in the Army with a view to their return to their former employment?
      Mr. BECK: Employment in any of the industries mentioned in the List of Certified Occupations (R. 136) is regarded as work of national importance for the purpose of the concessions to disabled men embodied in paragraph 4 (b) of the First Schedule to the Military Service (No. 2) Act, 1918. This covers all occupations in those industries, and not merely the particular occupations specified in the list.
      With regard to the second part of my hon. Friend's question, the Minister of
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      National Service has decided that such cases are entitled to a special measure of consideration, and that in any case where an employer has paid to a former employé either part wages or other allowance while serving with the armed forces, the employé if he returns to his former employment shall be treated as if he were engaged in work of national importance.

      NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
      Sir MONTAGUE BARLOWasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Gunner Thomas Gent, No. 81,804, Royal Field Artillery, since transferred to the Military Foot Police, allotted his mother, Mrs. Gent, of 40, Nashville Street, Ordsall Park, Salford, 3s. 6d. on 4th October, 1916, and that he was the only support at home before he enlisted; and will he explain why Mrs. Gent is still in receipt of no Government allowance beyond the 3s. 6d. though he has been serving over eighteen months?
      The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): Mrs. Gent's claim to dependant's allowance was duly investigated, but was disallowed on the ground that she was not shown to be dependant on her son before enlistment. Mrs. Gent was so informed by the Paymaster in May, 1917, and by the War Office in June, 1917, and was at the same time advised that it was open to her to appeal against the decision on a form obtainable at any post office.
      Mr. HOGGEasked whether, in view of the fact that the local war pensions committees are now taking over the functions of the civil liabilities committees with regard to liabilities under £30, he can say on what basis Grants will be made?
      The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Mr. Hodge): It is hardly possible for me to explain, within the limits of a reply, the basis on which these Grants will be made, and I am, therefore, sending the hon. Member a copy of the circular issued to local committees by my Department, in which the conditions governing the Grants are fully explained.
      Mr. HOGGEasked whether an award of alternative pension to a widow is retrospective to the date of the warrant on the assumption that claim is made in

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      respect of the husband killed prior to that date, but to whose case the warrant applies?
      Mr. HODGE: If a widow makes application for an alternative pension within three months of the cessation of separation allowance the award will take effect, as from the date of her "widow's pension." If she was in receipt of a widow's pension but could not claim an alternative pension under the old warrant and now becomes entitled to claim an alternative pension under the new warrant the award will take effect from 1st May if the application is made within three months of that date. I may add that widows' alternative pensions now current at the old rates will be re-assessed as speedily as possible, effect being given to the new rates as from 1st May.

      "POLISH REVIEW."
      Mr. ALDENasked the Undersecretary of State for War whether he is aware that the fourth number of the "Polish Review," a quarterly periodical established to advocate the cause of Poland, has been prevented from going to America; whether this is due to the censorship of his Department, and, if so, whether he will institute an inquiry as to whether this number of the review contains any matter which would be likely to injure either the cause of Great Britain or of the Allies?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: It is considered that the circulation of the "Polish Review" in foreign countries would be likely to injure the cause of Great Britain and the Allies, and copies found in course of transmission from the United Kingdom are accordingly stopped by the Censors.
      Mr. ALDEN: Has my hon. Friend read any issues of the "Polish Review"?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I have read two of them, and that is quite sufficient.

      RECORDER'S COURT, DUBLIN (CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION).
      Mr. ALDENasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to a recent decision in the Recorder's Court, Dublin, in the
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      case of Michael Dineen, who sued Sir Bryan Mahon, General Officer Commanding the Forces in Ireland, to recover compensation for personal injuries and damage to his cycle when he was run down by a motor car conveying the General and two others; whether the defendant urged the plea that an action against the defendant and his chauffer was not sustainable as they were on the business of the King; and whether the Army authorities take the view that they are not liable in such a case, or, if such liability exists, what steps he proposes to take?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: My attention had not previously been drawn to this ease. I am having inquiries made, and will communicate with my hon. Friend as soon as possible.

    PRISONERS OF WAR.

      NETHERLANDS GOVERNMENT.
      Mr. JOWETTasked the Under-secretary of State for War (1) whether he is aware that the Central Prisoners of War Committee complain that the War Office have forbidden them to send any food or clothing to British prisoners interned in Holland; if he is aware of the effect of this prohibition having regard to the urgent need of the interned prisoners for food and clothing; whether he will take steps to have the prohibition removed; (2) if he is aware of the complaints that are being made by the relatives of prisoners of war interned in Holland on account of the difficulty there has been in sending money or necessities to them through the care committee, notwithstanding the requirements of the prisoners; if he is aware that in the matter of clothing some of the prisoners are especially in need by reason of the fact that on leaving prisoner camps in Germany they left behind as much clothing as possible for the relief of new prisoners, expecting they would themselves be better supplied in Holland; and what steps he is taking to remove the cause of the complaints?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: The Netherlands Government have, under contract with His Majesty's Government, undertaken to supply food for British prisoners of war interned in Holland. Owing to the shortage of supplies in that country, the Government have recently been obliged by popular feeling to reduce the ration of

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      bread and meat to that which is allowed to Dutch civilians. It seems probable that this ration is low, and the question of obtaining the permission of the Netherlands Government to supplement this with supplies from this country is under consideration. It is not considered advisable to allow essential articles of food which are rationed in this country to be sent to Holland.
      The officer in charge of British interned in Holland has a considerable stock of uniforms on hand. These are issued when required and replaced on demand. The difficulties in regard to the transmission of money from this country to Holland are recognised, and it is hoped to make arrangements in the near future whereby these difficulties will be largely obviated.
      Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the hon. Member for Sheffield (Central Division) whether the Government has yet received from the German Government full details of the trial of Sergeant E. A. Boyd, Royal Naval Air Service; and, if not, or in the event of the Government not being satisfied with the reply, and in view of the fact that this man is working out his harsh sentence, will the Government at once notify the German Government of its intention to make reprisals unless Sergeant Boyd is forthwith released and treated properly as a prisoner of war?
      Mr. J. HOPE (Lord of the Treasury): I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer I circulated on Monday last, not knowing it was my hon. Friend's intention to postpone it.—[See OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th May, 1918, col. 61.]
      Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will the hon. Gentleman consider that, as this unfortunate Sergeant Boyd has already suffered nearly six months of this very harsh imprisonment, it will soon be too late to make strong representations?
      Mr. HOPE: I said in my answer, which I carry in my mind, that no reply had been received from the German Government, and that the question of retaliation in this and other cases was before the military authorities.
      Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Will the hon. Gentleman explain to the military authorities that it will be too late, as this man will have served his harsh sentence?
      Mr. HOPE: The matter has been brought very closely before the military authorities.
      General Sir IVOR PHILIPPS: Can the hon. Gentleman say when we may expect an answer and a decision on this matter?
      Mr. HOPE: Of course, a question of retaliation of this kind cannot be treated in isolation from other similar questions, and the whole question of retaliation has now become a Cabinet one.

      EXCHANGE (FRANCE AND GERMANY).
      Colonel Lord HENRY CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: asked the hon. Member for Sheffield (Central Division) whether the Government has decided to make proposals to the German Government for an exchange of prisoners of war; whether the proposals will be for the exchange of men who have been in captivity for eighteen months, and also include interned civilians, and whether any proposals for an exchange of prisoners on these lines was made by the British to the German Government at the Hague Conference?
      Mr. HOPE: In so far as the question refers to the intentions of the Government, I fear I can add nothing at present to the statement made by my Noble Friend Lord Newton yesterday. As to the last part of the question, however, I may repeat what I have frequently said before—namely, that at the Hague Conference our representatives did propose that privates should be included in the scheme for transfer to a neutral country, and the Germans categorically refused.
      Lord H. CAVENDISH BENTINCK: May I ask my hon. Friend whether the proposals of the Government will be similar to those of the French Government and include men who have been in captivity for eighteen months and also interned civilians?
      Mr. HOPE: As I have said in my answer, I cannot go beyond what my Noble Friend said yesterday. I know full well the expectations that may be roused by an ill-considered answer on questions of this kind, and I should be very sorry to say one word which would disappoint the natural feelings of relatives and friends of prisoners if they were not carried into effect.
      Mr. ROCH: Is it not the fact that the French arrangement was published in the French papers ten days ago?
      Mr. HOPE: Well, a summary; but such summaries are often very misleading. I have not been able to get the text.
      Mr. OUTHWAITE: Did the British Government take any part in any of these negotiations for the exchange of prisoners, or was it only an arrangement between France and Germany?
      Mr. HOPE: The arrangement lately made in Switzerland was between French and German delegates only.

      KING'S REGULATIONS (LETTERS TO NEWSPAPERS).
      Major DAVIESasked the Under-secretary of State for War whether he can state how many cases there have been of offences committed under Paragraph 453 of the King's Regulations dealing with communications and letters sent to the Press during the last four years by officers, non-commissioned officers, or men on service; and if he can state what procedure was adopted in dealing with each of these cases and also the punishments which were inflicted?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I am sorry that it is not possible to give this information.
      Major DAVIESasked the Under secretary of State for War whether he can state the method of procedure to be taken in the case of an officer on the active list who communicates information to the Press or to a military correspondent, or writes to the Press contrary to Regulation 453, King's Regulations; and whether offences committed under Regulation 453, King's Regulations, are subject to trial by court-martial?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: An infraction of paragraph 453, King's Regulations, constitutes an offence under Section 40 of the Army Act. A commanding officer under Section 46 of the Army Act has the power either to dismiss the case or remand the officer for trial by court-martial. If this procedure be not adopted, there is the alternative procedure of disposing of the case by the Army Council under the Royal Warrant.

      COMMANDEERED FORAGE.
      Major DAVIESasked the Under secretary of State for War whether all the hay supplies and forage in this country are commandeered by the Army Council; whether he can state what percentage of these supplies are issued
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      for Army purposes and how the balance is disposed of; whether he is aware that a feeling exists among farmers regarding the action of the Army Council in this matter; and what steps he proposes to take to limit the demands of the Army in respect of the requirements of the Service?
      Mr. FORSTER: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The great bulk of the hay crop is used by farmers and stock-breeders for consumption by stock in their possession or control. As I have previously stated some 2,000,000 tons remain over and are available for general consumption, of this the Army requires about 50 per cent. Steps are being taken to give the farmers adequate representation on the Central Council and the various allotment committees in connection with the Civil supply scheme, and consequently I hope that the feeling referred to will be allayed.
      Mr. P. A. HARRIS: May I ask why the disposal of hay supplies should not be in the hands of the Department of Agriculture?
      Mr. FORSTER: Our first consideration is necessarily supplies to the Army.

      COURTS-MARTIAL.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the Under-secretary of State for War if he will have a review of the sentence passed on Private No. 12649, B Company, 24th Welsh Regiment, on the 18th February last, when he was given five years' imprisonment by court-martial on the charge of assaulting a Greek at Alexandria; and will he take into consideration the fact that this man had served two years in France, where he was thrice wounded, and has a wife and four children, who are now left destitute?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I am making inquiries, and will communicate with my hon. Friend as soon as possible.
      Mr. SNOWDEN: asked the Under-Secretary of State for War if he will inquire into the case of Gunner No. 100922, Royal Field Artillery, who was tried by court-martial in December, 1917, on a charge of being absent from picket duty and sentenced to 112 days' detention, and who has been released by the command of the Commandant of the Detention Barracks at Chelmsford on the ground that his conviction was unjust; and whether he will, in

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      the circumstances, order that the offence be expunged from the record against this soldier?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I have made inquiries and am informed that a gunner, whose regimental particulars agree with those stated in the question, was tried on the 9th January for leaving his post when a sentinel and that he was released on the 27th February in the usual way on account of good conduct. The statement that he was released on the ground that the conviction was unjust is not correct, and the last part of my hon. Friend's question does not, therefore, arise.

      VOLUNTEER CAMPS.
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the Under-secretary of State for War if he is aware that the men of the 2nd Pioneer West Riding Volunteer Regiment have been ordered to proceed to camp from Whit Saturday to Whit Tuesday; and, in view of the fact that this is a general holiday and that many of the men in the Volunteer regiment are now under compulsory service, whether steps can be taken to hold the camp at some other time, so that the men will have an opportunity of taking a holiday with their families at a time of general holiday?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: Attendance at camp is voluntary for both officers and men of the Volunteers, and I am not aware of the issue of any instructions regarding compulsory attendance. As regards the holding of camps at holiday times, it is obviously necessary to select occasions when the men will be likely to be able to attend. The Whitsun holiday has always been selected as a suitable camping opportunity, and such camps have proved generally popular.
      Mr. SNOWDEN: Is the right hon. Gentleman correct in saying that attendance at camps is voluntary, seeing that the notice calling these men to the camps must be obeyed unless they get special exemption?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I cannot add anything to the answer I have given, but if my hon. Friend will give me particulars I shall be glad to see them.
      Mr. SNOWDEN: I will send them.

      TRANSPORT DUTY (CHEVRONS).
      Sir HERBERT NIELDasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether, as it has been recognised that medical personnel, including nurses serving on hospital ships and ambulance transports, are eligible for chevrons by virtue of such service, there is any reason why officers and men forming the personnel engaged in the transport of animals, including remounts for the various fighting fronts, should not be accorded the same privileges, seeing that the nature of their employment involves constant risk of being sunk by mines or torpedoed; and whether he will place these men on the active service list, and allow them to wear the red and blue chevrons and other distinctive badges as have been allowed to other branches of the Service?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: Officers and men employed in conducting animals are, in common with those engaged in conducting drafts, ineligible for the chevrons in respect of such service. Many individuals whose duties necessitate journeys to and from the various theatres of war are similarly ineligible, and I am afraid it is not practicable to make any exception to this rule. The case of the personnel on hospital ships is not analogous, as such service is of a permanent nature.

      ROYAL ARMY MEDICAL CORPS (TERRITORIAL FORCE).
      Sir FRANCIS BLAKEasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether a general seniority roster for officers, Royal Army Medical Corps (Territorial Force) has now been formed; whether promotion is by seniority or selection; if by the latter, what is the composition of the selection board; and whether he can give the length of service. Volunteer and Territorial, of the six senior officers on the roster, with the lengths of service of each in his present rank?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: A general seniority list of officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps (Territorial Force) is now in existence, but its publication is dependent upon certain alterations in establishment which have not yet been finally approved. Promotion will be by selection from among senior officers who have been recommended by general officers commanding-in-chief, and approved by the

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      Army Council. As regards the last part of the question, there are, of course, separate lists for the several ranks, and a list as proposed would be of little value unless each rank was specified. In view of the fact that promotion will be by selection tempered with seniority, I am afraid that the information would be misleading in regard to the possibilities of promotion of the officers concerned.
      Sir F. BLAKE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that some of these officers have from twenty to thirty years' service to their credit, and some of them have been for upwards of ten years in their present Tank?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I am aware of that, and I am hopeful that the answer I have given will remedy these hard cases.

      SOLDIERS' RAILWAY FARES.
      Mr. JOWETTask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he will make arrangements for the cost of the full fare to be allowed instead of the half-fare offered to the mother in Bradford of a soldier lying wounded at Edinburgh, having regard to the fact that another of her sons is lying in hospital at Malta, whilst a third is serving in France, and all three sons enlisted during the first two months of the War?
      Mr. FORSTER: I am afraid it would he impossible to make exceptions in individual cases to the general rule that a free warrant is granted only in cases of dangerous illness, and that cheap fare vouchers are issuable, under certain conditions, in other cases.

    FOOD SUPPLIES.

      CALF FOODS.
      Mr. PETOasked the President of the Board of Agriculture whether, with a view to carrying out the policy of preserving useful heifer calves, arrangements have been made for an adequate supply of calf foods in order to obviate the consumption of whole milk which the policy would otherwise involve?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Mr. Clynes): I have been asked to reply. Arrange-
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      ments have recently been made to increase the allowance of feeding-stuffs for calves up to six months to three-quarters of a pound per head per day.

      DOG BISCUITS.
      Sir H. NIELDasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (1) whether any lower-grade meal has been used with his sanction or knowledge for the purpose of bleaching calico; if so, whether he will consider the advisability of diverting such supplies from that purpose, in order that they may be used for the manufacture of dog biscuits; (2) whether ho is in a position to make any statement in relation to the release of material for the manufacture of dog biscuits or of other suitable food for these animals, or how soon may such a statement be expected?
      Mr. CLYNES: A limited quantity of flour is being used under the licence by the textile and other essential industries. I informed the hon. Member in a written answer on Monday that arrangements have been made to release a limited quantity of flour for use in the manufacture of dog biscuits.

      BUTTER PRESERVATION.
      Mr. PETOasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether any butter salted for winter use by householders under the arrangements now being made by his Department is intended to be set off against next winter's ration allowance of fresh butter; whether there is any inducement to householders to preserve butter under these conditions; whether it is intended to issue special ration cards or coupons for the purpose; and whether arrangements are being made by the local food control committees for the preservation of surplus summer butter on a wholesale scale?
      Mr. CLYNES: I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the notice which has been issued to food control committees on this subject. Self-suppliers of butter are at present entitled to a 50 per cent. increase on the ordinary butter ration, and it is proposed to allow the same privilege to persons who preserve butter under the new scheme. No special ration cards or coupons will be required for the purpose. The Food Controller is giving all possible encouragement to the collection of surplus summer butter for blending, and is arranging for the provision of facilities for this purpose in districts where they do not already exist.

      TEA.
      Colonel THORNEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether his attention has been called to the profit allowed by method of rebate earned by the distribution of tea by the Maypole Dairy Company, Limited; whether it is the intention of the Ministry of Food to reduce the rebate allowed to these and similar trading companies; and, if so, by what amount?
      Mr. CLYNES: The rebate allowed to the Maypole Dairy Company and similar companies on their retail sales of tea was calculated not to produce profit for those firms, but to meet certain expenses of buying. It is not at present proposed to reduce this rebate, but the question is being further examined.
      Mr. HOUSTONasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether arrangements have been made to supply co-operative wholesale societies with additional supplies of tea to the extent of 50 per cent. of their datum period purchase; and, if so, whether similar arrangements will be made with other traders?
      Mr. CLYNES: I may refer the hon. Member to the answer given yesterday to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Islington.
      Mr. HOUSTON: Can the hon. Gentleman give a definite assurance that exactly similar terms will be granted to traders and co-operative societies?
      Mr. CLYNES: The change was designed to make the position of private traders and co-operators equitable, so that that assurance can be given.
      Mr. LOUGH: Will the hon. Gentleman say if this allowance was made to meet the extra demand made for tea by co-operative societies, and will he give a similar allowance to other distributors who are not co-operative societies?
      Mr. CLYNES: Other distributors receive their allowance on the basis of their registered customers, or on the trade as certified, and the change made has been designed to meet the great increase in the co-operative membership.
      Mr. LOUGH: Yes, but where similar increase has taken place with traders who are not co-operative societies, will the same concession be made?
      Mr. CLYNES: Yes, an assurance can be given to that effect.

      FRIED FISH (OIL).
      Mr. SNOWDENasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if he is aware that an Order has been issued prohibiting the fried fish trade from using edible cotton-seed oil and substituting the use of compounds; whether representations have been made to him that these compounds are totally unsuitable for the purpose as well as dangerous; and can he see his way to have this Order revoked and the use of cottonseed oil restored?
      Mr. CLYNES: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. So far as supplies permit, the fried fish trade are allowed to choose either cottonseed oil or compound. In only one instance has any complaint been received that a compound was unsuitable, and the issue of this was promptly stopped. I may add that, in order to economise cereals, every effort is being made to increase the supplies of suitable oils and fats for frying fish and potatoes.

      HORSES FOR PLEASURE.
      Major NEWMANasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether his attention has been called to the number of pleasure vehicles drawn by two horses to be seen daily in the parks and streets; and whether he will consider the advisability of prohibiting the use of more than one horse for such pleasure vehicles, and so enable extra forage to be given to the horses engaged in hard commercial work?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Wardle): My hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. The feeding of oats and other cereals to horses used for pleasure purposes is prohibited under the Horses Rationing Order. The question of restricting the use of horses for pleasure purposes is under consideration.

      RECONSTRUCTION COMMITTEE (HOUSING PANEL).
      Mr. ROWNTREEasked the Prime Minister whether the Housing Pan the Reconstruction Committee, presided over by Lord Salisbury, reported on the

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      number of houses which ought to be built for the working classes immediately after the War and as to the best method of getting them built, and generally on the whole emergency housing problem; and whether he will lay the Report upon the Table for publication?
      Lieut.-Commander DUDLEY WARD (Vice-Chamberlain of the Household): I have been asked by my right. hon. Friend to reply to this question. I propose to lay the Memorandum of the Housing Panel upon the Table.

      CRIMINAL LAW AMENDMENT.
      Mr. KINGasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware of the feeling among women, especially among those who expect soon to exercise the Parliamentary franchise, that there should be no further legislation on criminal law amendment lines till after the next General Election; and whether, in order to respect this feeling and to save the time and energies of Parliament for more pressing affairs, he will decline to move for the Joint Select Committee on this subject to which the House of Lords invites, or whether he will defer the moving of such Committee till representatives of female opinion have been consulted?
      Sir G. CAVE: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. The Bill recently introduced in another place deals with pressing questions arising largely from war conditions. It is desirable that these questions should receive early consideration and that the views of those who take a special interest in them should be ascertained, and I hope that the proposal to refer the measure to a Joint Select Committee, on which this House will be represented, is one that will commend itself to the House and to the persons interested.

      GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND.
      Mr. HERBERT SAMUELasked the Prime Minister whether any change is contemplated in the status of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ire land or in his functions in the government of Ireland?
      The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr Bonar Law): There is no change in the constitutional position, but
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      in view of the present situation in Ireland, the Viceroy will exercise to a greater extent than has been the case in recent times the full responsibilities attaching to his office.
      Mr. SAMUEL: Will the Chief Secretary be accountable to this House for the government of Ireland, and will he have full control over the measures in respect of which he is accountable?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: He will be accountable to the House. The position will be more or less that which has sometimes existed in the past. Both Ministers will have what is practically Cabinet rank. They will not be members of the War Cabinet, but will have the equivalent of Cabinet rank in ordinary times.
      Mr. LOUGH: Will the Chief Secretary reside generally in this country or in Ireland?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: It will be according as the duties of his position demand. We hope he will be available, as far as possible, for the work in this House.
      Mr. SAMUEL: What is the constitutional position of a Minister who has the equivalent of Cabinet rank without being a member of the Cabinet?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: That is a problem. Cabinet rank has no constitutional position. It is just custom. The constitutional position depends on the office.
      Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Prime Minister whether he can state the reason why General Sir Bryan Mahon has been relieved of his command in Ireland?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: I can make no statement on the subject.

      DIVISIONS (SUMMONING MEMBERS).
      Sir J. D. REESasked the Prime Minister when an opportunity will occur of discussing the methods by which Members in the building are informed that a Division is imminent, more than one having missed that of Thursday last owing to the summons having been insufficiently loud or prolonged, or owing to the fact that it is in the more remote rooms un supplemented by any vocal or other announcement?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: I hardly think that there would be a general desire for a discussion on this subject. Mr. Speaker has been informed that the bells did not fail to ring, and that the usual warnings were given in all the customary quarters of the House.
      Sir J. D. REES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is only one bell in one corner of each of the very large Libraries, that no vocal announcement is made in the central one, and that three Members failed to vote last Thursday?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: I was not aware that three Members failed to vote. I hope they would have voted in the wrong way if they had.

      WELSH DISESTABLISHMENT.
      Mr. L. WILLIAMSasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been directed to statements made by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the annual meeting of the Central Church Committee, held on Tuesday, 7th May, to the effect that members of the present Government, even the foremost of the opponents of Church Establishment, recognised without reserve that some reconsideration of the Welsh Church Act was necessary; that promises have been made by the Government to the Church party as to the date and terms of Disestablishment; if so, what these promises were and by and to whom given; and whether, having regard to the fact that the value of tithe has risen from £78 in 1913 to £109 this year, and will rise to £130 next year, the Government will either introduce legislation to enable the Welsh county councils to commute the life interests of the clergy at the pre-war value of tithe and glebe or give them the option to refuse to commute them at all?
      Sir G. CAVE: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. I have seen a newspaper report of the speech referred to, from which I gather that the Archbishop of Canterbury was referring to statements made on the 16th May of last year in the course of a debate in another place or to statements made by Ministers in this House and referred to in that debate. As regards the last part of the question, I would refer my hon. and learned Friend to the answer given to him by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 24th April last.
      Mr. WILLIAMS: Am I to understand from the right hon. Gentleman that no assurances have been given to the Archbishop as to the terms and date of Disestablishment?
      Sir G. CAVE: None except those made public.

      HOME FORCES (COMMAND).
      Major DAVIESasked the Prime Minister whether any appointment has been made to the Command of the Home Forces recently vacated by Lord French?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: The answer is in the negative.
      Major DAVIES: Can my hon. Friend say whether the appointment of Sir Ian Hamilton is in contemplation?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: I cannot make any statement on that matter.
      Mr. H. SAMUEL: Before the Government come to a decision on this matter will they take into consideration the recommendation of one of the early Reports of the Select Committee on National Expenditure that the whole organisation of the Home Command should be reviewed, with a view to preventing overlapping of staffs, and consequent unnecessary expenditure?
      Mr. MACPHERSON: All relevant facts will be brought to notice.

      INCOME TAX.
      Sir CHARLES HENRYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can state the number of payers of Income Tax last year whose incomes ranged from £130 to £300?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: The information asked for is not available.
      Sir F. BLAKEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that Income Tax is being deducted from payments made to officers in respect of their children; and whether, seeing that such payments are in the nature of allowances as distinct from pay, he will state under what legal authority those deductions are made?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answers given on the 16th and 24th April to questions on this

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      subject asked respectively by the hon. Member for the Everton Division and by the right hon. Member for Woolwich, of which I am sending him copies.

      WAR LOAN PURCHASES.
      Sir C. HENRYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can state the amounts of Five per Cent. War Loan, 1929–47, and Four per Cent. War Loan, 1929–42, that have been purchased in accordance with the conditions of the prospectus?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: The amount of War Loan purchased up to date with the Depreciation Fund, to which I think my hon. Friend refers, is:
      5 per Cent. War Loan, 1929–47, £37,535,000.
      4 per Cent. War Loan, 1929–42, £10,000.

      CUSTOMS AND EXCISE OFFICERS (ANNUAL LEAVE).
      Mr. C. DUNCANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that an Order was issued on 26th March, 1918, by the Board of Customs and Excise governing the annual leave allowed to officers during the years 1918 and 1919; whether he has noted in that Order that Customs and Excise officers normally entitled to thirty-two days' leave per annum are now only allowed eighteen days', despite the fact that their superior officers, normally entitled to thirty days' annual leave, are given twenty-two days' annual leave; whether he will take steps to ensure that these officers, who have been victims of every reorganisation of the Customs and Excise service, shall no longer be penalised in their leave; and whether he will consider that some compensation is now due to them?
      Mr. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury): The Order of the 26th March last respecting annual leave refers not to the years 1918 and 1919, but to the current leave year, which runs from April, 1918, to March, 1919. It provides that for the present the leave to be allowed to officers and surveyors is not to exceed eighteen and twenty-two working days respectively (periods which I think the House will agree are not illiberal under war conditions, especially as the men get
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      public holidays in addition), and it definitely states that further consideration will be given to the question of leave in October next. As I informed the hon. Member on the 20th and 29th November last, all leave is subject to the requirements of the public service, and no question of compensation arises if the leave given falls short of the maximum.

      NATIONAL WAR BONDS.
      Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the fact that during the week ending 4th May the proceeds of National War Bonds amounted to £12,596,000, whilst the deficiency to be made good by borrowing from all sources in the Budget Estimate is just under £41,000,000 a week, he will state what action he proposes to take to meet this deficiency?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: I cannot add anything to the statements made yesterday in the House.
      Mr. OUTHWAITEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state the proceeds of National War Bonds paid into the Exchequer during last week, and the amount paid in during the week which preceded the introduction of the last Military Service Bill?
      Mr. BONAR LAW: The amount paid in. in the week ended 6th April was. £15,478,000, and in that ended 11th May £13,030,000.

      MATERNITY ENDOWMENT.
      Mr. RENDALLasked the Minister of Reconstruction whether the endowment of maternity which is practically now provided for numbers of mothers by reason of separation and dependants' allowances paid to soldiers' wives has called his attention to the consequential advantages to such mothers and their offspring; and whether, having regard to the cessation of these payments on the termination of war and the then greater need on grounds of health and the economic desirability of not forcing married women into the labour market, he proposes to appoint a Committee to consider and report upon this matter?
      Mr. D. WARD: The problems referred to in the question have for a con-

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      siderable time been engaging my attention with a view to the formulation of practical proposals. At the present stage I do not think that my hon. Friend's suggestion would be the best means of securing further progress.

    ROYAL AIR FORCE.

      MEDICAL ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE.
      Sir H. GREENWOODasked the Under-Secretary of State to the Air Ministry how often the medical committee of the Air Force has met; and whether the Director-General of the Naval Medical Service and the Director-General of the Army Medical Service were present at such meetings?
      The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE to the AIR MINISTRY (Major Baird): The Medical Administrative Committee of the Air Force has met on four occasions. The Director-General of the Naval Medical Service was present at three of the meetings. The Director-General of Army Medical Services was present at the first two meetings, and sent representatives to the other meetings.
      Sir H. GREENWOODasked whether the Air Ministry has obtained sanction from the Treasury for the salaries of three members of the Committee, in accordance with the plans laid down?
      Major BAIRD: I presume that my hon. Friend is referring to the Medical Administrative Committee, and in that case the answer is in the affirmative.
      Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Under-Secretary of State to the Air Ministry whether the medical committee has arranged for the inspection of aerodromes; if so, how many aerodromes have been inspected; whether they themselves have made any such inspections and generally whether, in accordance with the scheme, they have determined the requirements, administrative, professional, and scientific, for the medical service of the Air Force; and whether they are convinced that these requirements are now being properly met?
      Major BAIRD: The Medical Administrative Committee has arranged for the inspection of aerodromes. These inspections are being carried out by eleven senior medical officers of the Navy and
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      Army lent to the Royal Air Force. Reports have already been received from them on nearly all aerodromes at which flying takes place. All possible steps are being taken to meet the requirements for the medical service of the Air Force.
      Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Is the Army Council satisfied with the existing condition of the medical service of the Air Force?
      Major BAIRD: Every possible help is being received in this matter, and we are making very great progress.

      REWARDS TO INVENTORS.
      Mr. G. TERRELLasked the Undersecretary of State to the Air Ministry whether, in view of the precedent that the Government have now offered a substantial monetary reward for inventions regarding oil fuel, he can see his way to recommend that suitable rewards be offered to inventors who can devise methods of locating enemy aeroplanes at night?
      Major BAIRD: The secrecy involved in such an inquiry precludes any open competition of this nature, but the existing system of rewards can be applied in the case of any successful invention of this kind forwarded through the Air Inventions Committee, 2, Clement's Inn.

      INSURANCE POLICIES (SOLDIERS).
      Major HUNTasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the ease of George Knock, of Workington, Cumberland, who has already paid during ten years on the life of his father £31 17s. in premiums on an assurance policy to the Prudential Assurance Company of £50, and who was called up for military service in 1916, being now in Salonika, and whose wife, being unable to pay the premium due in October last, has received notice that the policy is lapsed; and whether the Government intend to allow insurance companies to take advantage in this way of men serving their country abroad?
      Mr. WARDLE: My attention has been called to the case referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend, and inquiries are being made into the circumstances.

      TUBERCULOUS SOLDIERS (TREATMENT).
      Mr. DUNCAN MILLARasked the Minister of National Service whether he will give instructions that the tradesmen employed in completing the buildings at Hairmyres sanatorium in Lanarkshire will not be withdrawn from their work, as the buildings in question are approaching completion, and are urgently required for the treatment of soldiers suffering from tubercular disease, having been made available for that purpose by the district committee of the Middle Ward of Lanarkshire at the request of the War Office?
      Mr. BECK: Inquiries are being made into the circumstances of the case referred to by my hon. Friend, and the result will be communicated to him. I may say, however, that it is almost impossible to make any special exceptions of the kind suggested.
      Mr. MILLAR: Having regard to the fact that this matter is one of very urgent importance, and that unless these buildings are completed within the next three weeks or so they will not be made available for the purpose intended, will the hon. Gentleman see to it?
      Mr. BECK: My hon. Friend was good enough to point that out to me, and I am having inquiries made.

    NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE.

      SANATORIUM BENEFIT.
      Mr. CURRIE: asked the Comptroller of the Household, as representing the National Health Insurance Commissioners, when he will be able to announce particulars of more liberal financial provision for sanatorium benefit under the National Health Insurance Acts?
      Sir E. CORNWALL (Comptroller of the Household): I hope to be in a position to announce at an early date the terms of a Grant from the Exchequer towards meeting part of the loss occasioned by war conditions in the income available to Insurance Committees for sanatorium benefit.

      POSTAL RATES (ARMY WOMEN).
      Mr. KINGasked the Postmaster General whether he proposes to allow
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      letters to women in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps serving abroad to go for 1d.?
      Mr. TOOTILL: asked whether the decision not to raise the postal rates for communications to troops overseas applies also to women serving overseas in the forces?
      Captain CARR-GOMMasked the Postmaster-General whether, when he made his statement on the subject of the withdrawal of the proposed additional halfpenny stamp on letters to the troops, he intended to include letters to women serving overseas in the forces in the con cession?
      The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Illingworth): The concession in favour of soldiers will apply to women serving with the forces overseas.

    MUNITIONS.

      HOUSE RENTS (LANARKSHIRE).
      Mr. MILLARasked the Minister of Munitions whether effect has been given to the representations of the district committee of the Middle Ward of Lanark shire and other local bodies that the rents of the new houses recently erected at Bellshill and Mossend should be reduced to a lower figure, as the present rents are from £8 to £10 higher than those of houses of corresponding value in the district?
      Mr. KELLAWAY (Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions): I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to a question asked on the same subject by the hon. Member for Mid-Lanarkshire on the 6th May.
      Mr. MILLAR: Has the attention of the hon. Gentleman been called to the very strong feeling upon this subject in the district mentioned in the question, and can he state why the State should be allowed to charge a much higher rent on these houses when private landlords are restricted under the Act?
      Mr. KELLAWAY: Both those points were put to me in a supplementary question on the occasion referred to in my reply.

      ESSEX EXPLOSION (WORKMEN'S TOOLS).
      Mr. ROWLANDSasked the Minister of Munitions whether he is aware that

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      some of the men who lost their tools, etc., in the explosion in Essex some months ago have not yet received compensation for them; and will he see that the matter is dealt with as the men are inconvenienced by the long delay which prevents them replacing the tools?
      Mr. KELLAWAY: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. Many of those who made claims have since removed and delay has arisen because of the difficulty of ascertaining their present addresses. The grants are being expedited.
      Mr. ROWLANDS: If the new addresses are supplied will the matter be attended to at once?
      Mr. KELLAWAY: Certainly.

      KING'S NORTON METAL COMPANY.
      Mr. GILBERTasked the Minister of Munitions whether he is aware that six examiners employed at the King's Norton Metal Company, at Abbey Wood, S.E., have signed a statement that 33 1–3 per cent. of the primers specially examined there on a certain day proved to be rejects or defective; and that, when they reported the matter to the foreman, he replied that action was being taken, and if the men were not satisfied they could resign; whether he is aware that this signed statement was forwarded to his Department, who replied on 30th April admitting that the facts alleged as to the packing of rejects were substantially correct, but alleging that the informants had misunderstood the foreman; and that on 30th April the six signatories to this statement were sent for by the officer in charge and threatened with instant dismissal for having given information which was communicated to the Minister; and whether he sanctions this action, having regard to the effect on subordinate employés in the Government munition service in discouraging them from bringing to light the supply of defective ammunition in the interest of our soldiers in the field and the taxpayers?
      Mr. KELLAWAY: The facts as stated by my hon. Friend are substantially correct. The men made their statement to their foreman, and immediate action was taken to deal with the whole of the primers which were under suspicion, and the firm's official responsible for the packing was dismissed. It is a fact that the men were told that the matter having
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      been brought to the notice of the authorities, they had acted improperly in making representations to a body outside the Ministry, and had rendered themselves liable to dismissal. Having regard, however, to the fact that the men acted in good faith, and that their representations prevented the packing of the defective primers, I have caused the foreman to be informed that the men should have been thanked for their action.
      Mr. GILBERT: Are we to understand from the reply of the hon. Gentleman that these men will not be dismissed, or made victims, for having given this information?
      Mr. KELLAWAY: On the contrary, I stated that the men should have been thanked.

      TRADING WITH THE ENEMY ACT.
      Sir ARCHIBALD WILLIAMSONasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Report of the Advisory Committee under the Trading With the Enemy Act, 1916, can be laid upon the Table of the House before the Board of Trade Vote is taken on Wednesday?
      Mr. WARDLE: The Report is in the hands of the printers, and is being laid before Parliament to-day. Copies will be available as soon as the printers can deliver them.
      Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: As this is one of the most important subjects that can be discussed on the Board of Trade Vote, will the hon. Gentleman indicate it to the Leader of the House and see whether another half-day cannot be given to the Vote, in order that this Report might be discussed: it is quite impossible to discuss it to-day?
      Mr. WARDLE: That question should be addressed to the Leader of the House.
      Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: I had hoped that he might hear.

    DISABLED SOLDIERS.

      MINISTER OF PENSIONS' APPEAL.
      Mr. HOGGEasked the Pensions Minister whether his appeal for funds in the public Press to assist disabled men in re-establishing them in business is a personal or public appeal; whether the

      367
      money is being raised by the Minister of Pensions or the right hon. Member for Gorton; and whether, in either case, it means that what is now publicly provided by the Treasury is inadequate for the needs of the situation?
      Mr. HODGE: The appeal for funds to set up in a business or occupation for which a disabled soldier or sailor who has been trained by the Ministry of Pensions was, to begin with, purely voluntary on my part and took shape from a visit paid to a workshop where disabled men who could not resume their pre-war occupation were being trained, on which occasion a miner who had lost a leg had the ambition to set up in his native mining village as a hand-sewn boot and shoemaker as well as repairer. As the result of that statement, and being the principal guest at a dinner at a London club, I made an appeal to them, which resulted in the contribution of over £300, and I was enabled in consequence to give effect to that man's ambition. Since then, as a result of the generous notice the Press has given of that, I have obtained the sum of almost £90,000, and I have been able to set up in a similar way or re-establish in their former businesses men to the extent of nearly 1,000. Not only this, but I have also been enabled to help many widows to establish themselves, so that they can now make better provision for their families.
      It is my intention to make an enlarged appeal as Minister of Pensions, and I may remind the hon. Member that by Section 6 of the Naval and Military War Pensions (Administrative Expenses) Act, 1917, the Minister of Pensions is empowered to receive gifts and to expend them for the benefit of disabled men. This affords a clear indication that Parliament has approved the principle that my State provision can properly be supplemented by private effort, and is in itself sufficient justification for any appeal that the Minister of Pensions may make. I cannot admit the suggestion conveyed in the last part of the question, for the reason that what is being done could not be properly done by means of the Royal Warrant, as the sum necessary to set our disabled heroes up in this way varies so much that what can be done by voluntary funds in this way would, because of the differences in the money given in individual cases, lead to a great deal of dissatisfaction that one man was receiving more than another.
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      I hope, therefore, that in my efforts I shall not only receive the support of hon. Members of this House, but of every man of generous mind and fat purse in the country.

    SHIPYARD WORKERS

      BAD TIME-KEEPING.
      Sir HENRY CRAIK: asked the Minister of National Service whether it is his Department which is responsible in regard to the question of the cancellation of protection certificates of men employed in the shipyards guilty of bad time-keeping?
      Mr. BECK: The withdrawal of certificates in cases of bad time-keeping is governed by paragraph 15 of the Preface to the Schedule of Protected Occupations (M.M. 130), which provides as follows:
      "The national need at the present time does not permit of the retention on Admiralty, War Office or Munitions work of any man of military age, who does not devote his whole time and energies to the work. No man found to have a bad record of absence from work will, therefore, continue to be protected by reason of being employed in an occupation covered by the Schedule. Before, however, a man who holds a scheduled occupation certificate or a war munitions volunteer protection certificate has his protection withdrawn on the ground of bad time-keeping, an opportunity will be given to him of appearing in person before the Main Enlistments Complaints Committee of the division, and the Committee will take into account sickness or other reasonable cause."
      My right hon. Friend will, therefore, see that the Ministry of National Service cannot withdraw certificates until the Admiralty or the Ministry of Munitions, as the case may be, notifies the local offices of the Ministry of National Service that the right to retain a certificate has been forfeited under the Schedule.
      Sir H. CRAIK: Can the hon. Gentleman give any reasons for the very large number who have been found guilty of bad time keeping, and yet the small number of these men whose certificates of exemption have been cancelled?
      Mr. BECK: I think my right hon. Friend representing the Admiralty did give an answer on this point yesterday. I understand that these men have been warned, and I believe the Admiralty are considering further measures in the matter.

      CAST ARMY HORSES.
      Sir F. BANBURY: asked the Under-Secretary of State for War why, as the Government last year gave a pledge that cast Army horses should not be sold in the East, an advertisement has appeared in Alexandria stating that 150 cast Army horses were to be sold in Palestine last Monday?
      Mr. HOPE: My hon. Friend has asked me to reply. Instructions were issued to the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief in Egypt in October, 1916, that all horses and mules east from the Army were to be destroyed, and my hon. Friend has no reason to suppose that these Instructions have been departed from. He is, however, having inquiries made by cable from Egypt, and will communicate with my right hon. Friend as soon as possible.

      RESIGNATION OF MAGISTRATES (SCOTLAND).
      Mr. ADAMSON: asked the Secretary for Scotland whether his attention has been drawn to the resignation of the magistrates for the burgh of Leslie; whether he is aware that the resignations were tendered as a protest against those responsible for the maintenance of peace within the burgh being ignored in connection with the arrest and trial of ten citizens of Leslie charged with intimidation; whether he is also aware that in the Sheriffs' Court the charge of intimidation was withdrawn and the cases tried on a technical plea of breach of the peace; that the Town Council of Leslie have passed a resolution approving the action of the magistrates in resigning and refusing to make any appointments to the magistracy; and what action he proposes to take?
      The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Munro): I am aware generally of the incidents referred to by my hon. Friend. While I regret the action of the magistrates in resigning office, I am quite unable to appreciate the purpose or relevance of this step. It is not justified by any facts or circumstances of which I am aware, and I hope that it will be reconsidered. At present I do not contemplate taking any action in the matter.

      ROYAL DOCKYARDS (SHOP AND YARD COMMITTEES).
      Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has any statement to make to the House regarding the appointment of shop committees in His Majesty's dockyards, and whether it is proposed to discontinue the present system of petitions?
      Dr. MACNAMARA: We have issued to every employé in His Majesty's dockyards and naval establishments a draft scheme for the setting up in each case of such number of trade or shop committees as may be necessary, and in each case one yard committee. Our scheme outlines the proposed constitution, method of election, and functions of these committees. We have issued these draft proposals for the information of all concerned, and have invited officers, workmen, and workwomen to furnish us with any views they may wish to express upon them within fourteen days from the date of issue. As regards the effect of this scheme in operation upon the annual hearing of petitions, that must be left over until practical experience has furnished us with the means of determining how far modifications may be desirable and expedient.

      GENERAL MAURICE.
      Sir TUDOR WALTERS: asked the Home Secretary whether the letter of General Maurice appearing in today's "Daily Chronicle" was submitted to the Censor before publication, and, if so, whether any portions of the letter were deleted by the Censor?
      Sir G. CAVE: Having only received notice of this question a few minutes ago I cannot reply to it now.
      Sir T. WALTERS: I will repeat the question to-morrow.

      MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
      That they have agreed to,—
      Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill, without amendment.
      Defence of the Realm (Food Profits)
      Bill, with an Amendment.
      That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Mayor, Alder-

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      men, and Burgesses of the Borough of Nelson to construct additional waterworks; to make further provision in regard to their water undertaking; and for other purposes. [Nelson Corporation Water Bill [Lords.]

      PRIVATE BUSINESS.
      Nelson Corporation Water Bill [Lords],
      Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

      DEFENCE OF THE REALM (FOOD PROFITS) BILL.
      Lords Amendment to be considered Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 41.]
      NATIONAL EXPENDITURE.
      Third Report of the Select Committee brought up, and read; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 50.]
      BILL PRESENTED.
      BRITISH NATIONALITY AND STATUS OF ALIENS BILL,—"to amend the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, 1914," presented by Sir GEORGE CAVE; supported by the Attorney-General and Mr. Hewins; to be read a second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 42.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Resolved, "That this House do meet to-morrow, at Twelve of the clock."—[Mr. Bonar Law.]
  SUPPLY. — [11TH ALLOTTED DAY].
  Considered in Committee.
  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1918–19.— [Progress.]
  [MR. WHITLEY IN THE CHAIR.]
  BOARD OF TRADE.

    STATEMENT BY SIR A. STANLEY.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £l80,253 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 Office of the Committee of Privy Council for Trade and Subordinate Departments."—[NOTE. — £200,000 has been voted on account.]
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Albert Stanley): Under ordinary circumstances, I should consider it my duty, and, indeed, my privilege, to take this opportunity of giving an explanation to the House of the internal trade conditions of the country, the trade conditions between this country and other parts of the Empire and foreign countries, and generally to give some indication wherein our trade conditions might require adjustment, where our trade conditions and our manufactures might be improved, and where competition affecting our trade and commerce was increasing, and, as best I could, to give some indication which would, in my opinion, have the effect of bettering the trade and industry of this country. Obviously, in present circumstances, it is impossible for me to take such a step. There are no facts and figures which I could give to-day that would be of any real benefit to those who are engaged in industry and commerce in this country. I must, therefore, content myself with submitting only a very few figures, which
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    will illustrate the point I have made, and then pass on to a Brief review of some of the more important activities of this vast Department

    IMPORTS.
    4.0 P.M.
    In the first place, I desire to draw attention to the enormous decline which has taken place in the imports into this country since the beginning of the War. In 1917, the volume of imports was only about two-thirds of the imports of 1913, and in this year ft is estimated that the imports will not represent more than, roundly, one-half of the imports of 1913. We, of course, must make some allowance for the imports direct to the Continent to make provision for our vast Armies abroad, but apart from that necessary correction, generally speaking, what I have said indicates the true position. My only object in mentioning this particular fact is to indicate what I think are really the marvellous resources of this country. I venture to say that before the War nobody would have prophesied that this country could carry on as it is doing to-day, suffering so little apparent discomfort, and doing that on an import of, roundly, only one-half of the imports prior to the War. I suggest that that is a very valuable lesson and one that should be borne in mind when this War comes to an end. It would be a great pity if we failed to bear in mind this lesson and allowed ourselves again to drift into a condition of dependence upon foreign sources for so large a part of our actual needs.
    I should like to explain what I have already said about the impossibility of using any published figures to illustrate the strength and stability of our trade and commerce. I may refer, perhaps, to the published figures for 1917, which indicate the volume of our imports and of our exports. For 1917 the value of our imports was, roundly, £1,065,000,000, and our exports, roundly, £595,000,000. That, of course, includes re-exports. Those figures, when compared with the pre-war figures, are certainly very misleading in giving any indication of the growth of our trade. There are two reasons for it: one is the very changed character of the goods which are being manufactured, and the other is the change in price-level which has taken place since the War began. For purposes of illustration, if we assume the same price-level for 1917 as prevailed in 1913, the value of the goods which

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    were imported in 1917 has been only about £545,000,000, instead of £1,065,000,000; and the value of our exports would have been about £375,000,000, instead of £595,000,000. If we accept these adjusted values and compare them with the 1913 figures, we find that the decrease in the volume of imports is about 30 per cent. and in the volume of our exports about 40 per cent. Here, again, it is essential to remember that a very large part of the loss of our trade is due to the entire cessation of our trade with our present enemies and also to the practical cessation of our trade with Belgium and with Roumania. There is another reason which I might give why any detailed analysis would serve no useful purpose to-day. It arises out of the use to which our shipping is now being put. It has become necessary to concentrate our shipping upon those routes where it can be used to the greatest possible advantage. This has obviously meant that various branches of our trade can be provided with only very inadequate shipping facilities, and the value of our trade has been reduced correspondingly. By way of illustration, it has been necessary to withdraw from service a great many ships which carried a very large part of our trade to the East. Those ships have been transferred to Atlantic services in order to secure a greater use of them. To that extent, obviously, while the goods have been manufactured and are ready for export, they cannot be carried owing to the lack of adequate shipping facilities, and the Committee will agree with me that what I have said makes it quite clear that it is impossible for us, much as I should desire to give every information with respect to our trade, to carry this line of thought any further to-day.

    INDUSTRIAL POSITION.
    Perhaps I might say a few words generally about our industrial position. It is quite obvious that a very complete change has taken place in our industrial life during the War. In very many industries the character of the work has completely altered, the nature of the goods produced has been changed, the methods by which they are produced have been changed, and in only a very few industries is it true to say that the same character of work is being carried on to-day as was carried on before the War. It might be of interest to the Committee to know that it is estimated that more than one-half of all the work-
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    people engaged in industry are to-day doing work on Government account. From the most careful calculation we can make, taking a very broad view, we estimate that to-day, in the fourth year of the War, the aggregate output of industry, measured upon any intelligible basis, so far has been very little less than was the case before the War. That is a truly remarkable performance, that in the fourth year of the War, notwithstanding all the great changes that have taken place in our industrial activities, our output, so far as we can measure it, is not very much less in the aggregate than was the case before the War.
    Mr. WILSON-FOX: That is things, not values?
    Sir A. STANLEY: Yes. There is, of course, quite obviously, a falling off in the number of people who are employed, and a great change has taken place in that the new labour which has replaced that which has gone cannot, in the aggregate, be regarded as so efficient as that which has been lost. On the other hand, it must be clear from what I have said that more overtime must be worked, that workpeople are working harder, and there must be, in a great many instances, a considerable improvement in the methods of manufacture. This result could not have been secured, or anything approaching it, without the help of women. It is estimated that to-day, roundly speaking, there are at least 1,500,000 more women engaged upon work compared with before the War, and that upon work which has generally been regarded as work to be done by men and not by women. This is a great transformation in our industrial life. It would be quite true to say that this change will impose a very severe tax upon our ingenuity and our resources in dealing with the many problems involved in the restitution of industry after the War.

    RAILWAY SITUATION.
    I will now deal with some of the more important activities and controls exercised by the Board of Trade. Perhaps it would be desirable if, first of all, I dealt with the railways. It is only a few days ago that I made a long statement in the House which gave briefly some indication of the railway situation. It is perhaps desirable that I should, on this occasion, take the opportunity of going, in a little more detail, into the matter and attempt

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    to justify the restrictions upon travel which we have found it necessary to impose. The Committee will be aware that the railways of Great Britain were the first large undertakings to be brought under control by the State. It was not until last year—I think it was the early part of last year—that the Irish railways were also taken under control. The direction of the operations of these railways is vested in Executive Committees, one sitting in London and the other in Dublin. Both of those Committees are composed of experienced railway managers, and are presided over by experienced men. Sir Herbert Walker is the Chairman of the English Railway Board and Mr. Neale the Chairman of the Board in Dublin. The President of the Board of Trade is ex-officio the Chairman of both these Committees, but I am very glad to be able to say that he is not called upon to attend very many of their meetings. Without the slightest doubt this control has been thoroughly satisfactory. The greatest possible credit is due to the acting chairmen of these Committees and their colleagues for the splendid work they are doing in connection with the operation of these railways. It has been possible through this unified system of control to operate the railways as a single unit. They have thereby secured the maximum of efficiency and have been able to make very substantial economies. Goods are sent by the shortest routes, quite irrespective of any companies' boundaries, there is a common use of railway companies rolling stock, and, to a very considerable extent, traders' wagons are used for the general trade of the country. It is now a common practice to operate much heavier trains, and the loading per wagon is very much heavier than it was prior to the War.
    I recently stated that the traffic on the railways, both of goods and of passengers, was heavier than at any other time in the history of the railways. It is really very remarkable that at a time like this, when we realise the number of men who have been withdrawn from the country, the railway companies should find themselves carrying more passengers, quite exclusive of military account, than they have ever carried before, and that the goods traffic, quite independent of traffic on Government account, is also heavier than at any time in their history. I only mention these facts to indicate
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    the extraordinary difficulties under which the railways are worked. Not only is the traffic heavier but the rolling stock has decreased, and there is less equipment to operate the railways than ever before. Hundreds of locomotives and thousands of railway wagons have gone to France. We have lying idle, owing to the lack of proper repairing material and labour, several thousands of locomotives. That is the position that confronts the railway companies to-day. It is impossible for the railways to continue under such conditions. We must find some way, even if it inflicts hardship upon people, whereby passenger traffic can be brought within some reasonable limits, and find some way, in those areas where railway congestion is so severe, of preventing unnecessary daily journeys, and it is in an attempt to solve that problem of trying to keep within reasonable limits the use to which railways should be put that we determined upon the course which I announced a few days ago To all the officials, to all the men, and to the large number of women who are employed by the railways to-day, for. their devotion to duty, for the immense amount of hard work which they are doing, and for the long hours in which they are engaged, we owe a real genuine debt of gratitude.

    GOVERNMENT AND RAILWAYS.
    All the traffic carried by the railway companies on Government account is not entered into the account of the companies. Therefore, it is not possible except by estimate to determine exactly how the bargain entered into between the Government and the railway companies is working. Estimates are made from time to time, but they are only rough estimates. The bargain provided for the State guaranteeing to the railway companies their 1913 net earnings. This is reduced by a small sum which represents the share which the railways take in connection with the cost of the first war bonus paid to the railway employés. Experience has shown that it is necessary to provide for some adjustment as time has gone on, some allowance for interest on capital for new works brought into use during the War, and one or two other matters—some allowance for increase upon maintenance which, owing to lack of material and labour, the railway companies are unable to take on. A careful calculation to-day and since the last in-

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    crease to employés wages was made will disclose that the bargain will show a loss to the State. The railway companies have not since the War made any increase to their charges for carrying goods. Of all the big services this is the only one where no increase in charges has been made during the War. Up to the present this has only been possible very largely because of the enormous economy due to the unified system of control.
    This system of working the railways as a single unit has proved a great success, but it would not be true to say that all the economies which might be possible under a system of unified control have been secured. Very far from it. There is, for instance, in my opinion, enormous opportunity for securing economies through the standardisation of equipment and of permanent way. I think, too, very considerable economies in operation could be effected by a more general use of mechanical devices which would facilitate the handling of goods, and must obviously reduce the number of men who will be required. It is imperative that particular attention should, at the right time, be given to that aspect of railway operation, because it is quite clear that two things must happen to the railways after the War. One is that they will be faced with a very much higher rate of wages than prevailed before the War, and the other is that they will not have the same facility for securing men as they had before the War. In other words, labour will be much more scarce. The Board of Trade has established an advisory panel to advise the President of the Board of Trade in respect to the future position of the railways, so that the Government may have a clearly defined policy with respect to the future of the railways before this control comes to an end. This question of the future of the railways is engaging the very careful attention of all of us. While it would, of course, be impossible for me at this time to give any indication what that policy is to be, I think personally it would be a great pity if all the possible economies which experience has shown can be secured through a more unified system of control than was the case before the War—if the benefits of some system of control were not secured permanently in the interest of traders and those who are using the railways.

    TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS (SEASON TICKETS).
    I should like to say a few words about the restrictions which have been recently announced, and to which immediate effect is being given. It is quite clear that to attempt to interfere with the vast number of people who are using the railways is a problem which presents great difficulty, and is not to be undertaken very lightheartedly. There is an impression in some quarters that the restrictions which we are now imposing with respect to the use of season tickets are intended to secure a reduction of about 40 per cent. in the passenger train mile. Such is not the case. Far from it. It would be impossible that restrictions such as we have suggested should make it possible for the railway companies to reduce their mileage by 40 per cent. as the result of the number of people who will no longer ride because they are unable to get season tickets. It was in January, 1917, when the 50 per cent. increase on ordinary fares was established that the railway companies began to reduce their train mileage. There has been a constant decrease in train mileage since then, and it is only to secure a small part of the 40 per cent. that these additional restrictions are necessary. With respect to the restrictions, perhaps I had better deal first with the restrictions which are intended to apply to the whole of Great Britain. We are proposing to increase the price of season tickets by 10 per cent. on all season tickets issued for journeys within a 12 mile zone, and to add 20 per cent. to the price of all season tickets for journeys beyond that distance.
    Sir C. HENRY: For London?
    Sir A. STANLEY: This is for the whole of Great Britain. On all season tickets issued or reissued there will be an increase in price, according to distance, of either 10 per cent. or 20 per cent.
    Mr. STEWART: Will that be on season tickets already issued, or about to be issued?
    Sir A. STANLEY: When they are renewed, or if they are new season tickets. I would like to mention that this year the number of season tickets issued, compared with last year, have increased by more than 30 per cent. There are two reasons for that. One is that the difference in price between a season ticket and an ordinary ticket is so considerable that in very many instances, in a considerable

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    number of instances, it pays people to buy a season ticket and to use it for only one journey a week, and by doing that it is cheaper for them to buy a season ticket than it would be for them to pay the ordinary fare. That is an impossible position for us to maintain. The average cost per mile, even after this increase has been made, is less than.4 of a penny per mile. In other words, season-ticket traffic on the railways will be carried, with this increase, at considerably less than 1½d. per mile compared with the 1½d. per mile which represents the cost for ordinary ticket journeys.
    Mr. ROWLANDS: What is the basis of that calculation? How far?
    Sir A. STANLEY:As nearly as you can calculate it. I agree it must be in the nature of an estimate. It is as close an estimate as one can make of the journeys made by these season ticket holders.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: Is that on a seven days' week or on six days or three days?
    Sir A. STANLEY: Five days. We can only base it upon the experience we have in dealing with the season ticket journeys. Quite apart from this considerable difference in the cost, there is another reason why the number of season tickets issued have so largely increased, and that is due to the fact that a considerable number of people, for whatever reasons—perhaps in some instances they have tried to avoid living in an area affected by possible air raids—there has been recently, in the last year, an unusual number of people who have gone to live in the country, and particularly short distances outside of London. They have placed on the railways a traffic which is beyond the facilities of the railways to carry. The increased charge, which applies to all season tickets, is not done with the object of reducing the number of people who will ride. If it does secure that result and a lesser number of people take out season tickets and stop riding on the railways so much the better. The particular reason for it is because season ticket traffic is being carried by the railway companies at a loss. The basis upon which season ticket charges have been made in the past must obviously have had some relation to the cost of carrying the traffic. To-day the costs of operating the railways are totally different from what they were four or five years ago. To give
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    one item alone, the annual cost for increased wages due to bonuses, the 12½ per cent., or whatever the increase may be, is, roundly speaking, £47,000,000 a year. I need not remind hon. Members that the cost of material for repairs has enormously advanced. I would like to mention that the railway companies in establishing the basis for fixing the price for season tickets have made distinctions between journeys up to twelve miles and those for the longer distances. It has been the policy of the companies in the past to encourage people to locate at some distance from the terminus of the railway, and in order to do that they have encouraged them to take longer journeys upon the line. The basis for the long journey is much lower than that for the shorter distance. That is why in fixing the increase we have distinguished between the shorter journeys and longer ones. It is an attempt to bring more closely into relation the price for ordinary tickets as compared with the price for season tickets that we have made an increased charge of 10 per cent. in the one case and 20 per cent. in the other.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that in thus reversing the policy of the railway companies he will be doing exactly what they tried to prevent—he will be increasing congestion in the twelve-mile area instead of taking it outside the twelve-mile area, which was what the railway companies tried to do?
    Sir A. STANLEY: In so far as the traffic in the twelve-mile area is concerned, we look upon that as traffic which must be carried by the railways, and I cannot believe that there will be very many places where people could go to and find new-residences within the twelve-mile area. It is a fairly congested area already. It applies only to London for the time being. I do not think that this little difference in price will make any specific difference. I would point out that this increased charge, in so far as a great number of season-ticket holders are concerned, does not represent an increased charge of more than £1 a year. On the other hand, the revenue that is to be derived will go, the whole of it, to the State, and will represent something more than £1,000,000 sterling per annum. I cannot believe that it can be successfully argued that the State should be called upon to carry a large volume of traffic such as is represented by the season-ticket holders at a

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    loss to the State. It seems to me unfair that those who can well afford to pay this slight addition to the cost of their season tickets should not be called upon to do so, and that this additional burden should have to be carried by the taxpayers of the country. I take it that it is quite clear to hon. Members that this will net increase the revenue that goes to the railway companies. It will go to the State towards meeting any deficit, if there be any, in connection with the running of the railways under agreements which the State has entered into.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: There is some difference of opinion as to whether the 10 per cent. and the 20 per cent. increases are to extend over the whole country or only in the district round London.
    Sir C. HENRY: The right hon. Gentleman said it applies only to London for the time being.
    Sir A. STANLEY: I am sorry if I gave that impression. That is quite wrong. I thought I had made it quite clear that this increase of 10 per cent. and of 20 per cent. will apply to the whole country. It applies to every season ticket issued hereafter, whether it is a new ticket or a ticket renewed.
    Mr. T. DAVIES: Not only to tickets within and beyond a twelve-mile radius of London?
    Sir A. STANLEY: It includes every season ticket that will be issued, either a new ticket or a renewal. These restrictions apply to the whole of Great Britain. There is an additional restriction applying to the whole of Great Britain.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain? He said the whole country, and now he uses the phrase Great Britain. Does he include Ireland?

    PASSENGER TRAIN MILEAGE.
    Sir A. STANLEY: I am sorry again if I have not made it clear. I think I did say that it applied only to Great Britain. In Ireland the railway companies are now taking steps to reduce their passenger train mileage, and the Railway Executive, who are responsible for the operation of the railways in Ireland, have requested us to agree to certain increased charges in connection with their passenger traffic. Those suggestions are now being considered by the Board of Trade. It is quite clear that it will be necessary to establish somewhat similar restrictions with respect
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    to passenger traffic in Ireland as is being done now in Great Britain. [AN HON. MEMBER: "And racing !"] Apart from the question of these increases in season-ticket charges, a further restriction which affects the whole of Great Britain is in connection with the issue of entirely new season tickets. Here it is proposed that no new season tickets Should be issued for less than six months. And here again—
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Only three weeks ago I tried to renew my ticket, and was told I could only take it out for six months.
    Sir A. STANLEY: From London?
    Sir C. HOBHOUSE: Yes.
    Sir A. STANLEY: The area where no season tickets are to be issued for a lesser period than six months covers the whole of Great Britain, but there will be certain exceptions to meet proved cases of real hardship, such, for instance, as cases of ill-health, where it may be necessary to issue a season ticket for a lesser period than six months.
    Mr. KENNEDY JONES: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that no new season tickets are to be issued for twelve miles?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I am sorry. I do not think I made such a statement. I thought I had made it quite clear—and I am now dealing with the area outside the London area, and taking the country generally— that we propose that any new season tickets that may be issued shall not be for a period of less than six months except in exceptional cases. As regards the London area—I am dealing with the twelve-mile area—with places between London and twelve miles from Charing Cross—in this area we shall continue to issue season tickets as heretofore; but to places beyond twelve miles from Charing Cross, we do not propose to issue any season tickets at all to any new applicant. We propose to reissue any season tickets now being issued providing those season tickets were issued before the 1st January, 1917. But if the season ticket has been issued to any place within that area since the 1st January, 1917, it is not proposed to re-issue it unless it can be shown that the user thereof is travelling upon work of national importance, or where it can be shown that the holder has established a bond fide residence within the area. It might be suggesed—it has, indeed, been suggested — that by the use of the words "establishing a bond fide resi-

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    dence "in these areas a door will be opened to the issue of new season tickets. We are proposing to take steps to see that that door is not opened too wide. I want to make it perfectly clear that within this area outside twelve miles from Charing Cross those who have season tickets to-day and who received them since the 1st January, 1917, and those who make applications for entirely new season tickets to be used in that area, will neither get a reissue of the ticket nor any new ticket unless it can be shown very clearly that the user is engaged on work of national importance or that he uses the railways in that connection by way of having established a bond fide residence. In illustration, let me say it might be the case that if since the 1st January, 1917, or even now, it is absolutely necessary for somebody to establish their residence in this restricted area: in that case it would be, I think, unfair to refuse the issue of a season ticket. But these instances must be very rare, and the steps" we propose to take to scrutinise every application which is made will, I trust, make it impossible for this door to be open too wide.
    I may add this, if those who to-day are using the season tickets in this restricted area—an area where the traffic is far too great for the railway companies to successfully carry—if after the surrender of their season tickets they attempt to continue to travel regularly on the railways by using ordinary tickets, then we may find it necessary to take steps to prevent them from travelling by the use of ordinary tickets, and people who are affected by these Regulations will be well advised to take steps to avoid the necessity—for it is nothing more or less than a necessity—of the railway companies being compelled to close their barriers against these people, in the interests of those who find it necessary to use the railways. I am exceedingly sorry that we have got to make these restrictions. They are due to circumstances entirely beyond our control. But I will point out this to hon. Members, that in this country people are enjoying a greater degree of comfort in connection with railway travelling than I think exists in any other belligerent country. It may be argued that the United States is an exception. But we have not yet had in this country such a congestion of our railways as has existed even in that country with its wonderful railway system. I think we
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    are entitled to see that quite unnecessary journeys day by day are not attempted under present circumstances.
    Mr. MACMASTER: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman has considered the use of what are called commutation tickets—that is, the issue of twenty or thirty tickets at a time, one being surrendered on each journey?

    CANALS.
    Sir A. STANLEY: I would point out to. the hon. Member that any system of commutation tickets, whatever it may be, must carry with it some control in the use of those tickets, and, therefore, it really resolves itself into a system of permits, and we are not proposing to take that step unless circumstances really demand it and there is no alternative. Perhaps I may now pass on to other subjects. I should like just briefly to say a few words about our canals. It is within the knowledge of hon. Members that the canals have been under the control of the Government since March, 1917. We have a Committee set up for controlling the working of the canals, and the control is really working with a considerable degree of success. It would, I think, be true to state that as a result of this unified system of control the canals are carrying a considerably increased amount of traffic. And it is only because we have brought the canals under control that we are successfully using them as is being done to-day. Bearing in mind the difficulties arising from the considerable increase in wages and the difficulty of securing additional men for the work, I think I am entitled to say that the Canal Committee have performed very credit able work in bringing, as they have done, a very considerably increased number of boats into the service. Obviously, the future position of the canals of this country is one which requires most careful consideration. It is not possible for me at this time to give any indication of what the Government policy will be in that direction. But here again, as in the case of the railways, the system of central control has secured a great economy and made the canals very much more efficient, and I think the experience we will have had by the time the War comes to an end will have served a most useful purpose in determining the future position of the inland waterways of this country.

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    Lastly, I come to another controversial matter, and that is the consumption of coal, gas, and electricity. The House will remember that last winter the whole of London was put under a system of coal rations. At that time it was necessary that the amount of coal consumed in the London area should be very considerably reduced. That was due to three reasons. One was the transport question. The railways were unable to carry into London all the coal that was necessary. Another reason was to be found in the large number of men withdrawn from the coal mines, which had the effect of reducing the output; and the third reason was the increased demand for coal for our Allies and for certain neutral countries. It must be borne in mind by those who have been deprived of the use of a certain amount of coal—which, after all, has not materially affected their comfort—that in that way they have contributed something towards the absolutely essential needs of our friends and of some of the neutral countries. The system of rationing that was established worked with great success. It has not been brought to my notice that during the whole of last winter there was a single case of actual hardship in London, and I think a great deal of credit is due to the Department in charge of the work and to the officers who assisted in carrying out the scheme.
    Colonel Sir C. SEELY: It was a mild winter.
    Sir A. STANLEY: I am afraid I cannot agree, because—
    Sir C. SEELY: The previous winter was the coldest winter for thirty years.
    5.0 P.M
    Sir A. STANLEY: I am sorry to say we find it necessary to go still further in reducing the consumption of coal throughout Great Britain next winter, and we have to take steps, not only to reduce the amount of coal consumed for domestic purposes, but also to reduce that consumed for industrial purposes. The rationing of domestic coal throughout Great Britain next winter will be on a lower basis than was the case last winter. As regards coal for industrial purposes, we are proposing to set up a Priority Committee, and that "Committee will determine priority with respect to the use of coal for industrial purposes. Obviously it is essential that establishments engaged upon Government work
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    must have priority, and, therefore, as I have said, we are proposing to set up this Committee, which will deal with all questions of priority with respect to the use of coal for industrial purposes. The House will remember that last March we found it necessary to ration the consumption of gas and electricity. We had to deal with the situation in a great war. Ships which had been used for the transport of coal to ports in the South of England, and in particular to London, were constantly withdrawn for other purposes. This threw upon railway companies an. enormously increased burden, a burden that was quite beyond their capacity to handle. Therefore, as I have said, we found it necessary immediately to establish a system of rationing which would reduce the amount of gas and electricity consumed in the southern area of England. I am glad to be able to say that on the whole that has worked fairly well. We have secured economy in the consumption of coal, and I am very thankful to all, particularly the gas and electricity undertakings, for their efforts on our be-half. Now that we have more time to deal with the matter we are proposing to issue a new scheme very shortly which will make provision for this increased system of coal rationing throughout the country, and, in doing that, we are proposing to take into account at the same time the rationing of gas and of electricity, so that it will not be possible for anybody to substitute one form of fuel, either for cooking or for heating, for another to the advantage of themselves. In other words, the system of coal rationing will make provision for the use of gas and of electricity at the option of the consumer up to a certain point. In. establishing this scheme we propose doing it on lines somewhat similar to those used when we rationed the consumption of coal in London last winter, and to take into account the size of the establishment, and in particular instances the number of people occupying the establishment.

    COTTON INDUSTRY.
    I now come to another control, and a very important one, exercised by the Board of Trade, and that is the control of cotton. I cannot myself recall to mind any great industry which has been more severely hit by the need of limiting our imports owing to inadequate shipping

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    than that of the cotton industry of Lancashire. For some time now the amount of cotton imported into this country has not been more than, roundly, one-half of the pre-war imports, but obviously so substantial a reduction in the amount of cotton brought into this country must adversely affect a very considerable number of people. I should like to take this opportunity of saying that these restrictions, which have involved considerable sacrifices, have been made by employers and operatives in a magnificent spirit of loyalty and self-sacrifice No other industry in the country has caused less trouble and less anxiety than the cotton industry of Lancashire. It has stood together, masters and men ant women, as a solid unit, and will, I believe, continue to deal with and solve it sown particular problems in the same spirit of loyalty and of co-operation. To those who are making these great sacrifices it must, I am sure, be a great source of satisfaction to know that while they are denying themselves cotton they are, on the other hand, providing ships which are bringing an increasing number of American soldiers to the Continent. I am sure that in determining which should be done, to bring over cotton or American soldiers to fight with us, the people of Lancashire would have no hesitancy in deciding that American soldiers should have the preference. This reduction in the import of cotton has required that the industry should be brought under some control. This was necessary in order to avoid stocks being seriously depleted, great inflation of prices, irregular working amongst the mills, and I think the scheme which we established, in consultation with the different interests concerned, has proved to be a real success. I think that the wisdom exercised by the members of this Control Board, composed, as it is, of representative owners, operatives, and merchants, has prevented what might have been otherwise a real catastrophe to this trade. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to prevent a certain amount of unemployment in this great trade, and to-day we have out of employment, roundly, 47,000 operatives. The Central Control Board have established a rota system, whereby operatives take their turn periodically for being out of work for a few days, and, during the time they are out of employment they are in receipt of an out-of-work wage, which is provided
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    for by a system of levies established by the Cotton Control Board. It is to this fund that certain cotton operators make contributions. This levy fund, which has done so much in helping distress in Lancashire, has reached a total of something more than £1,000,000 sterling. There is another point I should like to mention in connection with cotton, and that is the action which has been taken recently by the Government in connection with the Egyptian Government which provides for the control of the whole of the Egyptian cotton. The necessity for a definite control was emphasised by the great uncertainty as regards price that was bound to arise owing to a fall in crop, and also to the reduced amount of shipping available for the transport of cotton from Egypt. We were naturally anxious that we should secure to the grower a fair price, and also that we should secure a reasonable price to the spinner and to our Allies. This control will, during its continuance, secure the direction of all the cotton exported from Egypt, and if this control continues when the War comes to an end, as I hope and believe it will, it will mean that at that time, at that critical period of reconstruction, we shall have the control of the destiny of this valuable raw material.

    ZINC CONCENTRATES.
    We have also taken steps to deal with another important raw material, and that is zinc concentrates. We have recently completed an arrangement whereby practically the whole of the exportable surplus of zinc concentrates from Australia will be purchased by the Government. Here, again, through this control, we shall be able to direct the destination of this important raw material, and it should afford means of re-establishing the zinc refining industry in this country, and be of great assistance to our noble Ally, Belgium, after the War. I am quite certain that this step which we have taken to secure the control of this important raw material will be seriously felt by German industry after the War.
    Mr. J. M. HENDERSON: Can we smelt it in this country?
    Sir A. STANLEY: No; we are going to take steps to do that.

    PAPER MANUFACTURE.
    There are one or two other important matters which I would like to

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    mention to the House. I should like to refer to this question of paper and paper-making materials. Here, again, was a great source of economy in the use of tonnage. The amount of paper and paper-making materials normally brought to this country represents a considerable amount. In normal times about 90 per cent. of the paper used in this country is either imported or made from imported materials. These imports are now only about one-fifth of the amount that was imported prior to the War. It is quite clear that so essential a material being reduced to only one-fifth of the pre-war amount must really involve very considerable economies in its use. This very limited amount of paper that is available has resulted in very enhanced prices, and one of the activities of the new Paper Controller is in the direction of seeing what sort of restriction can be put upon the prices that are being charged for paper to-day. In the early part of this control a Royal Commission was established to deal with the import and distribution of paper and paper-making materials, but the severe restriction which was placed upon this import later on made it necessary that there should be a tighter form of control than was possible through a Commission, and so a Paper Controller was established in lieu of the Royal Commission, the members of the Commission being appointed as an Advisory Committee to the Paper Controller. As I have said, it is vitally necessary that every possible economy should be exercised in the use of paper. I am sure that the Paper Controller will have the support of everybody, both in the Government as well as out of the Government, in seeing that every economy is exercised in the use of paper.
    Mr. MACMASTER: What steps are being taken to conserve what is now treated as waste paper?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I was just coming to that point. I was going on to say that the Paper Controller is now devoting his energies in three different directions: first of all, the collection of all waste material, particularly of paper and of rag; secondly, increasing the manufacture of paper in this country from home-produced materials; and, thirdly, avoiding the wasteful and unnecessary use of paper. In this current year it is estimated that about half of the paper and strawboard used in this country will be
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    manufactured from home-produced materials, including waste paper, rags, rope, straw, sawdust, and various kinds of grasses. I would desire particularly to call to the attention of the House the method which has been recently discovered, whereby through the use of saw dust it is hoped that a very considerable increase in the amount of paper manufactured will be possible. It involves the use of machinery, but I am very hopeful that from the sawdust, which to-day is very largely wasted, that exists in large quantities in this country, owing to the number of trees that are being felled, and by this process we shall be able to turn what is now largely a waste product into use.
    In dealing with the manufacture of strawboards in this country there has been a considerable success, and I hope we shall be able to develop an industry which heretofore has been unknown in this country.

    SYNTHETIC DYES.
    I now want to say a few words about dyes. It is well known to the House that the manufacture of synthetic dyes, which is the most important of what are known as key or "pivotal" industries, was prior to the outbreak of the War largely controlled by our present enemies. It will be remembered that shortly after the outbreak of war the Government took steps to secure the establishment on a permanent basis of the manufacture of dyes in this country. I think I am right in saying that the first measure that was taken was the grant of financial assistance to a company which was formed called British Dyes, Limited. This company was formed almost entirely by users of dye materials. This undertaking has made very considerable progress, but its activities in securing the objects for which it was formed have been affected by the War. The need of the Ministry of Munitions for explosives has, I think, restricted the activities of this undertaking in the direction of developing their resources for the manufacture of dyes, for which they were primarily intended. Nevertheless, they have made very considerable progress, and I think this may be said with equal truth with respect to other dye undertakings in this country, particularly one which has made a very considerable advance indeed. But I think it is still

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    true to say, on the whole, that the progress has not been as rapid as was expected.
    We have for some considerable time been actively engaged in dealing with this problem. We have had frequent consultations with representative manufacturers and representative users. We have appointed a Dye Commissioner, Sir Evan Jones, who gives practically the whole of his time to this very important department. I think it would be true to say that the progress made has been more in 'the direction of producing what is known as the commoner kinds of dye rather than making advances in the direction of the more complicated range of dyes which were produced in such large numbers in Germany before the War. There is obviously a considerably smaller demand for the more intricate colours than for the commoner kinds, and it is only natural that dye manufacturers should have given more of their time and used their, facilities more in the direction of producing the commoner kinds, for which there is a considerably greater commercial demand, than for those which require more intricate research. Because of our anxiety that this essential industry should be kept free from any possibility of control from any foreign source after the War, and so that it may become as rapidly as possible self-supporting in this country, we have indicated to the dye manufacturers certain proposals which we are willing to agree to with them In the first place, we are proposing that where a manufacturer of dyes will undertake the manufacture of special dyes, and where he is not in a position to secure the necessary money to provide for extensions to building and plant, to make a loan at a fixed rate of interest, in no case being less than 5 per cent.

    FURTHER STATE ASSISTANCE.
    It is also proposed to do as is done by e Ministry of Munitions in many thousands of oases. Where extensions of plant and buildings are necessary immediately, and where there is difficulty owing to the excessive costs of making these extensions, the Government will make some provision to meet the cost of these extensions, so that they may be immediately dealt with, and thus afford the additional facility that is required for the manufacture of these special dyes. It is also proposed to make certain Grants
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    in respect of research work. Those who have a knowledge of this industry realise the enormous amount of research work associated with the manufacture itself. There is a further proposal, and that is that, in order to safeguard this particular industry_ against the efforts which the great German dye-making firms are certain to make after the War to destroy all we have accomplished through the War and to make this industry again subservient to Germany, we will adopt a course which I believe I am right in saying was carefully considered by a Cabinet Committee of the last Government, and recommended to and approved by the Government of that day, and which has since been approved by the present Government. It is that importation of all foreign dyestuffs shall be controlled by a system of licences for a period of not less than ten years after the War.
    Mr. RUNCIMAN: Can my right hon. Friend say at this stage what will be the licensing authority, and if consumers of dyestuffs will be represented on that authority?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I am very glad my right hon. friend has raised that question because it is important, and I desire to give him an answer. We have been in consultation with representatives of the dye users, and they, I am glad to say, are in agreement on this matter. I have agreed with them that a licensing authority shall be established by the Board of Trade, which will have a free hand in deciding as to the grant of licences. That Committee is to be composed of an equal number of representatives of dye makers and of dye users, in each instance nominated by these interests. There will be an independent chairman of this Board, a man of good business standing, appointed by the President of the Board of Trade. This Committee, as I have said, will have a free hand in dealing with licences, but it must, of course, be subject to the final authority of the President of the Board of Trade.
    As I have already stated, it is of the greatest importance that progress should be as rapid as possible, and that overlapping and dispersion of effort should be avoided and the greatest possible use made of our existing facilities, and of the limited number of trained chemists available for this

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    work. I understand that, with this object in view, negotiations have for some time been in progress for the amalgamation of the British Dyes, Limited, and Messrs. Levinstein, Limited. These are, I believe, the most important of the dye manufacturers of this country.
    Sir W. PEARCE: Will these Grants and advantages offered by the Government be confined to British Dyes and Messrs. Levinstein, or, in spite of difficulties, will an opening be left to other people who intend to explore the dye situation?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I understand that definite proposals have been considered, and are about to be placed before the shareholders of these respective concerns for their consideration. I have no desire to interfere or to prejudice their decision, but I think I may say that the Board of Trade have been consulted as to the bearing of the proposed amalgamation on national interests, and that I have indicated to both companies the conditions under which we shall be prepared to approve the amalgamation and to agree to the transfer to the proposed new company of the Government's financial arrangements with British Dyes, Limited. I may briefly summarise these provisions as providing that the proposed new company shall be permanently under British control; providing for Government representation on the Board of Directors; and for securing reasonable prices and the equitable distribution of the company's products to the consumers. There are one or two other matters of detail with which I need not trouble the House, but I should like to say this: It is not proposed that the new company shall have any monopoly or privileged position in respect of Government assistance, which I have outlined, and which is to apply to all approved undertakings in the country alike.
    I have attempted to deal, I am afraid very imperfectly, with the various activities of the Board of Trade. There are many others to which I might make reference. There is the question of road transport and the steps which have been taken with the object of securing co-operation between the different road transport services. There is the question of the control of tobacco and of matches which I think has been very successfully done notwithstanding many difficulties, particularly in the case of matches, owing to the shortage of
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    materials. There is the question of the Tramways Committee which has been recently established, and of the purchase of meat for our Army and for the Armies of France and Italy, which still continues to be one of the responsibilities of the Board of Trade.

    MERCANTILE MARINE: BADGES FOR TORPEDOED SEAMEN.
    But I cannot conclude without making some reference to the Mercantile Marine. The record of these men right from the commencement of the War, particularly through the intensified submarine campaign, is one of unexampled heroism and devotion to duty. Their record during the War can only be described as truly remarkable. No words that I could say could adequately describe the feelings of admiration that everybody has for the magnificent work that these men are doing. In face of constant and in most cases unseen danger they do their work and make it possible for this country to carry on the War and for all of us to live in comparative comfort. There has not come to my attention during the whole of the War a single instance in which either officers or men have failed to take out their ship when it has been ready for them to sail. When one realises the enormous strain which is put particularly upon the officers and engineers and the physical endurance that is demanded from them, no words of praise can be too high. Perhaps the best illustration which I can give of the dangers which are attached to this service would be to tell the number of deaths that have taken place in this service from enemy action since the beginning of the War. These now total over 12,500. Perhaps I may add that the money being paid in pensions to dependants of officers and seamen of merchant ships was in February at the rate of £170,000 per annum. It has been suggested in various quarters that the Government should give consideration to the question of pensions and allowances for dependants of these men. I should only like to say at this time that this matter is engaging our attention and will have our sympathetic consideration.
    Mr. STEWART: Do these 12,500 men include Asiatic members of crews?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I cannot give the details.
    Mr. PETO: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that he is giving considera-

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    tion to the pensions of the widows of those who are killed in the War by enemy action, or to the general question of a national pension scheme?
    Sir A. STANLEY: What we are considering at present is the system of pensions to widows and dependants of those who are killed by enemy action. I am not at the moment on the bigger question. Up to the present, so far as I know, no concrete proposals with regard to it have been placed before us. There is one suggestion which has been made from time to time on which I am able now to make a definite announcement. It has been suggested that some official recognition should be accorded for the gallantry of merchant servants, officers and seamen, who continue going to sea after having been torpedoed. This matter has been laid before His Majesty the King, and I am very glad to say that he has been graciously pleased to approve that badges shall be awarded through the Board of Trade to officers and seamen of the Mercantile Marine who have been on the articles of any British merchant or fishing vessel sunk or damaged during the present War by torpedo or mine and who have afterwards completed a further voyage on the articles of a British vessel. The badge will be in the form of a torpedo and is intended to be worn on the cuff of the left sleeve either of the man's sea or shore rig, and a bar to be worn under the torpedo badge will be awarded to Mercantile Marine officers and seamen after having been torpedoed or mined for the second time, and an additional bar for each subsequent similar service. The scheme will be retrospective and will apply to all persons employed on British merchant ships, including stewardesses. It is proposed to make the necessary arrangements at once and to publish an announcement when these have been completed. I am sure that what I have said will give particular pleasure to all hon. Members, and particularly those who have specially interested themselves in this matter.
    Mr. STEWART: Has the question of giving these men chevrons on their uniforms been considered?
    Sir A. STANLEY: That is rather a separate question and will have to be dealt with quite separate. I have attempted as best I could to give some information to hon. Members about some of the very
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    important activities of this great business Department. No doubt during the Debate points which I have not dealt with will be raised, and I can only say that either I or my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade will be very glad to answer to the best of our ability any new points that may be raised during the Debate.
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: We have all been extremely gratified to hear the announcement made by my right hon. Friend to the effect that some visible recognition is to be given to members of the Mercantile Marine, who have earned the gratitude of the whole nation by conduct requiring heroism which has not been surpassed in any other service of the State. My right hon. Friend has made a very lucid and businesslike statement about matters of very great importance not merely affecting our personal convenience, but affecting the industries of the country, and I cannot help regretting that so small a number of Members of the House of Commons were present to hear the discussion of these questions and listen to the statement of my right hon. Friend, but I am sure that he will recognise that those of us who were here have listened to him with very great attention and, I think, with profit. There are several questions on which I would like to say a few words, including the question of the restriction of heating and lighting and the restriction of. railway travelling. Before I come to these definite points I may say a single word about the general remarks made by my right hon. Friend. We were very glad to have definite information with regard to our imports, which I understand have been reduced to something like one-half. But I was not quite able to follow the argument which my right hon. Friend founded upon that statement, because I am sure that he will not wish us to understand that that deficiency of half our imports has been made good by home production. I think he will agree with me that what has happened has been that we have done without the things. Many of these articles are articles of food, food produced only in foreign countries, or food produced very largely in foreign countries, upon which in the past we depended for a great deal of our supply, but which we have simply had to do without. When we come to other articles of merchandise we have been partly living, I think, upon our stock—for in a country like this there are always enormous stocks

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    upon which we can draw for a considerable time before we feel the absolute pinch of want—and more largely we have been doing without a great many articles, some of them necessaries, as we used to consider them—we have had to alter our valuation of that word—and some of comfort and some of luxury; but if that is the case and we have not been producing the articles, I have great difficulty in seeing upon what my right hon. Friend has founded his statement that we should draw a lesson from this and that after the War we shall be more self-supporting and less dependent on foreign countries. That may be quite true. I am not going to question it, but I do not think it is proved by the argument which he puts forward.
    I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend say with regard to the question of coal and gas, as I understood him, that he was about to propose a modification of the recent proposals, because it is obvious that the original proposal, which simply cut down everybody's supply by one-sixth, was a crude and impracticable proposal, and one which in operation would probably have been unworkable. It is quite evident that a person who has been last year using lavishly, without any kind of regard to economy, would be in a perfectly happy position, while a person who had been economising would be in a very unhappy position. It is perfectly clear that in a large house you can make these economies, but that in many small houses they will be quite impossible. Therefore I was very glad to hear my right hon. Friend say that, in regard to the provision of coal and gas and electric light, he proposed to consider the capacity of the house, the number of rooms, and the number of persons resident in the house. Any other course would be perfectly absurd; it would be very inequitable, and I believe that you could not possibly carry it out. There must be a great many people who are not in a position to reduce their supply of either heating or lighting. Take the case of poor persons who in the past have not been able to consume what they ought to have consumed. To say that they are to have their supply reduced by one-sixth is a thing which I am sure my right hon. Friend would never seriously contend was either fair or practicable. I hope that I am right in understanding from him that that is to be modified, and that we are to have a standard which will take account of the necessity of the consumer.
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    With regard to railways, that is a very grave and serious question. I think that my right hon. Friend was a little too much inclined to consider the case from the point of view of the minority of the persons who take season tickets, and too little from the point of view of the vast majority. The persons who live at Brighton, or somewhere else, to escape air raids, may be large in the aggregate, but, compared with the number of people who use season tickets, they are a very small fraction indeed. The case in which I am interested is the case of the workman, the clerk, and the small business man, who of necessity must live outside a town like London or Glasgow. These are the two cities—they happen to be the two greatest—with which I am most familiar, and through all my public life one of the things which have been of the greatest interest to all social reformers has been to try to relieve the congestion, which is a very serious and grave social factor in the cities of Glasgow and London. I remember very well not many years ago when the congestion in the East End of London was so serious that quite substantial sums, amounting to several pounds, were paid by many people as key money to obtain an entrance to a house in a place like Stepney. The London County Council and the Corporation of Glasgow, by their tramways, have made a great change in this matter, but by no means a sufficient or adequate change, and the congestion in Glasgow is still a scandal. The congestion in London is still serious. This proposal of my right hon. Friend is a retrograde one, and I do not think, as regards the vast mass of those affected, that it is going to achieve the object of largely reducing the traffic. What it will do is to make it more costly to the people of the working classes, small clerks, and small business people, to travel, but it should not be forgotten that they travel, not for pleasure, but to earn their bread and butter. They are the class of people who cannot find houses in London suitable to their requirements, and many of them work in the City, where no dwellings can be procured within any reasonable walking distance. The right hon. Gentleman has fixed the limit of 12 miles, within which he is going to put on 10 per cent., and beyond 12 miles 20 per cent. I cannot see the reason for that proposal. Take the case of a man who works in the City of London, or in the East End of London, but who lives

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    in the South of London—he does not get very far out of the crowded part of London under 12 miles, and if he goes over 12 miles, you are going to penalise him by putting 20 per cent. on his season ticket. And you are going to do it in a very curious way; you are going to put the biggest percentage on the most expensive tickets, and the holders of these tickets will be doubly penalised.
    It was the object of social reformers to induce the people to live outside the crowded areas of London, or of our big cities, and in places which were healthy and less crowded. Why this action has been taken I cannot conceive. Of course this money will not go to the railway companies, but to the State, and it will be a sort of tax upon these people who, by the very necessities and circumstances of the case, are obliged to live out of London. The policy of this House has been different from that which is now being adopted. In the time of the late Government a Bill was introduced preventing the raising of rents, and that measure has had the best effect in regard to houses of the working classes. It was passed with the general consent of the House, and it had on the back of it the name of an eminent Conservative statesman, the present Minister for the Colonies; my own name was on the back of it, and another name; it was not a party question at all. My right hon. Friend is now coming forward with a proposal to put a penalty on these very people of 10 per cent. or 20 per cent., and thus is going to take away the benefit which the late Government thought to confer upon the people by preventing their rents from being raised. I cannot help hoping that my right hon. Friend will reconsider that part of his proposal. I do not know why London should have been singled out to be the subject of it, for there is no place where the people live so much away from the centre of metropolitan life than is the case in London. London apparently has been picked out for priority of ill-treatment and for superiority of ill-treatment. I cannot see the reason for that.
    On the general question of railways and canals my right hon. Friend made some remarks which were extremely interesting and valuable. We all hope to see our canal system, which has been stifled by the railway companies to a very large extent, restored and used for the carriage of goods. I think the right hon. Gentle-
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    man was on perfectly sound ground when he said that much larger economies than have hitherto been made should be effected after the War, when there is both time and material for dealing with these matters, by a system of unified control. That is a subject on which I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend, and I hope that his great experience of the subject will be used to bring about a state of matters which will improve our railway system after the War, and which will reduce the carriage on goods that, at the present moment, as I have thought for many years, is and has been unnecessarily high. I have always felt that the carriage on goods and commodities could be reduced to an amount that would result in increased benefit to the railway companies themselves through enormously facilitating and developing the trade of this country. On that matter I think he will find he has a great deal of support. In regard to cotton, I was interested in what he said about the admirable way in which the cotton trade responded to the appeal of the Government. I was interested in it from this point of view: The cotton trade is an instance where we have not had Government control; the cotton trade has really worked out its own salvation, and I hope that will be borne in mind when we come to consider the question of continuing Government control after the War. They had a very difficult situation to deal with, and they dealt with it satisfactorily because they were allowed to deal with it themselves.
    My right hon. Friend raised the very important question with regard to dyes, and here I have practically no criticism to offer now, because I have no doubt he intends to do, as the late Government did, when they introduced their Bill dealing with dyes, and put their proposals before the House of Commons. The subject is obviously one of great importance, and of national interest. We, of course, recognise that the dye industry is one of the pivotal or key industries, and we cannot be dependent on foreign countries for our supplies. I think we will be all heartily with the right hon. Gentleman in what he said about Grants for research, which is obviously a question of great importance. I do not think I have anything to say respecting his proposal for assistance towards buildings and plant, and loans for the purpose of developing industry. I am glad to hear that any

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    Committee appointed to deal with the question of licence will consist of the manufacturers and the users of the dyes, but that matter may be left to future discussion.
    I feel grateful to my right hon. Friend for having brought, in so clear a way, a great mass of material before the House; but he should not be surprised if oil one or two points, such as the question of light supply and railway travelling, he meets with some criticism, which, I am sure, will not be of a carping kind, on a matter that affects what is by no means merely personal convenience, for that is a small consideration. As to any proposal that allows the railway companies to economise by diminishing the luxury of travelling, I am sure no one will object to that for a moment; but in regard to the schemes for dealing with the workers in cities and great towns, I think they require examination, for they are not so clearly desirable as apparently, at the present moment, the right hon. Gentleman thinks. This question of season tickets is only a part of the great problem of the housing of the people, and of facilitating the carrying on of the industries of the country. The whole matter should be surveyed in a large and broad spirit.
    Mr. ROWLANDS: I beg to move, to reduce the Vote by £100.
    I join in what my right hon. Friend has just said about the statement of the President of the Board of Trade, who dealt with a very large number of interesting subjects, and, in the main, we are very pleased with the information he has given us. There is one question on which I shall await with interest the new scheme which the Government is to put before us, and that is the question of how he is going to deal with coal and lighting. The right hon. Gentleman has promised to bring forward a new scheme, and those who have in the past, by questions, criticised the previous scheme, will await with interest the new one, to see how the difficulty is to be got over. I have risen, however, mainly to deal with one topic, which for the moment has aroused enormous interest, and I believe is attended with most far-reaching consequences. I have moved the reduction of the Vote for the purpose of calling attention to the question dealt with by the President of the Board of Trade, to some extent, namely, the question of rail-
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    way season tickets. I echo entirely what my right hon. Friend (Mr. M. Wood) has just said, that we cannot conceive why London is picked out for the purpose of this experiment, rather than any other part of the country. The subject, so far as London is concerned, is of greater magnitude than it could be in any other of the big cities, and what astounded me was how thoroughly the right hon. Gentleman, in his speech, appeared to be unable to give us anything, but what were rough estimates, of what will be the result of the action he is going to take This is most unsatisfactory. We are not told whether any definite conclusion has been reached with regard to the results expected from this action, yet great numbers of the travelling public have to face an enormous amount of inconvenience, owing to this action in regard to season tickets. I cannot understand why London should have been selected for this.
    6.0 P.M
    Another thing I cannot understand. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to make a kind of attack upon the season-ticket holders. We see. from the defence of this proposal, made by the railway directors, that the season-ticket holders are regarded somewhat in the light of semi-culprits, as persons who are doing something which they ought not to do. That attitude is an entire change from that of the railway companies towards the season-ticket holders in the past. The season-ticket holder is a person who has been evolved by the necessities of our social system, and he has been welcomed, nay, encouraged, by railway companies in time past. The companies have begged for season-ticket holders. They have said: "Let the season-ticket holder come to us; take a season ticket, it will help to develop a particular area on our line; we will put up special railway stations for you, if you build a certain number of houses round about that neighbourhood." The companies used to recognise how valuable were the season-ticket holders for developing any particular locality on a portion of the railway line, and by the use of season tickets an enormous amount of traffic has been created, and popular centres have sprung up in districts around the London area, where the surroundings are healthier and more attractive. That was the idea which originated, or at least was partly responsible for the introduction of the season-ticket holders. I will not say that

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    the position is entirely. changed at the present time, for I still see certain announcements containing pathetic appeals to people to take season tickets. Some of them are illustrated, and contain the words, "The season ticket is the latch-key of the country," or the words, "The children's playgrounds," or, again, "Without a season ticket the garden-gate is closed." I would call the attention of the President of the Board of Trade to these announcements as being something rather for the decoying of the season-ticket holders who, are now told that they must pay 10 or 20 per cent. more. Now what is the real fact in connection with all our big cities? The season ticket is a necessity if the people are to be housed under proper conditions. I would advise any student of the housing question to consult any of the reports on this subject. Take, for instance, the Report of the Royal Commission of 1884, or the Committee of this House appointed in 1907, on which I had the privilege of serving, and you will find that the more you go into this housing problem in London and all the big cities, you have to get your people outside, especially in the case of London, if they are to live under proper conditions. The necessary adjunct to that is the season ticket, and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow (Mr. McKinnon Wood) has said, the problem is one of greater magnitude in London than elsewhere. I want to ask the President of the Board of Trade, or the Parliamentary Secretary if he replies, whether he can give us some practical reason why this 12-mile radius is taken. A 12-mile radius in connection with London is absurd.
    I could give innumerable illustrations of large places which are simply a continuation of London that go outside the 12-mile radius. If I take one or two illustrations mainly from my own Constituency it is not because they are different from the other parts round London. Whether you go north, south, east, or west you will not find scattered populations, but you will find a dense population, and you can go from Charing Cross right into those localities without any break whatever between the bricks and mortar. Take, for instance, Bexley and Bexley Heath, where you had a population of 15,000 in 1911. What it is to-day I can hardly say. Then there are Dartford, with a population in 1911 of 25,000;
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    Erith, with 27,000 population in 1911; and Romford. You could go on a motor-car from the doors of this House right to Romford and not find a break, and yet it is outside the radius. You can go to Watford, Thames Ditton, and, in fact, all round, and you will find the same thing. Why, therefore, this 12 miles? The whole of the places I have mentioned are not populated by wealthy people. They are the resort of the clerk and the working man, who have to come into town, and anything you put extra upon their season ticket means really an increase of rent for them to pay. It does not only apply to the father; it is a penalty upon the whole of the family. I would advise the right hon. Gentleman to look into the case of juniors. I have been given cases, in the enormous correspondence I have received, of young girls, junior assistants, in some of our banks here. This increase on their season tickets to the adult price, plus the extra percentage, will make an appreciable difference in the amount of wages they receive. In cases where there are one or two members of a family in this position you will inflict a very heavy penalty. Does the right hon. Gentleman really think that to escape this burden these people can crowd back into London again? Would that be a benefit to the community? Would the State really gain if they did so? I believe the loss to the community at large if people forced their way back to escape this burden would be more detrimental than any loss that may accrue at the present time between the present price of season tickets and what would be gained by the additional charge.
    May I point out another thing with regard to the question of the twelve miles? When the Rent Bill was before this House it was shown that the distance proposed was not sufficient, and the present Colonial Secretary accepted an increase in the distance and agreed to the Metropolitan Police area, which is fifteen miles from Charing Cross. That does not get you out of the houses, but, at least in that case, it was demonstrated that there was no difference between the inhabitants within fifteen miles and that within that radius the necessities were the same. My own opinion is that the present proposition is a most unfortunate one. It will penalise the poor, but will have very little effect upon the wealthy. Those who live at long distances, who can well afford to pay the extra on their season tickets, will

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    do so without a grumble. Those funkers who are afraid to stay in London, as some have done, and do not wish to do otherwise, whatever the result to ourselves is, will simply pay the extra. They will grumble, as they do now, at having to pay higher rents, which they themselves have occasioned. But if you want to stop them from going, have the courage to take some drastic action that will prevent them flooding the places, as they have flooded them, and I think I can promise the President of the Board of Trade that he will have the sympathy and support of the House. I mentioned the case of children under eighteen who previously had the advantage of half rates and are now to be charged full rates. If the right hon. Gentleman would like information on that, he can be supplied with it, and it will show him how heavily the burden will fall upon a number of families where the younger members, especially girls, are just going up to town, commencing their employment, and where it is necessary they should start. What is more, they are going up to town to render service which is required for the benefit of the community at this time when labour is short. I have had instances given to me of young girls having resigned their positions because c f the increase in the cost of season tickets. Although they may get work in their own neighbourhood, that is not what we want; we want them where their labour is most requisite, and therefore we want to give them the same facilities that they had previously.
    Another great hardship is the fixing of the date at 1st January, 1917, in connection with the issue of season tickets. Has the right hon. Gentleman thought of this particular case? Since that date a great number of men discharged from the Army have got into occupations. Will the right hon. Gentleman see that such men living outside London will have the opportunity of coming to their employment without any difficulty whatever? There are a number of other cases of a similar character that could be alluded to. I think he will find that a number of people have shifted their dwelling since that date whose case ought to be attended to. The case has largely been put upon the basis that it is to reduce, if possible, some of the extra travelling, yet if I remember rightly the right hon. Gentleman did not think that it would reduce it very materially. He could not give any satisfactory information that doing away with the season tickets under.
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    his arrangement would materially affect the amount of railway travelling. Of course the Government themselves—I am not saying they were wrong—are responsible for some of the increased railway travelling. There are many instances where, by stopping the use of petrol, people who used to come into town and do their business during the day by means of their motor cars have had to resort to the railways. I have a case in Lancashire given me by a Member of this House, where two members of a family, father and son, in order to get to their mill, seven miles out, have to travel on two railways, which means taking four journeys everyday, whereas they used to motor to and fro. I am not saying it is wrong to have stopped the use of petrol for this purpose, but such cases could be multiplied by thousands.
    I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in the figures of the extra travelling, he has taken into consideration the number of persons at the munitions works who have to use the railways? These amount to thousands a day. If the right hon. Gentleman goes to London Bridge Station any night, I am sorry to say, if he is very particular, they will not unduly respect his first-class carriage. They are going to the night shift, and people are coming back from the day shift, and I want to know whether all these—I am only taking one line with which I am thoroughly conversant—are to be interfered with? I do not think that this question of the season tickets requires the further consideration of the right hon. Gentleman. We are all with him in any effort the Government may think is necessitated at the present moment to reduce in any reasonable direction whatever is necessary in railway travelling, or anything else. But we do ask that any scheme should be a comprehensive one that will deal with everyone the same. Do not try to get over these great difficulties by any trifling scheme, as this seems to me. We are with him, but at the same time we want the whole of the question dealt with on a broad basis. I do not think that the present scheme at all meets the case. I sincerely trust that the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to reconsider it. If it is a reduction in the amount of travelling that is required, I trust that he will at once deal with it in a manner which will allow it to be thoroughly effective in its result. This scheme at. present is one which only

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    inflicts undue hardship upon the travelling public—and when I say the travelling public, I mean those who have to travel to earn their daily bread backwards and forwards from what, it may be, has become largely a sleeping place in and around our great cities. You are simply saying to these people, "We will inconvenience you, if possible, by this non-issue of season tickets; if you do want tickets we will raise the rate," so that whilst— as has been pointed out to illustrate the matter—in the one case the Government have prevented the raising of the rents of these people, by this scheme of the Board of Trade they are going to raise their cost of travelling to what may be more than an equivalent. I trust that the Board of Trade will reconsider their scheme, and before doing anything to meet the difficulty which they propose to meet, will put before the House of Commons and the country a scheme thought out in a thorough businesslike manner.
    Mr. TENNANT: The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down seems to think that the President of the Board of Trade has some ground of grievance against season-ticket holders—in fact, that he looks upon them in the light of culprits. He appeals to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade not to pursue the course which has been announced from the Treasury Bench, but to embark upon some more comprehensive scheme which would embrace all the travelling public. In his arguments my hon. Friend, in a way very unusual for himself, has fallen into a slight error. What are the facts? More than a year ago, I think, the Board of Trade issued an Order by which the travelling public who were not season- ticket holders—that very greatly advantaged body—were compelled to pay 50 per cent. more for their tickets. No similar advance in price, so far as I am aware— or, indeed, any advance—was made to season-ticket holders. They have really been in a privileged position ever since that increase was made over the ordinary buyers of tickets I think, therefore, instead of considering that season-ticket holders are being badly treated by the present arrangement, it is only a somewhat tardy measure of justice which is being meted out to them. I listened with great interest to the very illuminating and interesting statement of the President of the Board of Trade. I want to make one or two remarks upon that speech. I
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    confess I do not envy the President the task, which must be a very difficult one, having regard to the difficulties of the housing problem, in having to come to any decision upon the mileage upon which the Government should issue its Order. It is really a difficult problem, because, as my right hon. Friend (Mr. McKinnon Wood)pointed out, it has also been the policy of all Governments, irrespective of party, to encourage the people to live out of congested areas; therefore, in increasing the cost of season tickets, it must be that you are to that extent discouraging that policy. As I have pointed out, the 20 per cent. and the 10 per cent. which the right hon. Gentleman has proposed does not yet come up to the 50 per cent. which the ordinary ticket holder has to pay. To that extent, therefore, the season-ticket holders may still be said to be privileged.
    While on the subject of railways I should like to ask my right hon. Friend whether he has seen his way to make any concession to the parents of children who have to go backwards and forwards to school. This is really an important problem. As we know, many middle-class and lower middle-class people have saved money by thrift and carefulness in order to be able to send their children to a good school. The children travel three times a year and back again—to school and then home again for the vacations. The extra 50 per cent. is very real to them, and in many cases they have a great deal of difficulty to meet it. I would ask whether some reduction on the 50 per cent. could not be made in the case of these children. It would not be very difficult to do, because the school could perfectly well give a certificate notifying the bona fides of the scholar. I was very much interested in that part of the speech of the President in which he told us of the employment of the great mass of the people of this country. The most salient fact he brought out was the number of those now engaged in industry who are employed on Government account. It is an amazing fact. We could hardly credit it if it had not come from an authoritative source.
    I should like to raise one other point, and only one—that is in relation to lapsed policies of insurance, a question of which I have given notice to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not want to make a speech about it, but only to ask a question. It has been brought oat in question and answer in this House that

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    there are an enormous number, almost a fantastic numbed, of such lapsed policies. I think the figure named was 9,000,000 policies. I do not make myself responsible for that figure. I think, however, that my right hon. Friend the President agrees with me that the number is a very, very large number indeed. I have had it in correspondence with people interested in this subject, and experts upon the subject, though I do not intend to read the correspondence—that the Prudential Company alone in two years lapsed over 2,300,000 policies. If that be the case, owing to a very few premiums having been omitted to be paid, I think it really constitutes a very grave scandal.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: Two millions out of how many?
    Mr. TENNANT: I do not know, but the figure struck my imagination as being horrible. That any working-class family, after scraping together, with a good deal of difficulty, enough to pay so much week by week to provide against a rainy day, should find themselves, because the man, or the son of the house, is called up for service to his country, unable to continue the weekly premiums, and therefore find that all their weekly savings are simply put into the pockets of the great rich insurance company—that seems to me rather a terrible thing.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: But that is not so!
    Mr. TENNANT: Then I am very much relieved to hear it.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: Such a thing cannot be done under a Statute which we have passed, except by an order of the Court, and such orders, I think, have not been issued in many cases. Such an order may have been made in an isolated case.
    Mr. TENNANT: I put a supplementary question on the subject a couple of months ago to the President of the Board of Trade. Whilst the Government, I was informed, could not state the number of lapsed policies, they admitted there was a large number. I have had endless correspondence with three or four people, who keep telling me of the scandal which I have ventured thus briefly to describe, as not only existing, but existing in a very large number of cases.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: Oh, no!
    Mr. TENNANT: Then if I am wrong I am only too delighted to be wrong, and to be corrected by the hon. and learned
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    Gentleman and other authorities on the matter. Perhaps the President of the Board of Trade will corroborate that correction?
    Mr. RAWLINSON: May I just deal at once with the last point of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down? So far as insurance policies are concerned we passed an Act very early in the War—in 1914—by which it was decided that no company can lapse a policy except by order of the Court, and that order cannot be made if the lapse occurs under conditions incurred through the War. Of course, in this I am speaking only of the smaller policies with which I gathered my right hon. Friend was dealing, policies of £20 and £25, and thereabouts, and I think the President will corroborate my statement on this point. The Statute does not apply to the bigger policies concerned with large sums of money. There are always a very large number of policies lapsed in the course of the ordinary year. We are here only dealing with those affected on account of the War. Let me now deal with another part of the Board of Trade Vote. I refer to railway running and the question of the season tickets. The President expressed himself pleased at the achievement of the Board of Trade. I am very much interested in railways, and have been all my life. Look at the facts of the case for a moment.
    The Government took over the railways. They have had tremendous advantages in the economies which they could carry out by one control, and the use of everything which naturally follows in that train. They had to compare in their working with the dividends of 1913. The President of the Board of Trade has told us that since then he has carried more goods than ever before; he has carried them at the same price. He has carried more passengers than ever before. Up to 1st January of last year there were cheap tickets to travel in addition to the ordinary tickets. These latter have been raised 50 per cent. in price, and the cheap tickets abolished. From a business man's point of view what is the achievement that my right hon. Friend is so pleased at? He has raised the price of the ordinary fares 50 per cent., abolished cheap tickets, carried more passengers and more goods—has had the tremendous advantage of central economies. Yet, after all, he tells us that the working has resulted in a loss! That is State finance of which my right hon. Friend is so proud! It would appear to illustrate the advantage of the State as

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    a profit-making concern, and as the managing director of commercial enterprises ! I can point out the reason for this. Government Departments are rather more easily squeezed than other people in the matter of wages. We have heard of £47,000,000 which have gone in this way. That is a pretty state of affairs. Let me come to a very much smaller point, the difficult problem with which the Board of Trade is confronted, the question of the congestion of traffic. In regard to his proposals I do not think the right hon. Gentleman put his case quite as strongly as he might have done.
    Take an ordinary season ticket to Brighton costing £8 5s. per quarter. The old first-class return ticket used to be 15s. If a person travels once a week now when you have put up the fares 50 per cent. and you continue the season ticket at the old price you are altering the whole ratio. A person may travel only once a week down to Brighton, but it pays him now that the ordinary fares have been raised to take a season. You have to pay 22s. 6d. for a return ticket, and if you only travel once a week it is cheaper for the large number of people who come to London shopping to take season tickets, because the terms make it worth their while to do so. Not only this, but special tickets were issued whereby members of the same family could get tickets at a reduced rate. Not only did the father of the family get a season ticket at £8 5s. per quarter when the single fare was 22s. 6d. for each journey, but he could also get a certain number of tickets for members of his household at half-price. So that for £4 5s. a member of his family could get a first-class ticket for three months to travel as often as he liked when the single ticket was 22s. 6d. for each occasion. I spoke to the chairman of a leading railway upon this point, and I said, "Surely you are not going to leave this extraordinary difference between these two sets of circumstances?" and he replied, "I know that is so, but the Board of Trade will not allow us to touch the amount of the season tickets." You should have dealt with the season tickets when you raised the fares, and then you could have very well laid down that all new season tickets would have to pay extra. Now you say that everybody who have season tickets are to pay extra, but that should have been done only as regards season-ticket holders from the Is of January, 1917.
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    What is the Board of Trade going to do? Does anybody really understand what the Board of Trade are suggesting now? I have followed the speech of the right hon. Gentleman fairly carefully and I have not been able to get any definite idea. I understand that no new season tickets are to be granted except in exceptional cases, and that there are to be no renewals except in the case of bonâ -fide residents or work of national importance. Bonâ -fide residents is a fine sounding phrase, but what does it mean? The right hon. Gentleman says, "bonâ -fide residence since the 1st January, 1916." I will give a definite case. A gentleman I know has had his wife seriously ill, and they have gone away from London. The gentleman happens to be a season-ticket holder, and he is living outside the 20-mile radius. One reason why he has gone there is because one of his children had a tendency to St. Vitas dance, and, consequently, the air raids were very serious, and he went away, taking a furnished house. Supposing he takes that house for six months. Is that bonâ -fide residence? We know what residence is to qualify for a vote, and we give the vote under those circumstances; but this is a concrete case where a man has taken a furnished house for six months, and I want to know whether he is a bonâ-fide resident or a mala-fide resident, or is he at the mercy of the Board of Trade?
    The right hon. Gentleman made a statement a week ago, in which he stated that season tickets would be renewed to people who were bonâ-fide residents or were engaged on work of national importance. What has the Board of Trade done since? They have issued an Order that no season tickets would be issued to people who had taken them out since January, 1917. Definite orders were also issued that no season tickets would be renewed which were taken out before the 1st January, 1917. There was no question of residence then, and what is the position now? We do not know the conditions under which we can get a renewal or a fresh ticket. Is it not monstrous that our business should be done in this way? I have taken the trouble to go round to different ticket offices, and things are so different from what they used to be before the railways came under the Government. I have asked questions at these offices, and they say, "We have our definite orders, and we

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    cannot issue you a ticket." The next condition is in regard to work of national importance. What does that mean?
    Mr. MACMASTER: Being a Member of Parliament.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: The hon. Member answers in the same glorious tone in which the President of the Board of Trade made his speech; but what does it mean? In the case I have quoted my friend is a mala-fide resident. But suppose he is engaged on work of national importance, will he get his ticket? Take the case of a Member of Parliament engaged on work of national importance who happens to be living, say, at Woking or Basingstoke. Even if he is a mala-fide resident he is engaged on work of national importance and gets his ticket. The words used by the right hon. Gentleman on this point are absolutely meaningless. I am asking the right hon. Gentleman what he really means by bonâ-fide residence and work of national importance. Supposing a person is a mala fide resident, and he is engaged on work of national importance, will he get his season ticket renewed?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I will do my best to answer the hon. and learned Member's question. As regards bonâ fide residence, I said this afternoon that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to find words that would define what we mean better than the words we have given. I agree that the use of these words might leave the door open to some abuse, but we are proposing that every new application for a season ticket for use within the restricted area, and every application for a renewal of a season ticket within the restricted area since the 1st January, 1917, shall be reviewed, and no season ticket will be renewed or granted until the application has been carefully reviewed by a committee which will be set up for this particular purpose, and we shall lay down the grounds upon which the committee will be authorised to agree to the renewal of a ticket or the issue of a new one. [An HON. MEMBER: "What committee will it be?"] It is a committee which we propose to set up to review all applications for season tickets within the restricted area.
    There will be two grounds on which the committee can recommend the issue or renewal of season tickets, one is that it was necessary that the person should have the tickets because he was doing work of national importance, or because it was
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    necessary that he should use the railway in connection with work of national importance. The other ground is that he must be a bonâ fide resident. I do not think it is difficult, so far as the first question is concerned, to determine what is work of national importance and what is not. It cannot be difficult for the committee to decide that the work which a particular man is doing is essential, and that it is necessary for him to travel on the railway, and in that case he will get his season ticket. With regard to bonâ -fide residence, it means a man who has established a new residence in the restricted area since the 1st January, 1917, as a permanent residence that makes it a bonâ -fide residence, and he will be entitled to a season ticket. It cannot be suggested that by taking furnished rooms or a furnished house within the restricted area, having at the same time another place of residence, that that can be regarded as a bonâ-fide residence, and in those cases applications for season tickets would not be considered.
    Mr. RAWLINSON: By his explanation the right hon. Gentleman has thrown a great deal of light upon what was very obscure before. In the case I have quoted that man would be unable not only to get a season ticket to continue his work, although it is of national importance, but he will not be able to get a ticket at all. He is perfectly willing to pay the extra fare. What is the real reason why this difficulty has arisen? It is chiefly owing to the issue of very cheap season tickets to Brighton and Hayward's Heath, and certain places up the river, and there has been a rush of people who are not British to those places. Why should the Board of Trade not have the courage to say that this is a privilege given under certain conditions to British subjects and to British subjects only? There would be no difficulty in that, at any rate, as far as the travelling to Brighton is concerned. The man who is not a British subject is not under the same obligations—he is not subject to Conscription or anything of that sort—and there is nothing unjust in making him pay if he is to have this privilege and be allowed to fill up the carriages in the way that they are filled at the present time. The Board of Trade have not acted very wisely. They abstained from making the increase when they raised the ordinary fares by 50 per cent. They lost the opportunity of raising the rates for season tickets. I still think that

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    the increase should be upon that basis, and that season-ticket holders before 1917 should not pay the increase, but that those who have taken out season tickets since 1st January, 1917, should pay it. I hope that something will be done speedily to deal with the matter, and that it will be done clearly so that people may know what are their rights.
    Sir J. BARRAN: I do not rise for the purpose of continuing the attack on the Board of Trade on behalf of the season-ticket holder. What I have to say upon that subject will certainly not be by way of condemnation of the season-ticket holder, because I have no lack of sympathy with him, but it will be to call attention to certain aspects of the question which perhaps have been somewhat obscure in recent speeches. I notice that no speaker has denied that the traffic on the railways at the present time is being carried at a loss, and no speaker has advanced any reason why it should be carried at a loss. In justice to other taxpayers in the country and to other travellers that broad aspect of the matter should not be forgotten. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Rawlinson) actually seemed to make it part of his case that season-ticket holders had been carried at such an abnormally cheap rate in the past. If that is true, it is all the more reason why they can afford to pay a little extra in the future. The Committee should not lose sight of the fact that since the restrictions on the railways first began the ordinary traveller has put up with the loss of week-end tickets, excursion tickets, and a regular service of cheap fast trains, and he has not murmured. Yet it would be the greatest error to suppose that all season-ticket holders travel purely and simply on business and that all those who travel with ordinary tickets do so purely and simply on pleasure. An enormous number of those who travel with ordinary tickets—I imagine they greatly outnumber the season-ticket holders—have to do a great amount of travelling for purely business or national purposes. They are paying their 50 per cent. extra without grumbling, and I hope now that the Board of Trade are bringing the season-ticket holders more on a level with their fellow countrymen that they will be broad-minded enough and patriotic enough to recognise that after all they are not being so unfairly treated.
    I rose really for the purpose of inviting the attention of the Committee to one or
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    two matters referred to or not referred to in the right hon. Gentleman's speech. The first matter on which I would say a word or two is the restriction in the allowance of coal for the coming winter which the right hon. Gentleman forecasts. I view that with some alarm. It is true to say that the coal restrictions last winter were met in a spirit of good will and without any serious inconvenience or distress on any portion of the population, but it was a mild winter, and, if the restrictions are to be intensified and we should happen to have a severe winter, I rather shudder at the possible consequences. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, before he determines that the private consumer and the business community must put up with these severe restrictions, will seriously inquire into the question and satisfy himself whether the pits of the country with their existing man-power are really giving all the production that can possibly be expected. We hear from time to time of pits that are working three, four, or four and a half days per week. I am speaking of what the individual man does. This afternoon we had an answer from the hon. Member who represents the Ministry of National Service (Mr. Beck) with regard to dockyard labour. He said that it was being made a test for exemption whether a man was working a full-time week. If men were not working whole time on dockyard labour they were in danger of losing exemption. I am not aware at the moment whether a similar test has been considered for the coal miner. It is probably true that it might not be necessary to apply such a test, and that if it were put as an honourable obligation to the miners of the country that by giving a full week in all cases they would relieve their fellow-countrymen from feeling the pinch in the coming winter, the appeal would not be made to them in vain. I earnestly hope that the right hon. Gentleman will lose no opportunity and will omit no possible resource within his power of securing the greatest output from the coal mines before he determines that the private house and the mill and the factory must put up with further restrictions in the coming winter.
    One last word on an entirely different matter which has not been touched upon to-day, although it has been the subject of recent question and answer in this House. I refer to the question of railway facilities for race-meetings. I do not approach the question either from the

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    point of view of food supplies or of the improvement of the breed of horses, and how far it is necessary to hold race-meetings in order to maintain a certain number of horses in the country. I would like to put to my right hon. Friend three or four simple and plain considerations which weigh with plain people in the country who take no sides in the matter and who do not approach it from the point of view of purists or "kill-joys." In the first place, the whole of the nation has been asked to forego their ordinary pre-war pleasures as regards railway facilities. Secondly, a series of restrictions of all kinds with which we are well acquainted have been imposed on all alike for that purpose. Thirdly, the Board of Trade has specifically told us again and again that these restrictions will include the cancelling of all specials for this particular form of recreation. Fourthly, the Board of Trade themselves have full control over the Railway Executive Committee for the enforcing of that general Regulation. Yet in spite of those facts we do in point of fact find that special trains have been allowed and are being allowed.
    The ordinary man asks himself two things: Is that creditable to the country and is it fair? I do not speak as an enemy of reasonable recreation, because I believe very strongly that we must maintain our lighter moments if we are to do our more serious work, but I do think that the spectacle of crowded trains for big race meetings is one on which the nation can look with least satisfaction at the present time. Apart from that, I do urge upon the right hon. Gentleman, if other classes of the community are doing without such simple and homely joys as the pleasure of a week-end visit to the seaside, that those who are thronging the trains for these meetings should similarly be asked to forego their share of amusement. On the mere ground of common fairness all round, the Board of Trade should enforce rigorously, strictly, and thoroughly the rule which they have laid down on this subject. I hope before this Debate closes that either the right hon. Gentleman or the Parliamentary Secretary (Mr. Wardle) will be able to say something which will reassure the country on this point, for there are many who, like myself, have never referred to it up till now, but who nevertheless are seriously disturbed in their minds about it, and who would welcome a declaration
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    that the right hon. Gentleman, not in any spirit of prejudice against those who attend race meetings, but purely from the point of view of equality of sacrifice, will make some regulation under which in future they must forego that pleasure in the same way as others have had to forego other pleasures.
    Major TRYON: I desire to raise two points in connection with season tickets which have not already been dealt with. I do not think the President of the Board of Trade is altogether right in speaking of season-ticket holders as people who can afford to pay more. A large number of people hold season tickets in order to go to their daily work, and in their case this increase will be a serious addition to the cost of living, and a considerable burden. Many of them already have great difficulty in finding the money for a six-months' ticket issued under the present arrangements. My second point relates to the distribution of such tickets as are issued. I represent a constituency where we have two very different kinds of applicants for these tickets. We have, first, the permanent residents who came into the constituency before the War or in the early days of the War, and who were attracted, among other things, by the promise of cheap season tickets. They live there, and go to their daily work. Now, in competition with them is another class of applicant, consisting of persons, many of them of foreign nationality, who came there from a very different motive. These recent arrivals have come from districts in London to escape the bombs, and many of them have taken season tickets for a whole year, thereby making it very difficult for the regular residents to get tickets and travel on the trains. That seems to me a considerable hardship.
    7.0 p.m.
    I suggest that season tickets should be given in the first place to people doing work of national importance and to people who are regular residents and who belong, so to speak, to a particular place, who are' justified in their residence and are not merely fugitives from other constituencies. I may add that I think that the British ought to come first on British railways, and that aliens ought not to have any claim to season tickets so long as British people are seeking for them and' not getting them. In fact, some of these aliens have grossly abused the privilege of the season ticket Before the benches

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    at Brighton and Hove there have been many convictions of aliens for abusing the privileges given by the Board of Trade and the railway companies. Some of them have regarded the season ticket as a single transferable ticket for a whole family, and there also have been cases of personation and fraud. Such people deserve very little consideration compared with the regular British residents and the people who are doing important national work. The distribution ought not to be so much a question of price, but rather the justice of the claim of the individual applicant for the ticket. The extensive granting of season tickets to aliens and people who come down to Brighton and other places on the South Coast to avoid air raids has seriously affected the housing problem. It has made it very difficult for workers to get houses. In many cases people who have a far better right to the houses have been crowded out or bought out by people who only come as visitors for the period of the War. I do not think people who come into a district on these grounds should have as much right to the distribution of season tickets as those who are properly resident in a place and have a better justification for their residence.
    Captain R. GUINNESS: I want to appeal to the President on behalf of my Constituency, Southend. That constituency, a county borough with 80,000 inhabitants, is faced with very great hardship owing to the alteration in the price of season tickets. Nobody who lives in South-end can be called a "bomb dodger." It is very difficult indeed to justify raising the price on the season tickets to Southend, because most of the holders are clerks and men with small incomes. The last speaker told the Committee that his constituency was overcrowded. Southend is faced with ruin because already the houses are to a great extent uninhabited on account of the fact that everybody who could afford it has gone away. Now comes a further burden on the community, which is a very real tax on these lesser clerks who come up from Southend daily. I am told that there are about 10,000 to 12,000 season-ticket holders in this community. This change will mean something like £4 a year extra charge on their income. In their case it really amounts to an Income Tax. You cannot expect a whole district with 80,000 inhabitants to depopulate itself. "The people cannot find accommodation in London, especially if they are not of the
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    wealthier class and cannot afford to leave their present home and, paying the expenses of their present homes, seek new homes at great expense. I appeal to the President of the Board of Trade to look upon their case, if he possibly can, with some mercy, because here is a great, prosperous town, which was doubling in population every eighth year for many a decade before the War, and which is now faced with ruin. It comes at a moment's notice. Until a few months ago people, were encouraged to live in Southend to show their boldness and patriotism. In fact, it is a part of London. It has no industries of its own. It has a very healthy air, which is of great benefit to those who cannot afford to go further a field. Suddenly these people are face to face with a great increase and burden on their incomes. This charge will form part of their rent. One way or another they will have to come up to London, as they cannot get rid of their houses. We know that we may all have to cease travelling on the railways should there be no coal, but we should look upon a. community like Southend as the last that should be cut off from its daily bread. Perhaps the Government will put up some office in the neighbourhood, and offer to supply work to these clerks.
    Sir A. STANLEY: indicated dissent.
    Captain GUINNESS: The President shakes his head. I am surprised at that, because there is more room in Southend for offices than there is in London. although I do not know that my Constituents would appreciate such action. If we are all going to become Government clerks—we are told that already half the population has been absorbed as State employés—I thought I might appeal for a few more. The resident in Southend is in a very difficult position. He has a long daily journey, and now he is treated at a moment's notice to this burden of increased expenditure. It is unfair! If you gave him three years to get out of his holding, probably as an individual he might do so. The whole of the President's argument was that the season-ticket holders are travelling at a rate much below the rate at which other people are travelling. That may be true. It may be the fact that when the railways are handed back to the companies again they could not possibly run them without increasing the rates. But why should the passenger traffic carry the whole of the burden? Why should not the loss of revenue be borne by

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    the traders as well, if it is necessary? I understand that at this moment it is not a question of helping the railway companies, but really one of helping the Chancellor of the Exchequer to meet part of the expenditure of the year. He has undertaken to carry out certain obligations with regard to the railways for the very great advantage which the State obtains by using the railways. It seems very unfair that the burden should be put on the travelling public whose travelling is not a luxury. I can quite understand our having a Luxury Tax, which could be justified. Going to the seaside, although it may sometimes be a necessity, may be a luxury, and I could understand it being taxed; but I do not see the justification for taxing a man coming to his work, because he is tied to his residence at the seaside.
    I recognise that the whole problem of railway rates will have to be faced sooner or later, but you are doing it in piecemeal fashion. You first prevent travelling on the railways unnecessarily by dealing with the ordinary tickets. It now appears that by an oversight you left out the season-ticket holders. As a matter of fact, when the matter was first discussed, this House was impressed with the fact that the season-ticket holder was the one person who ought to be encouraged, and that a man who worked for his daily bread honestly at a distance should have the ordinary privileges on the railway. How can you reduce travelling on the railway from Southend? You cannot do it unless you allow the people in Southend to starve. You must have a certain number of trains running there, and by maintaining the service you get more revenue for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not directly through the ordinary channels of taxation, but because he will have less to pay in making up the railway dividends to the amount at which they stood in 1914. It is unfair that Southend should pay an undue tax. If you want revenue, by all means impose taxation. Why should the men within the twelve-mile radius go free? That is illogical. A man may live twelve miles from Charing Cross, and he is carried by the railways at a loss. Why should that be? The answer does not seem obvious. I, therefore, appeal to the President of the Board of Trade, if he possibly can, to do something for Southend, which has already been hit in many other ways by the War. It must be a matter of concern to the community as a whole that one
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    of its large county boroughs, once a prosperous one, should be crushed at a moment's notice without, so far as I can see, due consideration. If we are going to restrain travelling and make everybody live over his own work that would be a conceivable plan, but let us do it at our leisure and with some forethought. For a generation and more it has been the policy of the Government of the country and of this House to encourage people to live somewhere else than near their own work, and to be carried out of London by railway, 'bus, or tram. Now we are suddenly reversing that policy under the stress of war. If it be under the stress of war we must submit to it, but you ought to try to reduce the other sorts of travelling before you reduce the poor man's travelling over a distance. He has necessarily to travel when he is fixed, as he is in the case of Southend. I would appeal to the President to give some fair consideration to the problem from the point of view of Southend.
    Mr. MALCOLM: I want to add one more to the very persuasive appeals made to the President of the Board of Trade. If I support with a certain amount of enthusiasm the reduction moved by the hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Rowlands) it is not at all because I disagree with the general policy of the President, whose administration, on the whole, I greatly admire, but because I feel that something ought to be done and some concession obtained from him in the matter of season tickets, and according to our time-honoured tradition in this House, the only way to obtain a concession is to move a reduction and support it by speech. We all listened very sympathetically to the statement of the present and prospective difficulties of the travelling and railway industry of this country which the President indicated in his speech. With regard to that speech I only wish to call attention to one matter connected with season tickets. My right hon. Friend stated that there has been an increase of 30 per cent. in the taking out of season tickets during the last twelve months, and he added that he thought that increase was largely due to two causes: first, the cheapness of the season ticket as compared with the ordinary ticket; and, secondly, the dislike of air raids which caused people to go to the country. I do not know whether there was present to his mind—he certainly did not mention it—another great cause of the increase in the

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    number of season tickets taken out. It is that within the last year we in London have come to the end of the number of people whom we can get to work in Government employ, and you have scoured the suburbs to get people to work in munition factories and other places, who have taken out season tickets in order to be able to do so. He did not mention the women workers who have taken season tickets out in thousands, many of whom—and this applies to men, too—come up to do voluntary work, day by day, with a regularity worthy of a paid worker. Nor did he mention those people who have come up from the suburbs to fill the gaps in trade and commerce left by men, and now by women, who have gone to the front. These are people who are living on fixed salaries and upon whom the increased rents, rates, and taxes really have a crushing effect, and if their journeys, undertaken really and truly, directly or indirectly, in the service of the State, are increased as well, I really think their finances will reach the breaking point very soon.
    This 10 per cent. is probably a greater increase to these people than the right hon. Gentleman realises, or shows the House that he realises. Judging by the very large correspondence I have had on the subject, that increase is a very serious item in the annual expenditure which they are put to. In my Constituency of Croydon, which has nearly 200,000 people, I am told some 10,000 travel up to London every day of their lives to engage in work of some kind or other, to carry on the work of the country and to earn their daily bread. They do not choose to travel. They have no option. They must either travel or starve, and they travel largely in order to do work of national importance, apart from munitions, and that kind of thing, and to do the work of the trade and commerce of London which it is essential should be carried on. The alternative is, of course, to move back to London with their children and so to congest an already overcrowded area and undo the healthy tendency which has been carried on now by Governments and municipalities alike for a long time of inducing the poorer classes to move out of London and secure better health for themselves and their families. I am very sorry that under these circumstances I cannot be a party to what I must consider an uneconomic and unwise policy, which, for
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    the sake of £1,000,000, is going to do three things of which I disapprove. It is going to increase the financial burden upon those least able to bear it; it is going, if the present scheme is successful, to restrict trade operations in London if people cannot afford to come and do the work; and, in the third place, it is going to risk the health of the rising generation if poor families are made to move back to London. For these reasons I urge the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider the matter. Whatever he may do to the richer classes, if there are any left now—they can, of course, easily afford to pay very much more than is put upon them by the season ticket tax — let him leave what are vulgarly called the daily-breaders alone, who have to come up and down every single day at a relatively great cost to-themselves, and try to make some different plan by which the burden they have to endure in consequence of the War may be made as easy for them to bear as possible.
    Mr. T. J. WILLIAMS: I consider this taxation on travelling as it affects Members of Parliament to be a great injustice. A large number of Members of this House-are solely dependent upon their salaries for their livelihood. They are elected to represent their constituents. Many of them live long distances from the House, and the extra tax will seriously interfere with the duties for which they have been sent here, and which are of national importance. We have been asked by Parliamentary Departments to go to our constituencies during week-ends, and we are told to keep more fully in touch with them for the purpose of bringing the War to a successful issue. Our work as Members of Parliament is of as great national importance as that of men employed in any industry. We are also under the obligation, so to speak, to run two homes, besides paying the increased cost of living, and I believe the salary was granted to them in order to support them in their livelihood, and the taxation of those who have to travel will really defeat the object with which that salary was granted. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will take into consideration the injustice which will be done to Members of the House and the effect it will have upon their duties to their constituents by this taxation.
    Mr. PETO: I want to deal with the question which the right hon. Gentleman left last in his speech, but which I certainly do not think he would put least in importance

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    namely, the interests of the Mercantile Marine. He gave us one more of the eulogies of the services of the men and officers who command the ships which we have had from almost every Government Department which touches upon it. I do not complain, and I do not wish to suggest that there is anything but the utmost sincerity in what he said. Last year, when I raised this question, I had quite a long list of things put forward by the Mercantile Marine, and a considerable number of the questions I raised then have been settled, I cannot say generously, but some of them fairly, and, to some extent, adequately. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out the risks they ran in carrying out their duties so as to enable us to live and to carry on the War, and he said that 12,500 of the men and officers of the Mercantile Marine up to last February had lost their lives, and £170,000 was paid as pensions. I have divided 12,500 into £170,000, and it comes out to only £13 12s. per annum, and that does not seem to me much of an average pension. Recently in the case of the men, and still more recently the officers, who are on the Admiralty pay list, in the event of losing their lives the pensions of their widows and dependants were levelled up to the Service rate. In my view there can be no distinction between men who are serving directly under the Admiralty and men who are not, either in respect of the risks they run or of the result to their widows and dependants if they lose their lives. I do not wish the Committee to accept what I say. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to note what was said by the late Parliamentary Secretary (Mr. G. Roberts) on 14th June:
    "I admit it is almost impossible under the present war conditions to differentiate as between combatant and non-combatant service. I agree with those who have urged the point that under prevailing conditions the men of the Mercantile Marine might reasonably be regarded as part of the combatant Services of the nation. My right hon. Friend has been in hearty accord with me in that regulation, and he has charged me to say that the whole question of the Mercantile Marine service and the questions of compensation shall be brought under review in a sympathetic spirit." — [OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th June, 1917, col. 1278, Vol. 94.]
    We want the right hon. Gentleman now, eleven months afterwards, to carry that out. There is no question about the sympathetic spirit, but we want a little practical result. We have during the interval been able to induce the Admiralty to take
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    the view that they must make no difference between men and officers of the Mercantile Marine and the men and officers of the Royal Navy so far as pensions are concerned, and I ask him now to increase these utterly inadequate pensions which are granted now through the War Risks Association to the dependants of the officers of the mercantile marine. I say officers particularly, because with the operations of the Workmen's Compensation Act the dependants of the men are very much better off relatively than the dependants of the officers. There has been constant correspondence ever since last year—indeed, it began before that— and in particular the correspondence has dealt with the question of the allowance in respect of the value of a man's board and lodging on board ship, which is taken at only 3s. a day. This gives only £18 added to the one-third of the pre-war rate of pay, which is the basis under the War Risks scheme of the widow's pension. The pay of the men has increased enormously since then, and the pay of the officers has gone up very largely indeed in nearly all the mercantile marine. The one-third works out in some cases as low as £20 a year, and the annual value of what is paid under the Workmen's Compensation Act is £15—a total of only £35 a year for the widow of a second officer. That is utterly inadequate. May I give the Committee two or three concrete examples of the rates of pensions. There is the case of the second officer of the "Gower Coast," ship missing, pension granted to the widow £20 3s. 7d. a year, pension for son £13. Second officer of the "Exford," ship torpedoed, pension for widow £26 13s. 4d. Captain of steamship "Postkerry," torpedoed; pension granted for widow £86, pension for one child £13. The chief officer of another missing ship, pension granted to widow £18 3s. per annum and the annuity on £300 under the Workmen's Compensation Act, £17 11s., making a total of only £35 a year; pension granted for two children, £23. In other cases I find the pension allowance for three children only £35. Will the Committee for a moment compare that with the scale of pensions granted to a lieutenant or sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy. His widow gets £100 per year allowance and £24 per year for each child, also a gratuity of one year's pay, which in the case of a lieutenant is £250. That is almost as much as would be the total awarded under the Workmen's Compensation Act

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    The Workmen's Compensation Act only operates in the case of officers whose income is less than £250 a year.
    The President told us that he had not had anything really definite put before him in the way of what we want. I will tell him at once what we want. We quite appreciate the fact that it would be very difficult to work upon the basis of the Service pension. He has his war risks scheme for paying his pensions, but there are two blots in it which could be altered by the most minute alteration. One is that no account is taken of the pay of the officer at the time of his death. They go back to February, 1914, and ask what the pay was then, and grant the pension on that. The pay has increased immensely since then, in consequence of the increase in the cost of living, and the widow has to live now, and not in February, 1914. What we want is that the pension should be based on the pay which the officer or man was receiving at the time he lost his life, and that the pension should be one-third of that. Under the right hon. Gentleman's scheme it is provided that the pension for a child is to be one twenty-fourth of the pay, with a minimum of £13. We want one twenty-fourth of the present pay with a minimum of £24, the same as in the Navy, and in the Army under the new Royal Warrant. The children of a captain or a lieutenant in the Army get £24 each as pension, and I cannot see the slightest justification for giving only £12, and in some cases it works out at only £6 10s. where there are several children, but never more than £13 in the case, to educate and maintain the child of the captain of a liner who has lost his life. I think this is quite definite enough, whether the right hon. Gentleman thinks so or not. In substantiation of that I would ask the President to look through the memorandum of Sir Norman Hill, the administrator of the London and Liverpool War Risks Association, a gentleman who has some authority to speak on this subject. He says:
    "It is clear that the dependants of the officers and engineers are placed by the death in a much worse position than the dependants of seamen and firemen. The widow receives a pension equal to £18 per annum in excess of one-third of her husband's actual peace rate of pay, and that is all. The additional £18 represents one-third of the husband's victualling allowance. The widow gets no benefit from the minimum. In the great majority of cases the wife had the benefit of the expenditure of very considerably more than one - third of the
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    husband's pay. The children's allowances are quite insufficient to provide for the cost of such education as the father would have provided."
    The gentleman who writes that has actually to administer these pensions under the war risks scheme, and therefore I ask the President to give Sir Norman Hill's opinion more weight than he would very likely attach to mine. He makes one further suggestion as to the giving of free insurance for £1,000 and paying the premium out of the War Risks Fund. Personally, I think my solution is very much better. I want to put a case which I mentioned last year as to the allowance to the wives and dependants of interned merchant officers at Rhuleben and other places. That has been levelled up from the old rate of £1 per week, which was a totally insufficient sum to maintain the wife and family of a man who was in receipt of a good salary but who had the misfortune to be interned. If the right hon. Gentleman will alter the inadequate scale of pensions in the case of the widows and dependants of those who lose their lives, I presume he will automatically level up the allowance to the wives and dependants of officers who are still interned at Ruhleben.
    There are still two or three other matters which are not of such importance as those I have mentioned, but which in themselves are of considerable importance. One is the question of the standard uniform. What has become of the Report of the Committee which was set up last year after our Debate on the Board of Trade Vote? The Report was actually signed on the 14th December, 1917, and a summary appeared in the "Times" on the 1st February, 1918. This Report has not yet been presented to Parliament.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Wardle): The hon. Member had a question down about that to-day, and I was prepared to answer it, but it was not put. The Report will be published immediately.
    Mr. PETO: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman, and will he, when he replies, tell us whether he is going to take action on the Report because this is the time of year when a very large number of officers in the merchant service are renewing their uniforms, and their guilds and associations are being almost pestered with requests to know whether a form of national uniform has been settled and what kind of uniform it is to be, so that they may know what they are to buy. The

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    next matter is one which is directly under the President's control. I refer to the question of the vessels which are owned by the railway companies and are now under the Railway Executive, employed in the transport of troops backwards and forwards across the different channels, not only the channel between Dover and Calais, but across the Irish Channel as well. As the result of a good deal of trouble and unrest the National Maritime Board was set up for fixing the rates of pay. That Board has fixed the rate of pay for officers of foreign-going and home-trade cargo vessels, and it has considered the rate for foreign-going and home-trade passenger vessels. The Railway Executive Committee, which acts under the President, have accepted the Maritime Board rates in the case of the men, but they have informed the Shipping Controller that they decline to recognise the Maritime Board rates in the case of officers, because they state that those officers get some special privileges. What are those privileges? A superannuation allowance to which the officers contribute, railway passes at a reduced rate, which cost the companies nothing, and a fortnight's holiday per annum without any pay. I do not consider that these privileges are equivalent to the rate of pay which they ought to get and which has been settled by the National Maritime Board. I will give an instance of the rate of pay they receive now. On two very large vessels the "Antrim" and the "Londonderry," 20-knot vessels, carrying about 1,000 troops, the chief officer gets £3 15s. a week, and the firemen and stokers and deck hands under the new rate are getting £12 a month, so that there is very little difference between the pay of a chief officer and a stoker or fireman. That cannot be left like that. I want the President to talk very straight to the Railway Executive and to tell them that the Shipping Controller can enforce the decision of the Maritime Board, where an ordinary shipowner is concerned, and he must enforce the decisions of the Maritime Board where the Railway Executive is the employer—that is really the State itself. I hope that there will be no further question about this matter for the officers working from Southampton and other Southern ports, and some of our Western ports, are extremely upset about this. Their legitimate rights ought to be granted to them at once. I think the present position is pressing the patriotism
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    of these men too far. The rates of pay for seamen and firemen have been screwed up very rapidly last year through pressure from the men's organisations, and because the officers do not exercise the same pressure, their interests are specially in charge of the President of the Board of Trade, particularly where it is a question of the Railway Executive being the employer.
    I should have liked to deal with one or two other questions if I have not been taking up too much time of the Committee, but I know many Members want to speak, and, therefore, I will only refer to another matter which relates to a question I put to the President of the Board of Trade. I asked him whether, when he was considering this question of pensions for the Mercantile Marine, he meant a permanent pension system or the present pension system for those killed in war. He said it was pensions in respect of those killed in war. In regard to the general pension scheme we have put forward a request which is perfectly definite. In March we had a meeting at the Navy League Office of the Imperial Merchant Service Guild, the National Seamen and Firemen's Union, the Seamen's National Insurance Society, the Mercantile Marine Service Association, the British Shipmasters and Officers' Protection Society of Sunderland, the Hull Seamen's Union, and the Marine Engineers' Association, and the representatives of all these bodies were quite unanimous in asking the President of the Board of Trade to appoint a Committee, presumably to be presided over by someone appointed by the Board of Trade, to go into a permanent national system of pensions for the officers and seamen of the Mercantile Marine. I cannot imagine anything which would be a better and more practicable demonstration that the country are prepared to do something in return for all they have received from the Mercantile Marine than to put this question of pensions once and for all on a sound and secure footing. At the present moment it is most unsatisfactory. In the recent. National Insurance Act it was just nibbled at. There was one Clause which set up a Committee to deal with one part of the pensions question.
    We have some contributions to pensions; there are a number of different sources, some of them charitable. The liner owners of Liverpool, Glasgow, and London have got a fund of £35,000 sub-

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    scribed during the War, from which grants are being made to eke out niggardly pensions. The Merchant Service Guild has a war fund of £20,000, which is also assisting in that direction; and at the same time the Fryatt Memorial Fund is constantly devoting small sums to aid in the education of the children of men who have lost their lives. But I do not think that any of these methods are satisfactory; they are quite inadequate. It ought not to be a question of charity at all, and a scheme could easily be worked out which could be a contributory scheme. All I am asking now is that the President should use his power to take simple executive action and summon representatives of the seamen's unions, the officers' guilds and associations, and of everybody concerned. Let them work out a scheme of pensions and present it to the President. If he will do that he will know, at any rate, what proposals can be put forward, and all I request now, and I make that request definitely, is that this Committee should be set up at once. Let it be an official Committee, so that it may carry weight with it. Such a Committee would satisfy all the different bodies concerned, and would give them an assurance that the interests of the men are to be looked into. Nothing would contribute more to what is, I think, one of the foundations of our national safety than an assurance that our ships shall be manned by British seamen and not so much by foreigners. This would be secured by a proper pension scheme. I therefore ask the President to seriously consider this matter.
    Mr. STEWART: I wish to say a few words in support of my hon. Friend's appeal. I should like to express to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade the very great interest with which I listened to his statement this afternoon. I promise him that I will give it close attention during the Whitsuntide Recess and consider the questions he has put forward. There was one omission from it which caused me to feel a little sorry. The right hon. Gentleman did not lay down any principles indicating how he is going to use our mercantile supremacy with regard to the enemy with whom we are now at war. I hope he will be firm in insisting that we shall not allow our enemy to have a single ton of shipping or of goods until our wants in this country and the wants of our Allies are satisfied, and I trust that he will use
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    his influence in supporting the "ton-for-ton" demand, so that the Germans may learn that they cannot commit these illegal sinkings of our ships with impunity, but will have to make good the losses we have suffered. I was most satisfied with the sympathetic references of the President to the mercantile service which has done such great deeds during the last four years, and which, as a result, occupies a very different position in the country to that which it previously held when it worked so quietly. We really did not then realise what a splendid gold mine of courage we had among our merchant sailors. It must be remembered that after the War there will be very many avenues of employment and so many attractions in other directions that it will be necessary to treat our seamen and those engaged in a seafaring life with more consideration than heretofore, in order to induce men to follow the sea as a calling.
    I would ask the President, on a little point I raised in a supplementary question to-day as to the giving of war decorations to the men who have been at sea during the last four years, whether they have been torpedoed or not. I quite admit that many who may not deserve the decoration will apply for it, but surely it will be possible to carefully scrutinise the list and see that only people who have done their work properly get the award. If you give it only to the man who has been torpedoed—and no doubt he will value it very much—you may be depriving of the award the man who, by skilful seamanship, has avoided being torpedoed and yet has run all the risks. Surely he is as worthy of consideration as the other man! Something has been said about the steamers run in connection with railways. I understand that the railway steamers now belong to the Government, and the railway companies are excused from the management of them. It is a rather odd thing that the poorest paid officers in the whole Mercantile Marine are those immediately under the control of the Board of Trade. These men have carried on this cross-Channel traffic with great courage, and are doing most responsible and dangerous work, yet they are the poorest paid officers in the whole merchant service! I hope the right hon. Gentleman will favourably consider their case. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes that a very substantial sum might be worked up from the war risks insurance, in order to create a pensions fund for the widows and

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    dependants of officers and seamen who have lost their lives. I quite understand that if application is made to the Treasury for pensions for these men the reply would be that, although the men are deserving it is impossible to get the Exchequer to consent. I understand there has been a large reduction recently in the War insurance premiums. Of course, we do not know the condition of that fund. At one time it had a very satisfactory credit balance, but as a result of the intense submarine campaign no doubt the fund has been much depleted; but I think it might be quite fair to put a little extra on the premiums in order to make provision for the widows of those who have sacrificed their lives, and I feel quite confident that the whole community would willingly bear that small additional burden. I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman a question with regard to the rationing of coal. Last year people were advised to fill up their cellars in the summer time. I want to know if they are advised to follow the same course this summer, because no one will care to do so and run the risk of being accused of being a coal hoarder, and in that respect held up to public reprobation. I hope we shall have a reply on that point. Again I would urge the right hon. Gentleman to give favourable consideration to this question of providing a reasonable fund out of the War Insurance Risks, which I think could be done quite easily.
    Mr. BUTCHER: I rise for the purpose of supporting, as strongly as I can, the unanswerable case which was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Peto.) I know we have got the sympathy of the Board of Trade, but that is not enough. We want the President to use his great power and influence in pursuing this matter to a conclusion which would bring some satisfaction and some legitimate justice to the men who are concerned. I need not enlarge on the services which these officers and men of the Mercantile Marine have rendered. Those services are in the mouth of everyone, and if you go to a public meeting I will undertake to say you will not elicit louder cheers on any subject than by a reference to the heroic conduct of the officers and men of the Mercantile Marine. These men, at the risk of their lives—and God knows enough of them have laid down their lives—have saved this country from starvation, and it would be an absolute scandal to the nation if we did not do all in our power to see that the wives and children of those who
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    have laid down their lives, and the dependants of those who are disabled meet with generous treatment at our hands. May I venture to suggest to the Board of Trade what I venture to think is the true line upon which this question can be solved. Treat these men as being what they are, in fact, during the War, combatants. They bear the dangers of the War just as much as many of our combatant soldiers and sailors. They have earned our gratitude just as thoroughly. Why, then, should they be put in an entirely different category as regards the safeguards for their wives and children should they lose their lives? May I beg the President of the Board of Trade to give his immediate attention to this matter? We people in the House of Commons are sometimes accused, at times with justice, perhaps, of being men rather of talk than of action. We go about the country eulogising the services of the men of the Mercantile Marine, thereby eliciting cheers from our audiences, and if when we come back to this House of Commons we fail to produce any result which is comparable to the services rendered, then we may justly be taunted with being men of words, mere idle words, and incapable of adequate action. Is it not in the power of the President of the Board of Trade to remedy this state of things? I ask him to do all he possibly can to put an end to this gross injustice.
    Mr. WARDLE: With reference to the question which has just been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Peto) and by the hon. and learned Member for York (Mr. Butcher), I should like to pay, first of all, in regard to the suggestion of the latter hon. Gentleman, that these officers and men should be treated as combatants, that it is not within the power of the Board of Trade to say whether they should be so treated, and that consequences might follow such a declaration which the hon. and learned Gentleman himself would not desire.
    Mr. BUTCHER: I am not desiring for a moment that they should have given them the status of combatants. What I want is that their remuneration should be somewhat on the same scale as that of combatants, especially in the matter of the provision for their wives and children.
    8.0 p.m.
    Mr. WARDLE: I certainly understood the hon. and learned Gentleman to say he desired they should receive the status of combatants; but if he means only after

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    they have made the great sacrifice, then, of course, that puts the matter on an entirely different level. I may say at once it is the intention of the Board of Trade not only to sympathetically consider the suggestions which have been put forward, but to give an immediate answer to the points that have been raised. Some of those points are new; some are not. There is no desire on the part of the Board of Trade that when men have lost their lives in the service of the country their widows or children should suffer from an inadequate pension; indeed, an inadequate pension is often worse than no pension at all. We will consider whether upon the present war risks scheme there can be built up a system which will give an adequate and sufficient pension to the widows and to the children who are left. It is somewhat complicate by the fact that it is mixed up with the Compensation Act, and that hag been one of the reasons why it has not been easy to come to a solution earlier. With regard to the other point raised by the hon. Member for Devizes, as to sanction on the Standard Uniform Report, I am sorry to say that Report is not quite an agreed one. There is a difference of opinion, and until the Board of Trade see how that Report is received, and what its effect is, it is impossible for them to come to a conclusion as regards what action should be taken. There will be no undue delay on our part, but it must rest to some extent. so far as we can see, upon an agreement being reached between the owners and the men's associations before we can actually come down to Parliament and say that this, that, or the other should be done in the matter. Coming back to the other question, the hon. Gentleman raised the wider issue of a permanent pension for seamen and officers. I think this is the first time that I have heard the suggestion that a Committee should be appointed to deal with this matter. The question presents enormous difficulties, particularly in a time of war, but I will undertake that the question of whether a Committee shall be set up to deal with this matter, and to consider it in all its aspects, will receive our consideration at the earliest possible moment, and that a reply will be sent within a very definite time to the hon. Gentleman. He raised one other matter, and that was the question of payment,
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    mainly I think to officers, on the railway-owned steamships, a question which was raised also by another hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. PETO: The reason I mentioned only officers is that the men get already the rates settled by the Maritime Board, and the officers do not
    Mr. WARDLE: I am aware of the fact, and that there was some trouble in the matter. That question, also, is being considered. As regards officers, the National Maritime Board has not yet fixed rates of pay for all classes, and the conditions of employment of the men employed on railway-owned steamships differs in some respects from those of officers who are employed on independently-owned boats. In these circumstances, it would not be practicable to adopt in every detail the exact demand which has been made in the other case. I may say that there will be no want of sympathy or action in trying to come to an arrangement to put them, as far as it is practicable, on the same level as those on the independently-owned steamers. There has been a difficulty, because the National Maritime Board came to a decision without the knowledge or without any consultation with the Railway Executive or those responsible for the management of these railway-owned steamships, and therefore there was a little friction at the outset. We hope we shall be able to get the whole of that out of the way in a short time and put this matter on as satisfactory a basis as the circumstances will allow.
    Mr. PETO: Can the hon. Gentleman assure me that the officers concerned will not lose by the perhaps necessary delay in coming to a decision, that when a decision is come to it will operate retrospectively, and that they will get the pay to which they have been entitled for a great many months?
    Mr. STEWART: Are not these steamers, Government steamers, under Government control?
    Mr. WARDLE: I think the hon. Gentleman presses that point rather too far. Technically, of course, it would be correct to say that they were Government steamers, but they are being managed and directed, just as the railways are, by an independent executive, which is responsible to the President of the Board of Trade.
    Mr. STEWART: I only ask the question because the railway authority whom I

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    approached said he had nothing to do with it, and told me to go to the Board of Trade.
    Mr. WARDLE: The hon. Member knows that it is often a convenient way to place the responsibility elsewhere. As a matter of fact, that is the position with regard to these railway-owned steamships, and we hope that in a very short time there will be a satisfactory settlement of the whole question and that the matter will be put upon a proper basis. I think these are all the points that have been raised except one, that regarding coal rations. With regard to that, I would only like to say that we hope no action will be taken by anyone in regard to any of the points raised until the scheme is prepared and made public. If it is felt by the Coal Controller immediately he is able to put the scheme before the public that they should at once fill their cellars the announcement of that fact will be made, but we hope that, until it is quite clearly seen how the scheme will act and what it is, people will hold their hands so that satisfactory arrangements may be made, and they may not say that they have been caught napping in any direction. With regard to one other question, that of lapsed policies, as the hon. Gentleman who raised it did not press the point, I do not propose to go into it in any detail except to say that the question is one that was with us before the War. It is a question which was very acute before the War, and while it is a fact that there are many lapsed policies, no policy can lapse in the ordinary way now without the consent of the Courts under the Courts Emergency Powers Act. There will, of course, be a problem when the War comes to an end as to what will "be the position with regard to these policies that have been held up during the War under this Courts Emergency Powers Act. The probabilities are that some sort of method will have to be proposed to deal with the question of insurance policies in addition to the Courts Emergency Powers Act.
    With regard to the cases of lapsed policies which are above £25, there have been a few cases of individual hardship which have been submitted to the Board of Trade, and I am quite sure that the Committee would not like to see any person who has taken out a policy with an insurance company suffer in consequence of the War, through not being in a position to pay the premium. I would, however,
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    warn the Committee that the effect of the Courts Emergency Powers Act undoubtedly was to cause some people who could have gone on paying their premiums not to do so, to take advantage of the Act when they were in a position to pay. There are two sides to this question of lapsed policies, and of the relations of the insurance companies to their clients. I cannot pretend for myself to say that I consider the position satisfactory. We are making further inquiries into the matter, and if we have to make some other proposals I hope the House will see that we make them only when we are convinced that there is a case for those proposals, and when that case has been fully and clearly proved. Most of the points of the Debate ranged round the question of the season ticket. I do not propose to go into that. I have my own view about it, but I am proposing to leave it to my right hon. Friend who will follow later on. He has already dealt with the subject at some length, and I propose to leave it to him. I could say very much on the subject, as, no doubt, many other hon. Members could. I could make my own reply to some of the points which have been made. Generally speaking, I think the case is clear that you cannot justify carrying season-ticket holders at a loss. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about workmen's-ticket holders carried at a loss?"] I am not entering into the question of workmen's tickets at the moment, but I do not think we are justified, especially in these days, in carrying season-ticket holders at a loss Except for saying that, I will leave the matter to my right hon. Friend.
    Mr. MACMASTER: I only wish to refer to two points, and very briefly at that. The first is with regard to the enormous waste of paper material which is going on in the country. From what I see under my own eyes from day to day there is an enormous wastage of paper, and it seems to me that if it were collected and repulped or retreated in a way that would make it useful a great national saving would be secured in that way.
    The other question is that of season tickets, and I believe the practical solution of the question should be made on national lines. The British people pay the cost of carrying on the War and the maintenance of the public services, and I believe they should have unquestionably the first choice

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    of any right and privilege of travel on the railways. It is a very great injustice to them if through the intrusion of aliens, they are deprived of that right. I believe that if we proceeded upon the line of British subjects first we should solve the question of this overflow of aliens into the country. The Board of Trade are confronted by a serious problem in that the season-ticket holder is carried at a loss. If that is so, and as a season-ticket holder myself, I am under the impression that it must be so—it is something which should be corrected in the interests of the public revenue. How is it to be corrected? Certainly the Minister has made some concession, because while he recognises that tickets that were issued before January, 1917, are a fair subject for renewal, yet those who have come forward or held tickets since then are subject to a very much closer scrutiny. There is a disposition in that respect to improve, but perhaps it is not quite all that is required. In the scaling of rates it does seem to me that a proper average has not been arrived at. Very great inducements were in the past placed before workmen to go further a field in the country for the purposes of health and the relief of congestion in the large cities. When you tell those who live in the busy hives of industry that there is a restriction on going beyond 12 miles, you detract so much from the original proposition that it was to their advantage to go further a field.
    Then it must be remembered that a discrimination of 10 per cent. as against those who go beyond the 12-mile limit— because the rate against them is to be raised to 20 per cent.—operates as a grave disadvantage, because they are the people who pay the largest sums for their conveyance. I do not think that the line can be drawn there. If there is to be an increase in regard to season tickets it should be a uniform increase, and not 10 per cent. here and 20 per cent. there, and that would apply to their ability to pay, because it must be assumed that work- men who only go 12 miles out go that far because it is cheaper to get that far, while richer men go farther out because they can afford to pay for it. Therefore the real solution of the difficulty is a uniform rate, no matter how far you go out. Only on these lines can we arrive at something that is perfectly fair. Besides, that is a perfectly defensible
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    thing to put before the public whether a man be rich or poor. Now it is said that these proposals are made in order to curtail the enormous extent of travelling and leave larger facilities for the transport of soldiers, sailors, and munitions of war. If that is so, might we not find means of diminishing travel otherwise than by these discriminations?
    I grant that if the rate is not a paying rate it should be increased, but increased proportionately. If we are legitimately to diminish travel, I will put this to the right hon. Gentleman: He has lived a long time in the United States. He knows railway travel there and the conditions that prevail in Canada. In the United States and Canada they issue what is called a commutation ticket. You go to a railway office and you buy thirty, say, journeys. If they are for 12 miles they cost so much, or for 20 miles they cost so much, and so on. Then every time the purchaser travels up or down the line he carries a little slip of tickets in his pocket, each ticket being about the size of a postage stamp, and he hands one of these to the conductor, as they call the guard. That pays his passage for that journey. The inducement under that system is not to travel every day of the week, as is the case under our season-ticket system. I have no objection to our season tickets as a user of them. They are most useful, and afford great facilities for travelling in every respect, but from the point of view of the interests of the country the commutation ticket would be far more advantageous, and it would be perfectly fair to the ticket holder, because every time he travelled he would give up a ticket, and the incentive to him would be not to travel but to conserve the balance of his tickets, and the less he travels the less he burdens the railway company, and the greater the facilities for the legitimate transport of passengers and goods. I am not speaking in a hostile attitude to the right hon. Gentleman. I have nothing but praise for his admirable speech, and the very lucid manner of its delivery, not merely with regard to this subject but with regard to other subjects, which he discussed in a way in which I have never heard them discussed in this House before. I am merely trying to find a reasonable solution of the difficulty in which he is placed, and in making my suggestions I do not wish that they should operate to the disadvantage of public

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    revenue or to the advantage of the ticket holder, but that they should be fairly conformable with public service and personal utility.
    Sir J. BETHELL: I listened with pleasure to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. I think that hon. Members were surprised to hear that railways were at present running at a loss. I was under the impression, having regard to the heavy traffic and the increased charges, that our railways were making a profit. The House is in the dark as to the financial position of the railway system. I should have liked to see a statement showing the income and expenditure for last year, and the losses incurred. Probably the President in his reply will give us some figures with regard to loss. I would also like to know if he can give an estimate as to the amount which will be derived from the new proposals in their present form. I observe from the statement made in the House last Wednesday that he proposed to increase the price of season tickets by 10 per cent. in the case of tickets covering a distance of 12 miles. He takes the centre as Charing Cross. I would appeal to the President to take the terminal stations instead of Charing Cross, and measure from those points. I would also suggest that London extends at least in two directions for more than 12 miles. For instance, to Romford it is practically all London. If you go on a motor 'bus from any part of the City you will find houses all the way down the main road. Then to the north, west, and south, London extends considerably beyond 12 miles from Charing Cross. I would appeal to the President to amend the proposal, and to make the increase apply to within 20 miles of Charing Cross. I feel quite certain that if he adopted that suggestion it would receive the support of the House. I appreciate the fact that railways cannot be run at a loss. People who use railways must pay for them, but I think a very heavy burden is thrown upon the suburban travellers. They do not come to London on pleasure, or for joy-rides, by any means, and residents in my Constituency have to return from London at a late hour of the night, and what do they get for their money? They frequently cannot find standing accommodation, and yet they are to pay an extra charge. I trust that the President of the Board of Trade will adopt my suggestion, and fix the increase
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    of 10 per cent. on season tickets for a distance within a radius of 20 miles from Charing Cross.
    Mr. TOOTILL: I want to join in the chorus of appreciation of the great, and, I think, extremely lucid and explicit statement which was made by the President of the Board of Trade to-day. I felt very deeply interested in some matters that he dealt with, especially in that of cotton. He referred to the cotton situation, and he paid, I think, a well-deserved commendation to the cotton workers and cotton employers in Lancashire for the way in which they have accepted the burdens and responsibilities of this War. It reminded me of the old saying, "What Lancashire says to-day England says tomorrow." Lancashire during this War, especially in the cotton trade, has taken a step which, I think, should be a model to the rest of the employers of the country. I refer to this matter, although the President of the Board of Trade is quite well aware of it, because it has reference to a system which, if it were adopted in the industries of the country generally, I am sure would save this country from a great many trade difficulties and disputes that have arisen in the past. The Lancashire Members of Parliament have now established a system by which they are in the habit of meeting collectively and regularly with the joint bodies of employers and employed in the cotton industry. They exchange opinions on the various situations that have arisen in consequence of the War, and they are able to adjust their differences in a friendly way. I am glad that the President of the Board of Trade has himself encouraged and fostered this system to such an extent that I am sure I am speaking the mind of those two bodies when I say that he has certainly won their confidence, and has gained very considerably in their estimation. I wish especially to emphasise the fact that the cotton industry has had its raw material reduced practically to one-half its pre-war amount, and the establishment of a board of control for the purpose of seeing to equitable distribution and for other matters, brought about by the fact of this limitation of supply of raw material, and yet, notwithstanding all these circumstances, this system has worked so satisfactorily that they have been able to bear even a larger diminution of supplies of raw material.

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    The President of the Board of Trade referred to the dye trade. I am not particularly or specially interested in that industry except to this extent, that I think it is the duty of every Department of the State to have a long post-war vision with regard to coming trade dislocations and difficulties that will present themselves when this War is ended. The President in his statement referred to the fact that it was proposed that his Department should make Grants for research work in that particular industry. I want to ask him whether, if in any other industry assistance of that kind becomes urgently required, we may expect from him that he will give it his most favourable consideration? I was very glad indeed that he went so far in that direction, for it must be admitted that we have suffered under the war conditions which have arisen. We were not prepared, either industrially or nationally, for this great conflict. Our equipment was more or Jess chaotic, but now that we see what has happened, now that we understand the real needs and requirements of our different trades and industries, I think we may safely say that, with the President of the Board of Trade occupying his present position, anything in the direction of assisting industry will receive his most careful and his most munificent attention.
    There is one other point to which I wish to refer. There is an impression that we Members of Parliament—I do not know-how or where that impression has arisen— are given certain facilities for travelling. Members of Parliament are compelled to travel week in and week out to their respective constituencies and back to their duties in this House, and there is an impression that all Members of Parliament are provided with free passes for travelling on the railways. I do not know what is the experience of other Members of Parliament, but I know that I have got to pay for my season ticket, and I suppose it is not in accordance with the tenets of this House that any Member should speak on behalf of anything in which he is directly and personally interested, and therefore I do not say a single word about season tickets. I will gladly pay the 20 per cent. extra if that means bearing a further share in our War burdens. As one who has had some experience among working men, having lived among them and understanding their life, I say that if they are told the whole truth and nothing
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    but the truth in connection with any situation that arises in this War, they are prepared to shoulder manfully and patriotically their share of the national burdens. Anybody—and I say this with all seriousness—who advocates the withholding their best energies and strength for the purpose of winning the War, is guilty of an act which, in my judgment, does not contribute to what should be their highest aim, the welfare of the country. Why do I say that? Because I realise as one of their representatives that the whole fabric of trade union liberty and privileges is at stake in this War. It means that unless we win we as workers will be placed under the domination and under the military despotism that has ruined the democracy of Germany for so many years past. I want to close by saying that I entirely sympathise with and appreciate the excellent statement made by the President of the Board of Trade this afternoon.
    Mr. HASLAM: The subject I desire to bring before the Committee is one, I consider, of enormous national importance; it is the necessity of placing our system of transport and of delivery of goods on the best possible basis. There is no doubt that in the past these questions have been greatly neglected, not only by Departments, but also by Governments, and in making these statements I do not mean to cast any reflection upon the President of the Board of Trade, but to make them in a general way with the one hope of helping forward this movement in which I take a very strong interest. My attention was called to this subject by a resolution passed by the Newport Chamber of Commerce after having heard a lecture from Mr. A. W. Gattie, the inventor of the Clearing House goods system. I was asked if I would visit the works and see the installation. I did, of course, as they desired, and when I visited the works I was greatly impressed with what I saw. I then asked several other Members if they would visit the works, which they did, and this led me and other Members to consider the whole question of the transport and the delivery of goods.
    I ought to say here that the Commercial Committee is not in any way pledged in the slightest degree to Mr. Gattie's invention, but we agree that it is a magnificent conception, and that if it is practicable— I believe it to be practicable myself, though, not being an engineer, I have to take my views from engineers—it would mean an enormous saving to the railway

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    companies and be beneficial to the whole of the community. Subsequently a Subcommittee, of the Commercial Committee was formed and they drew up a Report which was carefully gone through line by line and afterwards placed before the whole Committee and passed unanimously by them. The conclusion they came to, after full consideration of the matter, was that this question of transport and distribution and delivery of goods was one which required the most careful and expert inquiry. The hon. Member for the Edgbaston Division of Birmingham and myself were subsequently asked by the Committee to seek an interview with the President of the Board of Trade, and this took place two days ago. The right hon. Gentleman informed us that he had appointed ten or twelve Committees to consider each aspect of the subject, such as railways, canals, docks, and so forth. These are, of course, Departmental Committees. We pointed out to the right hon. Gentleman that the view of the Committee was that in addition to the Departmental Committees there ought to be an independent Select Committee to consider the whole question of transport reform, and that before this body witnesses from all sources might appear, engineers from the Board of Trade, managers of railways, and experts from other quarters, from which valuable information could be obtained.
    With regard to this particular proposal of the goods clearing-house, and to show that it is supported very largely by eminent engineers, I might merely quote a few names here of the gentlemen who have reported in its favour. Most of the Members of this House will, I am sure, be quite aware of the eminence of the gentlemen whose names I am going to quote. They are Mr. James Swinburne, F.R.S.. past-President of the Society of Electrical Engineers; Sir John Purser Griffith, M.I.C.E.; the late Sir William Preece. F.R.S.; Mr. A. E. Collins, M.I.C.E.; and the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire, who is also an engineer. I have since received a Report from the Member for Finsbury East, an engineer who has seen the works and who has asked to be put on the Sub-committee which is considering this question. The right hon. Gentleman has shown great interest in this invention of a goods clearing-house, and informed us that he intended to set up a trial experiment, but he said that the machinery on view was
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    not of sufficient magnitude for him to give a definite opinion as to its practicability on a large scale. With regard to that I may quote some words of Dr. HeleShaw, the eminent engineer:
    "I have followed the development of this system for several years and have no hesitation in saying that it will fulfil all that is claimed for it. The actual appliance set up by Mr. Gattie at Battersea is not a mere working model, it is a full-sized going concern."
    Let me say here that I think it weighed about 2 tons. He goes on:
    "No hitch or flaw has been found in the machinery, and it can be reduplicated to any extent. There is no engineering difficulty in the installation of the goods clearing-house system. Just as one successful telephone can be reduplicated into a vast system, so can the-machinery for the goods clearing-house system be multiplied to any extent."
    When we have engineers reporting in favour of a scheme in a manner like that, then surely it is a subject which does de serve the closest possible inquiry, and, not only that, but such a practical trial of it as the right hon. Gentleman has promised under the auspices of the Board of Trade. I will say here that we as a Committee do not support this particular scheme—we only say this is the best system which has been placed before the public on this question. For instance, it is not a question of having one clearing house for London, or two or three or four, or where it or they shall be placed. Those are questions which should be settled by engineers after full consideration, and who will come to such conclusions as they think best. This is, as I say, entirely an engineer's question. With that I am quite sure my hon. Friend will agree.
    The real trouble to-day is this: So far as locomotion is concerned, I do not suppose there is any country in the world that is in a better position than we are. Our trains run on the best laid metals in the world, and I believe our service, on the whole, is best organised and best worked. But when we come to the second dimension—breadth—we find a waste of thousands of acres of valuable land for sidings in London and elsewhere. In London alone there are seventy clearing houses, occupying most valuable land. Then you come to the third dimension— depth or height—by which goods brought by the trains to the clearing houses can be taken up by adjustable machinery, and the various packages sent in what are called containers to any part of the building that is required—in point of fact, a

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    clearing house just as we have in the case of a Post Office or a bank. This mechanical machinery cannot possibly be used when you have to undertake the system of shunting, which means taking trains long distances before any wagons can be moved from one line to another. We all know that any new invention is almost always opposed. I remember very well the case of the Dunlop pneumatic tyre. I have been told that the inventor of those tyres could not get anyone to take them up at all. I have always been interested in novelties, and when I first saw a bicycle with these tyres coming along on a rough road, I said that was the way to make rough roads smooth. I am told that that invention was offered to various manufacturers for £500, and it was a long time before anyone took it up, and the man who eventually took it up, and became the manufacturer of these tyres, is now a millionaire, I believe, several times over.
    I would like to say a few words on another portion of the subject. Canals have been neglected, I do not say completely neglected, but to an extent which is intolerable, in my opinion. They are capable of very great improvement, especially with regard to getting goods cleared from the street and in the rapidity of delivery. France has spent £55,000,000 between the years 1830 and 1900; Belgium, £16,000,000 between 1888 and 1905; and Prussia, £26,000,000. The increase in the waterway traffic in France was 73 per cent. between 1885 and 1905; in Belgium, 114 per cent.; and in Germany, 274 per cent. You might say that that meant probably a decrease in the railway traffic. On the contrary, during those same years, in France it increased 84 per cent.; in Belgium, 61 per cent.; and in Germany, 194 per cent.; and when I quote Germany I do so because I want the Committee to realise how thorough the Germans have been with regard to their canals. Their canals are excellently constructed, and they can carry heavy barges. Our canals have had nothing done, practically, to them for the last sixty years. Since the question of transport was taken up by the Commercial Committee I have received a large number of letters and also a considerable number of elaborate plans by which the docks, railways, and so forth, can be improved in various ways.
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    I have no doubt the President of the Board of Trade has also received a great many communications of that nature.
    This correspondence shows that there is an immense amount of latent interest in the country, and if there were a Select Committee it would draw information from all quarters, but especially from the Board of Trade. Then, I believe, we should have something done which would be of enormous future benefit to the country, and especially do I lay stress on this at the present time, because, in the near future, during the time of reconstruction, it is most necessary to find work for the men coming from the front. Let us place as much labour as we can on the class of work which will be really remunerative—that is to say, not only useful in itself, but which will also be the means of increasing afterwards the wealth of the country. I am convinced that if we had the best possible means of transport and of goods delivery, if we could by some means or other lower the rates for building materials, and so forth, we should give an impetus to private enterprise throughout the country, and develop the resources of the country, in a measure we can hardly imagine. I am not quite sure whether it would not be wise, after the War, deliberately to lower the rates for goods, especially for building materials, and to subsidise the railway companies, in order to carry that out, because I believe if goods can be carried freely from one place to another, building can be carried out without the need of State aid, which is apt to lead to uneconomic propositions.
    Lastly, I would call attention to the congestion of traffic in London. Something must be done. There is not the slightest doubt that we could so carry on the transport of goods through the streets that the congestion of London would be relieved, at any rate, by about a half, and it is vastly important at the present time, because the population of London, I believe, has doubled in the last fifty or sixty years, and in the next fifty years London's population may be fourteen millions or fifteen millions. Therefore, hon. Members will see how essential it is that this subject should be grappled, gripped, and dealt with in the most drastic manner at the earliest possible moment.
    Mr. WILSON-FOX: I rise to associate myself with the request that my hon. Friend has made to the President of the

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    Board of Trade to move to appoint a Select Committee of this House to inquire into the questions concerned with the transport of goods in all forms in this country. At this stage of the Debate, when the fare which has been provided for the consumption of the Committee has been so varied and so tempting, my hon. Friend who has just sat down, and I, are in a somewhat disadvantageous position in drawing the attention of the Committee to a topic of this magnitude and of this vital importance. Nevertheless, we feel that no time should be lost in securing consideration and action in a matter of such vital importance. At this stage I should like to impress on the hon. Gentleman who at this moment represents the Board of Trade that, so far as I am concerned, and so far as many others are concerned, we do not wish this subject to be considered by any means solely, or mainly, from the point of view of consideration and inquiry into the most ingenious invention which has been proposed by Mr. Gattie. That is merely one part of this large question. An inquiry into the whole system of transport would naturally embrace an inquiry into that and all other suggestions and proposals which prima facie would be advantageous to the transportation facilities of this country. The request which we are making—I say this at this stage of my remarks—would not, I think, be met by saying either that this had been looked into Departmentally, and it was not a promising subject, or that this is not the time to look into inventions of this kind. I want to place my request on a far wider ground than the mere consideration of this single invention. It is obvious to all of us that something has to be done to improve the transportation facilities of this country. On all hands we see waste and inefficiency as a result of our present system. The War has, perhaps, lessened its inconveniences and made them less obvious at the moment, partly because of the establishment of the centralised control—to which reference was made by the President—partly because there has been more concentration of effort in connection with deliveries, and partly because here, in London, we are at the present time spared that appalling state of the streets due to congestion of traffic from which we suffered so gravely in the years preceding the War.
    I want the Committee to consider, just very briefly, the various branches of traffic. We must remember that our traffic at the present time—that is, the movement
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    of goods from one destination to another —is effected by railways, canals, by road transport, by harbours, and—though this is, I think, foreign to the suggested inquiry—I might add, coastal shipping. It has been shown to us by the President of the Board of Trade how greatly the traffic on the railways is, necessarily, dependent upon the extent to which traffic is carried by our coastal ships. I do not suggest that the inquiry which should be made into these matters should include any inquiry into what are really shipping matters, though I think an inquiry into the equipment and state of the organisation and management of our ports would readily fall within the limits of such inquiry.
    9.0 P.M.
    Not only does the transport of our goods fall under three separate Departments, but we have to remember that each branch of these modes of transport is operated by a whole series of independent agencies. Some of these, we all know, are very efficient indeed within their respective spheres. The tribute which was paid to them by the President for their efficiency, that is the efficiency of our great railways, was, I have no doubt, richly deserved in the majority of cases. There are, however, other branches of these systems of which one cannot say the same. The point is that if we look upon them as a whole— look upon them as what they really are—a combined agency for moving weights from one point to another, it is not too much to say—what we all know—that they are scandalously inefficient for the purpose. We also know that this state of affairs is undoubtedly accompanied by waste on a prodigious scale. We see it in every possible direction. There is waste of labour, of effort, of life, capital, and time; and, as my hon. Friend has just said, a great waste of most valuable space in the cities, and elsewhere. We see all these forms of waste going on simultaneously. We must all agree, I think, that if we can possibly prevent it it ought not to be allowed to go on. Take these agencies in turn. I need not refer to them in any detail, because the remarks of the hon. Member who has just sat down very largely covered the ground. But we see that our railways as a whole, as is only natural considering their method of origin, have been laid out without any common plan whatsoever. Facilities are wholly absent in some cases, imperfect in others, duplicated or triplicated in others. From time to time proposals have been made for common plans of action by agreement

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    between the various railway companies. The public, in their ignorance, more often than not have opposed what would in all probability have resulted in their great benefit, because we have in this country made a fetish of competition. We have fallen down and worshipped it, and have not looked at where it is leading us. It has been asserted—it is asserted by Mr. Gattie and others —I have no means of knowing what is the truth of it—that 80 per cent of the rolling stock of this country, if that stock were properly handled, is needless. If really a saving of 80 per cent. of the rolling stock of this country could be effected by any means I think everyone must see that that saving would be enormous. At any rate, any such assertion made by a responsible engineer, and backed by other engineers of standing, certainly merits the closest scrutiny and inquiry, whether Mr. Gattie's plan for dealing with the situation which results from this great waste of plant is or is not correct. Because it is wonderful when inquiries are once set on foot how suggestions come to us. Though Mr. Gattie's plan may not be the right plan—there may be possible modifications suggested or wholly different plans—the point is to set up an inquiry which will be competent, fair, and impartial, one to which everyone who has anything to bring in the shape of suggestions may come and feel certain that he will, at any rate, get a fair hearing. My hon. Friend has also referred to the condition of our canals. I need not go into that matter. We must from time to time, when on boating or pleasure parties, have seen our canals lying idle, so representing a waste of capital in canals. At this moment we could have wished they had been at work. For one reason or another, however, competition has resulted very much in the destruction of one of our great national assets. There is not the slightest question that our system of canals require to be modernised and brought up to date; not run in competition with the railways, but as supplementing them, and as providing facilities for the transportation of certain classes of goods with efficiency in cases where they cannot be carried with equal facility and efficiency by the railways or other agencies.
    Take the question of our road transport. Here again what do we see?—a complete want of system. There has been no attempt to bring together the various
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    agencies which are employed in this work, and this is costing the community hundreds of millions per annum. More-system, better supervision, and central control would probably make the whole of the difference and save very large sums indeed. The temporary respite of congestion we are now experiencing should bring home what can be done in this respect, and I hope none of us will be content to return to a London as we knew it before the War. I refer only to the direct and the very heavy loss which is being occasioned by this want of system to those of the community who have to send goods from point to point, but beyond that there is enormous indirect loss being occasioned to every citizen. It is represented in the prices paid for goods, and, above all, it is represented in the loss of time, which is the most valuable asset which any human being possesses. There are minor things which represent large sums in the aggregate, such as breakages, losses, and unnecessary insurance, which total up to a. very large bill, and we cannot afford to have this unnecessary waste.
    Then there are the harbours. A great waste is going on in regard to ships which are being detained, and the cost in demurrage is very considerable. In many cases a shipowner, who is willing to pay the unnecessarily high charges in a particular port, has to send his ship out again because there is no chance of the cargo being discharged, and that has been going on for want of proper facilities for unloading, and from this cause many ships have gone to the bottom which might have been saved. It is necessary to marshal all these things for the consideration of the Committee, because we who are bringing these matters forward in a most serious spirit are bound to prove our case as strongly as we can. The fact is that what has happened really has been that in this country the demand for a well-equipped and well-organised system of transport and distribution of goods has absolutely outgrown the limits of our present facilities, and has gone entirely beyond the possibilities of efficient and desirable individual enterprise. It is impossible to continue under our present patchwork system, and the whole business needs thorough overhauling. Railways, canals, and road transport are the principal matters, and I should be content if the inquiry extended only to these matters, although I think it would be much better to have an inquiry covering the whole field, and I ask that it should extend also

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    as far as the harbours. At the present time we are employing a number of independent instruments, some of them very highly efficient, but we are using them in a manner which is bound to give most unsatisfactory results. Some of the faults are due to weak links in the system, but many of them are due to the absence of links. Others are due to imperfect connections, others to a want of grip and realisation of the problem with which we are Concerned.
    What is needed to be done? There is no mystery about the transport problem. It is simply that of moving weights from one part of the United Kingdom to another, and we want to do it in the simplest and cheapest manner, and in the shortest time compatible with the realisation of the first two conditions. Anyone with common sense can understand the elements of the problem. When we are told to leave these matters entirely to experts, that is not an argument which convinces me. I do not pretend myself to any expert knowledge of these questions, nor have I had wide experience of the transport problem in this country, but I have been concerned with the original construction and with the management of 2,000 miles of railways in the wide spaces of Africa, and I have had considerable experience of road transport under conditions of very great difficulty when, as Director-General of Transport and Supply during a war in which Imperial troops were engaged, I had to feed and supply a whole country by means of ox and mule wagons working over hundreds of miles and often traversing swamps or sandy wastes. Therefore I have had some opportunity of thinking over the elements of the transport problem, and on account of the experience I have been through I do take, perhaps, a more than ordinary interest in these problems.
    The fact is that we must realise that our present system, or want of system, has certainly broken down. I think I may say that that has already been admitted. It is not necessary to blame anyone. I do not blame the highly efficient managers of our railways, the engineers, or the business managers of the railway companies, because each has been working on a very small portion of the problem, and what they have had to do they have done well; but it has hitherto been no one's business to survey the whole field and supply the necessary links, and think the problem out on a grand scale. The horizon of all
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    concerned has been limited. They have all worked in watertight compartments, and they have been discouraged from doing anything further. It has become so important that we must do something now, and the action which was taken by the Government to which the President of the Board of Trade referred to-day is conclusive evidence, if further evidence were needed, of what is to-day required, because if the Government had not at the outbreak of the War immediately altered the system then in force there would have been a complete breakdown. What was done? The President of the Board of Trade has referred to the appointment of the Railway Executive Committees—one in this country and the other in Ireland. He also referred to the Canal Control Committee, but he had to do more. The Government had to appoint a Road Transport Board, a. Port and Transport Executive Committee, and a Shipping Transport Controller. An independent control had to be established over each of the five branches of our transport system, but so far as I am aware no action has yet been taken to weld those five branches into a united whole.
    While I endorse what fell from my right hon. Friend in regard to the conditions to be secured and which have been secured from the unification of control of our railway system and our canal system, we have got to go further, and see whether we can bring about conditions for a still greater unification of control of all the agencies engaged in the transportation and distribution of goods. If everything had been efficient before the War, it is quite clear that these Control Boards would never have had to be appointed. What is needed to be done at the present time is less obvious than the fact that something has to be done, and I hope it will be the aim of this Committee and the House to see that the-consideration of these matters should not be left to Departmental Committees, and to experts working behind the scenes who will some day come forward and say, "This is our scheme; you have to take it." These are matters which are within the comprehension of, and in my judgment should be studied by, every Member of this House, because there is no subject of more importance in relation to our everyday life.
    Before appropriate action can be taken it is quite clear that those who are going to be asked to take that action are entitled to-

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    understand the elements of the problem and that inquiry must precede action. We want to ascertain to what extent and in what directions our present system is imperfect and to find out what suggestions can be made for improvement, making use, so far as is practicable, of all existing agencies, both in respect of organisation and plant. We have to look at the problem as a whole and review it as a whole: above all, with open minds and, I am inclined to add, with fresh minds. I use that expression "with fresh minds" advisedly, because we do not want to break open a series of watertight compartments and turn officials out into the day-light and expect from them fresh suggestions and fresh points of view. If we do we shall be woefully disappointed, as we have been many times in the past. The matter must be reviewed by people who will look at it from a business point of view, with clear minds and, above all, without any prejudice. I feel sure if that is done that the results will be extremely good. We must be receptive of new ideas and new points of view. We certainly do not want any mere whitewashing committee with people saying that everything is best in the best of all possible worlds when we know that it is nothing of the sort. That is the reason that I, personally, should strongly deprecate the consideration of this matter being left to a Departmental Committee, and by a Departmental Committee I mean a committee that is mainly composed of permanent officials of our Civil Service. They are competent, highly competent, in many directions, but they are not, in my judgment, the appropriate instrument for an inquiry of this character. In a way, these matters are being studied, and closely studied, by people at the Board of Trade and people connected with them at this moment. People who have studied the question in that manner will be most valuable witnesses, but it should not be left to them to form the conclusions and report to this House. We want to use far heavier artillery.
    The experience which this House has lately had of Select Committees of its own shows that they are bodies which, in matters of this character, are very efficient indeed for the purpose in view. Not only are they efficient, but it is very valuable indeed that a large number of the Members of this House, fifteen or perhaps twenty, should be encouraged to
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    educate themselves in these matters, and that through them the knowledge should percolate to other Members of the House and diffuse the House with a new atmosphere. That is a highly important function which a committee of this character would fill. A Select Committee of this House is in far closer touch with our life and with our thought than any Royal Commission or Departmental Committee can be, and I press it strongly upon the consideration of the President of the Board of Trade from that point of view alone. I feel sure that a Select Committee will not only satisfy the House, but will satisfy the country in a way that no other body will do, and it is in the interests both of the Board of Trade, of the transport system, and of the country generally, that the right hon. Gentleman should accede to the request which has been made to him in such a forcible manner by my hon. Friend. It has been suggested that this is not the moment to hold such an inquiry. That is a view which I personally most strongly deprecate. I have had some experience lately in the work of the Select Committee on National Expenditure, and I do not think that any Department can fairly charge, or would charge, that Committee with having impeded its working or with having taken up the time of its officials unnecessarily at a moment when it was necessary that they should be doing work of national importance elsewhere. I have never heard that charge levelled against that Committee or any other Select Committee of this House, and I feel sure if a Select Committee of this House were appointed to go into this transport question that no such charge could be made. Therefore we may dismiss the point that witnesses have not time to give evidence. The time when we shall not want an inquiry will be in the two or three years after the War, when, if our minds are not made up as to what we want to do, we shall have to wait several years before we do anything at all.
    I want to make it quite clear—I hope that my hon. Friend representing the Board of Trade (Mr. Wardle) will pay particular attention to this point—what it is exactly that we want this Committee to do. We wish to ascertain as far as we can all relevant facts relating to our transport system with a view to ascertaining what are its difficulties, the causes of them, and the directions in which relief may be sought. All facts and figures

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    bearing upon these matters will be of great value, and I have no doubt that such a Committee will be able to present them to the House in a clear and succinct form. Thus we shall want, for instance, such things as statistics as to traffic so far as they are available and as to the receipts and expenditure of the various transport and distributing agencies, giving the cost of their equipment, and, in the case of running plant, accurate information as to its mobility. That is a very important point. It may well be left to the discretion of the Select Committee as to what they will ask for. On the other hand, while I wish the Committee to have an opportunity of obtaining all information with regard to facts and of making up its mind as to the type of organisation and the unification that may be needed, I do not myself think, although I have strong views on the subject, that the time has arrived to consider and to decide as to the final organisation of our transport system, nor as to the part to be played in it by the State. These are matters I am well aware which are likely to give rise to many controversial questions, and I do not think there is the slightest necessity to go into them now. Such a Committee as I have suggested could occupy its time quite worthily in finding out the disease and suggesting remedies without occupying itself with the final form in which our transport system shall be organised, directed, and financed. The results of the inquiry will afford the most valuable data for such a decision as will have to be taken when the time arrives.
    I do not think it is possible from any point of view to exaggerate the value of such an inquiry being carried out in the manner that I have suggested. After the War we shall want to marshal and make the best use of every resource and every facility and of all the plant and the equipment that we have got. We shall not want to waste energy. We certainly shall want to refrain from continuing to employ valuable labour in doing work which his not wanted at all. That I fancy is the position with much of the railway labour at the present time. We certainly do not want to employ labour in doing work which can be more efficiently and cheaply done by mechanical means, and with that desire I gather, from the speech of my right hon. Friend, that he is entirely in sympathy. I have said before that all classes of the community are vitally in-
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    terested in this question, and it is commonly said that after the War the only way in which we can find financial salvation is to increase production. I think that statement is incomplete. There is one other way by which we can supplement increased production, and that is by the saving of waste. That is another way, and in the early years succeeding the War I think, on balance, the benefit to the community from the saving of waste is likely to be greater than the benefit from increased production, because if you save waste you preserve wealth already in existence, whereas new production takes time to organise and to bring into being. There can be no question that in the fields of transport and of power supply, for instance, there are many possibilities for saving, if attention is given to the prevention of waste.
    The sums in question are so large that anything that may be derived by the State, if such a thing were done, by the imposition of tariffs, for instance, would be absolutely insignificant compared with the sums which would accrue to the people who would pay those tariffs if the present waste of resources and the waste of labour which are now going on were to cease. These questions are of the most vital importance to the State. They are matters which we cannot now afford to neglect. So long as we were a very rich and a very lightly taxed country we could afford, in our public as in our private lives, to be slothful and a little wasteful. We cannot afford it any longer. It is certainly our duty at this time in our public lives, as it is equally our duty in our private lives, to do our utmost to prevent waste of any description. For these reasons, that there are these possibilities and that we know that this immense waste of plant, resources, and labour is going on, I, personally, take the most optimistic view of what is likely to be our position after the War, because we know that, merely by giving ourselves a little more timely consideration to these matters and thinking out our problem more closely, we can save hundreds of millions of pounds and, if they are saved, the burden of the heavy taxation that to-day bears upon us will present itself in quite a different light. After all, in successful saving there is all the sense of achievement, and most pleasurable achievement. I beg the President this evening to do his best to assist the House to take part in this great work. It is his duty, if he can

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    to place the transport system of this country on a stable, a profitable, and a sound basis. It can only be to the advantage of himself and of the country generally if the House goes with him hand-in-hand and assists him in carrying out this worthy duty. I, therefore, beg him not to sweep aside lightly the request that has been made this evening that he should set up with the least possible delay a Select Committee for the purpose of reviewing the matter.
    Mr. SHIRLEY BENN:I rise to support the view expressed by the last speaker that a Committee should be appointed to inquire into the facilities of our harbours. I do not know anyone more conversant with the needs of transportation or more capable of appreciating the provision of facilities than the President. I, therefore, speak with confidence when I address him on the subject. As we all know, we have suffered greatly from the loss of ships, but I feel that if the ships had been given proper facilities here for discharging their cargoes, we should have got a great deal more out of the ships than we have done. I am told that in London it takes a great deal longer to discharge a ship than at Liverpool, and that it costs 50 per cent. more. The Port of London Authority is an excellent business authority. It has been in existence since 1908, but it only has the facilities which are afforded by the docks in existence. We know that those docks are continuously congested, and that it takes a vessel a long time to discharge her cargo there. I am told that a scheme has been brought forward for building a deep-water wharf down the river at which it will be possible to discharge the steamers over side with barges on each side, and to discharge also on to the piers at the same time. Naturally the President of the Board of Trade will say that we cannot interfere with the Port of London Authority. I believe that the Port of London Authority has the power themselves to build these wharves and, if they do not do it, then inquiry should be made as to whether someone else should not be allowed to do it. This applies also to ports outside London. For instance, in Plymouth a big scheme was put forward for establishing a modern harbour, but I understand that the Shipping Controller could not touch it because it could not be made for service during the War, and the Board of Trade naturally could not touch it until after the War. If
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    the Committee suggested is appointed, I hope it will look very carefully into the facilities at some of our outside ports, so that vessels when they come to England will be able to discharge their cargoes quickly and go back and bring others.
    Sir C. CORY: With regard to the increase in the rates of season tickets I would ask the President of the Board of Trade to give the matter his very careful consideration before he acts, in order to obviate a hardship on classes of the population which can ill afford to bear it. There is no doubt that at the present time there is a great shortage of houses. In South Wales, in Cardiff, for instance, it is almost impossible for a man with a small income to get a house. I know the case of a clerk, who received a small salary, who found it impossible to get a house there and he had to go as far as 20 miles before he could obtain one. There are other cases of the same kind. If we are going to raise the rates beyond 12 miles, these men will be brought in and it will be a very grave hardship. If an increase is necessary, as possibly it may be, it is not fair to put an increase on everybody irrespective of distance. I was pleased to and the Board of Trade treat with sympathy the suggestion of the payment of pensions to the wives and dependants of the men in the Mercantile Marine. There is no class of the community which deserves our grateful consideration more than the men of the Mercantile Marine, who have been incurring such grave risks for the benefit of their fellow-countrymen. Reference has been made to canals. I agree that a great deal could be done to make them more efficient and to use them much more extensively. We know that it has been the policy of railway companies in the past to buy up canals wherever they could, to let them fall into disuse, and, in fact, to strangle the trade of the canals.
    I desire to make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman in regard to the Regulation which emanated from his Department recently with regard to the one-third of 5 per cent. of the brokerage in regard to the export of coal. I can hardly believe he realises what a great hardship it involves. I would recall to his memory the fact that an agreement was made by his predecessor the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Runciman in 1916, when the coalowners, shipowners, and exporters of this country were called together. Up to that time the price of

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    coal in France and Italy had gone up by leaps and bounds, the effect of which was to cause a great deal of ill-feeling among our Allies. The President of the Board of Trade made an arrangement limiting the price of coal, and the exporters, who had made very handsome profits, were asked to give them up, and an arrangement was made for an allowance to the exporters of one-third of 5 per cent. of the brokerage. In return they undertake the risk of demurrage and they are liable to their principals if they neglect to insure. This has worked very satisfactorily, and they loyally and patriotically gave up very large profits in order to fall into this arrangement. The Government have taken up a very mean and despicable attitude. A large number of these exporters are very small firms, whose businesses have practically been reduced to nothing. The amount they are making is not sufficient to pay their office expenses. Their clerks have gone to the War and their salaries are being paid in full or in part and they are called upon by high Income Tax and in other ways to contribute to the expenses of the State. We do not want to ruin firms in this way. It is desirable, as far as possible, to help them to exist during the War. I understand that the Coal Controller has threatened, improperly and illegally as I suggest, that if they do not fall in with his arrangement he will influence other Departments, the Board of Trade to withhold licences, and the Ministry of Shipping to withhold tonnage. If it was brought home to him that would be illegal and he would be liable to an action for misfeasance. His Regulation is illegal because he had no jurisdiction over these men at all. They are the agents of importers abroad and he can only bring his Regulation into effect by illegally threatening to penalise them in some other way. I am sure he does not wish to be a party to any action of that kind and does not wish to penalise small firms. I understand that a committee of exporters from all over the country was formed to deal with the question. They pressed me to become its chairman, so I took it up, but I was not the instigator of the committee. The Coal Controller, I am told, has refused to hear representations from that committee, but prefers to receive his consultative committee. I am told that is composed of a certain number of exporters with a preponderance of coalowners. Coalowners have nothing whatever to do with the question. Why should they be dragged in to adjudicate on a question
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    which affects them for their benefit? I certainly think he cannot seriously mean to adopt this course, which is illegal, and can only be adopted by further illegality, by withholding licences or tonnage if they do not fall in with the wishes of the Coal Controller. I bring this question forward because it should be ventilated and considered by the Committee. I trust the right hon. Gentleman will consider it and give it his favourable consideration.
    Mr. FERENS: The speech of the President of the Board of Trade was full of interest to business men, and I am sure could not fail to give satisfaction to all concerned in commercial enterprises. I was gratified to hear him say that attention was going to be given to research work. That is a matter which has been grossly neglected in the past. We all know the advantage it has been to Germany, and we also know that where research work was carried on in this country sometimes inventions were made here and were allowed to be developed in Germany. The right hon. Gentleman also said it was the intention to assist in the development of industry as the result of this research work. Those two things gratified me very much. He anticipated that imports into this country during the current year would probably be only about half what they were in pre-war times, and he told us, with some satisfaction, that he thought the country had not felt it very severely, or at any rate he was rather surprised to find that the country had not felt the reduction in imports more than it had done. I speak as a manufacturer. We are not in the habit of grousing. We do not go to the Board of Trade and tell it all our troubles. I have a list of about twenty-five of the principal articles that we use in our manufacture. The smallest increase in our raw materials in cost is two and a half times what it was before the War. We have to pay two and a half, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and even up to sixteen times as much as we used, because imports have ceased to come in. Many of these products were produced abroad, and because of their scarcity we have these enormous increases. If we were to increase the cost of our manufacture to our customers in anything like this proportion we should be charged, and justly, with profiteering. If we increased prices by 25 per cent. or 50 per cent. or doubled them, as manufacturers have sometimes had to do, it would be looked upon as a big advance We

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    have had to pay these increases, and it shows how difficult it is to carry on business. Many of the raw materials used in our manufacture are only produced abroad. I know the Board of Trade cannot control this because of the want of shipping.
    I should like to add a word to what has been said in regard to transport, especially as to canals. For heavy materials canals are essential to the country. We have been given statistics as to what Germany and France have spent in recent years in the formation of canals, and we know that our canals to a large extent have been derelict. Many canals are simply going into a bottle neck, so to speak. We get a wide canal which may be carrying a barge of eighty tons and then you get to a narrow canal down which you can only take barges of forty tons, and the goods have to be transferred from the bigger barge into the smaller one. I know that the President of the Board of Trade takes enlightened views in regard to these matters, and I am hoping that at the close of the War, because it is not possible for it to be undertaken during the War. he will take steps and use all the influence he has — and he has got great influence-in order to develop the canals, so that they may synchronise one with another. By that means the transport facilities of this country will be enormously increased and the cost will be greatly brought down.
    Sir H. ELVERSTON: I wish to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will consider the advisability of setting up a Committee, or at any rate of making inquiries, to ascertain whether it is possible to devise machinery for standardising the wages of workpeople, both now and after the War. We must all recognise that the moment demobilisation begins, the moment labour becomes fluid, the question of big adjustments of wages will arise in a more acute form than that which exists to-day. If these adjustments are carried out in a pre-war fashion a great deal of industrial trouble is almost bound to arise. It is certainly essential, if we are to maintain our industrial position, and if we are to secure the maximum output which is so highly desirable, that we should do everything that can be done to smooth over and avoid these industrial difficulties. During the last few years we
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    have had indications of the old ruthless law of supply and demand being superseded, or at any rate modified, by other means. To-day in the calico-printing, bleaching, cotton, and coal industries, arrangements have been made so that wages can be automatically adjusted by trade and other conditions. In the coal trade, for example, an increase in the selling price of coal automatically alters the wages of the miners in Northumberland and Durham, at any rate. In the cotton trade we have the Brooklands agreement, I believe working quite smoothly. The most interesting of all experiments at the present time has been made in the calico printing and bleaching trade of Lancashire.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Sir Donald Maclean): Is not this a matter for the Ministry of Labour?
    Sir H. ELVERSTON: I thought, in view of the Trades Board Act which has come in, that it was certainly a matter for the Board of Trade. If I am out of order in referring to this matter, I would like briefly to deal with something else.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I cannot absolutely say that it is out of order. I was putting it rather by way of interrogation. There are so many Departments that it is very difficult to say. I thought the hon. Member was launching out on to a subject more relevant to the Ministry of Labour; but as the President of the Board of Trade does not indicate that it is outside the scope of his Department, I will not stop the hon. Member.
    Sir A. STANLEY: I hesitated about interfering with the Debate, not knowing exactly what points the hon. Member for Gateshead was trying to make. Certainly it is quite clear that so far as any questions of labour are concerned, and as. regards any system for standardising wages, that would be a matter to be dealt with by the Ministry of Labour and not by the Board of Trade.
    Sir H. ELVERSTON: I was under the impression that the Board of Trade took an immediate interest in all matters dealing with trade disputes, and my reason for introducing this was that it would be machinery for avoiding trade disputes. If I am ruled out of order I shall have to defer my remarks for some future occasion.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I only rule them out of order because the Minister said he cannot answer them.
    Sir H. ELVERSTON: I should like to refer to another matter, and that is the lapsing of insurance policies by the industrial insurance companies. I do not think the Committee has correct information upon this point, and I am certainly under the impression that the Committee has not thorough information as to the position. It should be distinctly understood that an insurance company when it issues a policy has no right to break that contract. The contract is binding upon the insurance company, but the insured has the opportunity and the power to break it at any time. The only way in winch a contract can be broken is really by the non payment of premiums. When the War broke out there was an impression that many men who went to the Front might have great difficulty in maintaining their payments, under these industrial life policies, so this House under the Courts (Emergency Powers) Act made it impossible for a company to lapse a policy although the premiums had not been paid. The result of that has been that instead of the industrial classes of people who are fighting at the front suffering great hardship on account of the lapsing of policies the companies have really suffered very considerable hardship, for although the man may not pay his premiums his policy does not lapse. Very many people have taken advantage of this particular point, and people who could pay their premiums are not paying them. If a man is killed at the front a claim is immediately put in, and the company has to pay that claim although it has not received the premium which ought to have been paid. If this House had put into the Act the provision that every premium must be paid as well as the provision that no policy could lapse there is no doubt that the matter would have worked smoothly, and there would have been no lapsing of policies. To-day one insurance company has had to make a reserve of £800,000 to meet obligations under the Courts (Emergency Powers) Act. We know perfectly well that these companies have been paying many claims during the last year on which they legally have no obligation to pay. I should like to point out that under ordinary circumstances these lapses are not n. source of profit, but are, in fact, an actual loss to the company, because nine-
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    tenths of them are in respect of policies which have only been in force two or three weeks. It is quite a usual practice for people to take out a policy, keep it going two or three weeks, then drop it, and later on take out a fresh policy. These lapses are a source of loss to the company, because the initial expenses of issuing policies are very heavy, and, as a matter of fact, many companies, including, I believe, the Prudential, fine their agent for lapsing policies. That would convey the impression, certainly, that the companies do not make great profits on these lapses. I was very glad to hear the statement from the Front Bench that some form of inquiry is to be instituted into this matter, because I am convinced that such an investigation would clear away once and for all many wrongful ideas which exist at the present time.
    10.0 P.M
    Major NEWTON:I want to say a word or two on the question of season tickets, and I have a special case to put to the right hon. Gentleman. But before doing so, may I refer to a somewhat half-hearted suggestion put forward from that Front Bench to the effect that the reason for the increase of the season-ticket rates is that these passengers are being carried at a cost above that which the rates justified? I cannot think that is the real reason why these increases have been proposed. Surely it must be admitted that the proposal is due to a desire to curtail the traffic, and, if that is the reason, is there not a better and more equitable way of doing it than by merely increasing rates, which does not in many cases have the effect of preventing passenger traffic? Would not the correct way be to inquire into the business upon which the traveller desires to proceed by rail? Would that not be a more reasonable method than to add to the cost of the ticket? I have no sympathy with the complaints as to the hardship in regard to family tickets, which are, I understand, largely used by ladies who desire to go to Regent Street for shopping and similar purposes. But I have a sympathy for the bonâfile business man whose bread and butter lies in a town remote from the place where he lives, and I certainly think he should not be penalised. Has it occurred to the right hon. Gentleman that the proposal to increase the season-ticket fares would really increase the rents of certain classes of houses in towns remote from the Metropolis? I have a letter in my hand from the Urban District Council of the town of

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    Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, in which they inform me that the proposal is to increase the cost of the season ticket. between London and Clacton-on-Sea by 50 per cent. The third-class ticket, now costing £21, will, under the new arrangement, cost £32 a year. That really is an increase on the rent of the houses in which the season-ticket holders live, and it represents an increase of anything from 20 to 60 per cent. I have a very special point to put in regard to towns on the East Coast generally.
    Sir A. STANLEY: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. and gallant Gentleman, but the particular point which he has raised with regard to the increased charges for season tickets to Clacton-on-Sea has not been brought to my attention before. The proposal is for an all-round increase for distances so far as Clacton-on-Sea of 20 per cent. The. hon. and gallant Gentleman has referred to an increase of at least 50 per cent. It may, perhaps, save a little time if I ask the hon. Member to write to me in regard to the particular instance which he has in mind. I will promise him immediate inquiry and an answer at once.
    Major NEWTON:I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I will not go into details of the case, but may I touch on the general principle which I want to raise in regard to East Coast towns? These areas are very much distressed, and if the right hon. Gentleman will consult his colleagues he will find that the municipalities along the East Coast are only able to carry on with assistance from the Government. Now, by increasing the rents in their area you will certainly tend to empty a large number of houses in all those East Coast towns, and further difficulties will result to the municipalities which would have to be made up from national funds. I would suggest that if it is a fact the increase is put on with a view to making the railways pay, and bearing in mind that we are told that £47,000,000 of the increased expenditure on the railways is attributable to the war bonuses paid to the railway employé's, and, therefore, may be taken as a result of war conditions, and seeing, too, that the railways are practically under the control of the State, the war bonus should not be made a burden solely on those who are compelled by their business to travel, but should become a portion of the national burden. I am glad
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    to have the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman that no increase as great as 50 per cent. is contemplated, and I must certainly accept his invitation to write to him privately on the question of Clacton-on-Sea.
    Sir S. COATS: I should like to say a few words in support of the appeals which have been made to the President to reconsider the proposal to increase the season-ticket rates. In the constituency which I represent—Wimbledon— there are an enormous number of season-ticket holders. From Purley Station 1,800 travel daily, and from Wallington 2,000, and many thousands from Wimbledon, and I have been surprised to find the amount of hardship that these increased rates will involve. I have heard from a great many constituents who feel strongly on the subject. They are men who cannot avoid travelling daily. Many of them are engaged on very important war work and in other work for the benefit of the community, and it is absolutely essential they should go to business every day. Some of them have children who are also engaged in war work and for whom season tickets are necessary. Here is a case of a constituent who has five season-ticket holders in his family, all employed on important work in connection with the Government or with commercial undertakings. Many of my Constituents have had no advances in their wages since the commencement of the War, and the additional taxation presses very heavily on them. This rise in the rates for season tickets will fall upon them still more severely. After all, we must remember that season-ticket holders are one of the most important assets of the railways. They have moved to these suburban districts on the understanding that they will have the advantage of reduced rates, and it is not possible for them at the present time, having entered into arrangements with landlords in many cases for considerable periods, to cancel those arrangements and move into London. If they could it would develop a housing problem in London which would be difficult to handle. Why is it that London should be so severely penalised in this matter? It seems to me rather hard that London should be the one that gives the lead in all these matters and that it should have to suffer these disabilities in advance of all the provincial towns. It is perfectly easy to find out who the bonâ -fide residents of these towns are. All it is necessary to

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    do is to consult the local directories, and it would be quite easy to compile a list of those who have bonâ -fide residence and who are entitled to season tickets accordingly.
    I have had one case brought to my notice where a season-ticket holder got for himself and family a reduction of 15 per cent. He now has the 15 per cent. cancelled and an additional 20 per cent. imposed, making a total of 35 per cent. It is very easy to see how severely the change bears on him. Further, the twelve-mile limit seems very arbitrary. The hon. Member for Croydon (Mr. Malcolm) has made an appeal on this subject, but I have constituents in Purley and Coulsdon, which are connected with Croydon. It is really one continuous town, and they feel it very hard that in Purley and Coulsdon they should pay this extra percentage, whereas in Croydon it is not enforced. What I should like to see, if it were possible, would be the President of the Board of Trade to withdraw this Regulation, refer it to a committee of inquiry, have the whole matter gone into carefully, and such proposals brought forward as would be equitable to all concerned. Perhaps the President of the Board of Trade will remember that Mr. William H. Vanderbilt, who controlled many thousands of miles of railways, once brought forward a proposal which would involve a certain amount of hardship to the public, and one of his subordinates when he was given the directions necessary to enforce this said, "But, Mr Vanderbilt, think what the public will say." Mr. Vanderbilt replied: "The public be damned! I am working in the interests of my shareholders." For ever -afterwards the phrase" the public be damned" was remembered, and the fact that Mr. Vanderbilt was working in the interests of his shareholders was forgotten. The right hon. Gentleman, I know, is working in the interests of his shareholders, and I quite sympathise with him in the difficult task he has. At the same time I am sure he will realise that the public are entitled to consideration. There is no member of the Ministry who has treated me with greater kindness than the President of the Board of Trade, and there is no one from whom I should more dislike to differ or to whom I should less like to make an appeal to which, perhaps, he finds it difficult to respond. Nevertheless, I trust he will reconsider this matter. Would it not be possible that a rise in the rates on goods might be substituted for
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    the increased charge on the season-ticket holders? It is only £1,000,000 a year, and I do not think it would require much raising of the goods rates to make up the difference. I feel that season-ticket holders are a valuable element of the community, that they are doing admirable work, and that they ought to be considered in every way. I think the value they give in exchange for these reduced rates of transportation makes up a great many times for the loss the railway companies experience in consequence.
    Mr. GULLAND: I wish to bring before the notice of the President of the Board of Trade a matter of transport which I think has not been brought to his notice to-day. That is the Motor Spirit Order of the 3rd January of this year. That Order lays down the purposes for which petrol may be used for private motors. It says you can use petrol for the conveyance to a station, for business purposes, for necessary household affairs, which are detailed on many points. For instance, for the obtaining and carrying of food, fuel, stores, medical and surgical requisites, visits to a registered medical practitioner, dental surgeon, legal adviser, professional agent or bank, the conveyance of children or young persons to or from a school, college, or place for the purpose of receiving elementary or secondary education; and house removal; for the performance of any public duty, which includes attendance at or upon any Court of Justice, or the performance of a duty in connection with the service of a Government Department, and a good many other things. But for the purpose of this Order it does not include attendance at a place of worship. So far as a motor is concerned, the only thing you are not allowed to do is to use petrol for attendance at a place of worship. There have been a good many cases in Court, and a lot of very good people have been worried and warned and fined—I do not know whether any have been sent to prison yet —because they have used petrol to go to church. I cannot speak of England, but I can speak of Scotland, and this is felt to be a very hard Order. The Scottish people are still a church-going people, and to speak about my own Constituency about which I know I have put some questions to the right hon. Gentleman, and since then I have received a large number of letters from different parts of Scotland. You have in Scotland a large number of small country towns. The churches in

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    these country towns serve the population of villages and country districts for a considerable way round. The farmers and other people in these villages and country districts used to drive by horse to church. Now they have given up their horses; even if they had them they would not be allowed to feed them; and many have small motor cars in which they used to drive to church. Many of the best people —I mean that word in its right sense—who are old and lame and delicate cannot possibly go to church unless they can go by car. There is no railway, there are no taxis, cabs, or other means of conveyance at all. These people do not ask for a special supply of petrol; they only ask that they may use the petrol they have in that way, and if they prefer to use it to go to church, rather than to shop or to pay their dentist a visit or to attend a parish council, I do not see why the President of the Board of Trade should refuse to allow them to use the petrol in that way.
    I am bound to say that I cannot see why, if they save the petrol from other purposes, they should not be allowed to go to church. In my own Constituency, in the burgh of Annan, these people see the munition works cars from Gretna careering round the country on not very necessary errands; they see the Liquor Control Board's vans driving drink about the country; and they do feel it a great grievance that they are not allowed to go to church. If they do use some petrol that they have kept for weeks to go to church with, they are run in by the police. It really is not an Order, I think, that can be defended, at any rate before a Scottish audience, and I do not know that it is popular in England either. The President of the Board of Trade has had a letter from the heads of the Scottish churches—from the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Moderator of the United Free Church of Scotland, the Primus of the Episcopal Church in Scotland, and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Edinburgh and St. Andrew's. The right hon. Gentleman is not a Scotsman, and does not know the very high position of these very reverend gentlemen in Scotland, but his Friend behind, the hon. Member for Kilmarnock Burghs, can tell him what a high position these four reverend gentlemen hold in the public life of Scotland. In this letter of the 16th of March to the right hon. Gentleman they say:
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    "Many of our people are feeling acutely that they ought not to be practically prevented from. attending public worship, which they regard as a duty and an obligation, at a time like the present when there is special need of the helps and consolations of their religion. We venture to think that it must be possible to make some Regulation whereby permission might be granted under such conditions as to time and distance and local conditions as would prevent the risk of misuse of such permission."
    In reply to that letter the President wrote saying:
    "I have reconsidered the question very carefully, and I am very sorry that I cannot alter the Regulation, which has been arrived at entirely in the national interest."
    People belonging to the churches in Scotland do not consider that a satisfactory answer, because they feel, speaking quite respectfully, that they are just as good judges of the national interest as the right hon. Gentleman, and that when His Majesty asked the people of the country to assemble in their churches and pray, for the country, and when the Prime Minister called upon the people of the country to pray for the Government—at any rate to pray for the country—it was at least thought that the President of the Board of Trade would not try to prevent people going to church and offering up their prayers. I think that the hon. Member can tell the right hon. Gentleman that these people and the churches which they represent are among the most useful people in Scotland on behalf of the War. The churches of Scotland and England have done enormous service in various ways in connection with the War, and I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that in this matter they are entitled to be heard and that he ought to withdraw this restriction and allow the people to use the petrol that they have in the way that they consider most desirable. It really does not matter to him how the petrol is used. If they prefer to go to church according to the desire of His Majesty and the Prime Minister, let them do so. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give effect to the wish of these very influential clergymen in Scotland.
    Colonel Sir C. SEELY: I desire to support what has been said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries with regard to the use of petrol. I think that there is nothing which is causing more discontent in the country than the manner in which petrol that is allowed to people is limited in its application, and more especially limited in the wav in which he has referred to. I really think that that

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    Regulation should not be used to prevent people going to church, even if they take care to save a certain amount of petrol for the purpose. It has caused a feeling which is not very desirable in the interests of the Government or of the country. It looks a little as if the Government were rather careless about the higher interests which exist even in war time and through war time. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give the matter most careful consideration. It was said by the hon. and learned Member behind me that people can use horses.
    Mr. RAWLINSON:I never suggested that. They walked to church when I was young, and I understood that they used to do so in Scotland.
    Sir C. SEELY: The hon. Member interrupted the speech of the right hon. Member for Dumfries, in which he said they went with horses originally, and now they had parted with the horses. And I assumed that he had listened to the speeches that were delivered and was referring to that statement. Of course, they can walk to church, whether there is petrol or no petrol, but there are old people who cannot walk, and they are the people for whom the right hon. Gentleman and I am speaking. In regard to horses, the present position in respect of hay and forage is most serious. It is the most difficult thing in the world to import, because of the difficulty as to shipping and of bringing it by rail, and we know that the importation of hay and forage in bulk is more difficult than the importation of almost any other article. But it is needless to speak of this to the right hon. Gentleman, who himself knows the facts thoroughly.
    I did not rise, however, to deal with this question, and I wish to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman and of the Committee to another matter on which the right hon. Gentleman spoke this afternoon. But, first, may I congratulate him on his extremely clear statement, which covered a large number of subjects, among them being that on which I desire to offer a few observations, namely, the coal trade and the position with regard to coal. The right hon. Gentleman used the phrase, that "in consequence of the large number of men who had enlisted there was a scarcity of coal in this country." I think that was the phrase. That does not quite do justice to what has been done by the
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    colliers in this country. The colliers calling is a very dangerous one. It is very-hard work, very uncomfortable, and unavoidably dangerous. Before the War colliers took very considerable holidays, and, in addition to the regular holidays which they took, all those who worked in the household collieries used to have a great many holidays, partly intentional and partly unintentional, during the summer months. Since the War these men have given their time, and as a result of that this country has not been short of coal. The right hon. Gentleman was making the point that there had been a diminution in the quantity of coal in this country. It is quite true there has been a diminution in the quantity of coal turned, but there was also a quantity of coal exported from this country, and what has occurred has been, as a matter of fact, that so great have been the efforts of the collieries that instead of a diminution there has been an increase in the amount of coal available for home consumption since the War.
    I took the trouble to look up the Home Office figures. In 1911 the return in England was 272,000,000 tons and the export by shipping was 87,000,000 tons, leaving a balance of 185,000,000 tons for home consumption. In 1912 the balance shown was 174,000,000. In 1913 that balance was 189,000,000; in 1914, with half a year of war, it was only 184,000,000; but in 1915, the first full year of war, it went up to 193,000,000, and in 1916 201,000,000 tons were available. Figures for 1917 are not at present available, but I speak with considerable knowledge of the coal trade, and those who know the coal trade will agree with me that the number of men who enlisted during 1917 was not large, because enlistment was largely stopped while a considerable number of boys grew up and went into the coal face, other boys being taken in to do their work. Besides, in consequence of shipping difficulties, there must have been a further considerable decrease in the export. Therefore, I think I am quite correct in saying that, so far from there having been any reduction in the amount of coal available for home consumption, thanks to the work which the colliers have done, and for which I am inclined to think they have not had the thanks from their countrymen to which they are entitled, there has not been any diminution. I am aware that in the winter of 1916 people in

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    London suffered seriously from want of coal, but that was not the fault of the collier. It was due to the coldest winter I have ever known, to difficulties in the distribution of coal, practically local, and due to the nature of the roads and to the great delivery difficulties through men, horses, and blacksmiths having been taken away for military purposes. I do not blame it; it could not have been avoided, but it was not the fault of the collier, and when it is claimed for the Coal Controller that the absence of difficulty this winter is due to him I cannot help thinking that the clerk of the weather, who gave us a mild winter instead of an exceptionally cold one, is much more to be thanked for that than any Government arrangements, however good they may have been.
    I do not wish to labour that point, but I should like, rather, to press it upon the right hon. Gentleman, because there is another element, and one of very great importance, to which I should like to draw his attention. I asked him yesterday if his attention had been drawn to the very large amount of returns which are asked for by the Coal Controller, and he stated that the Coal Controller asked for no returns which were not necessary, and that he was aware how the clerical staffs were depleted. I have known the coal trade for forty years—a good deal longer than the Coal Controller—and I must say that the returns I sent to the right hon. Gentleman seem to me to be so large, and so complicated, that they will cast a very large amount of work on the collieries, and will entail buildings which will have to be provided for the purpose. At a time when buildings are badly wanted for the housing of the poor, buildings are being provided for the housing of Government clerks in order to deal with returns, the object of which is to arrange for the distribution of coal by a central authority, instead of it being done by the colliery companies themselves, as they used to do in the old days. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to think very carefully whether this policy is a wise one. I am quite aware that there are difficulties with regard to the distribution of coal. In the years before the War coastwise traffic of coal was 22,000,000. That, of course, is disorganised in consequence of the War, and I would ask him whether it would not be wiser for the Coal Controller, instead of
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    attempting to arrange for the whole distribution of coal as he is now doing, to leave it to the men who have done it for years, under a certain amount of control from him and with his assistance, and devote his mind to the difficulties which are inherent in the War? He had one difficulty, in which his colleague alongside him knows I took an interest, in one part of England which was due to that which he never really dealt with, and which he was forced to by a very unfortunate incident; and I cannot help thinking that if he had, as I say, not interfered with the general business of distribution, but had given his mind to those definite cases in which the difficulties occurred in consequence of the War, he would find not only that he saved a great deal of public expense, but also that the actual distribution of coal, and the actual provision of coal for the people of this country, would be done much more satisfactorily than it will be done if the present system is continued. Although, as I have said, up to the present time there has been no deficiency of coal, there will be now, in consequence of the large increase in recruiting, a serious deficiency in the coal production of this country, and it is, therefore, very essential that this Department, on which the whole welfare of the country largely depends, should be carefully looked into and carefully managed. Up to the present, I think I may say, the quantity of coal has been so large, there has been plenty of room for mistakes. But you are now in a position that you cannot afford to make mistakes. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman is what he was in the old days, the representative of trade in the Government, but, assuming that he is, if he will ask his colleague the Chancellor of the Exchequer as to what is the position of the finances of this country, I think he will tell him that it is most important that no unnecessary interference should be made with the trade of this country, that every economy should be taken that can be taken, that nothing should be done which prevents people from making money, and nothings should be done which leads to unnecessary expense, because no one can have listened to the Debate which took place yesterday without realising thoroughly that the question of our power to continue this War, the question of the ultimate result of this War, will depend very largely on our financial strength. I would,

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    ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider the question I put before him, and to deal with it, as I know he will, with very great care, to realise that the clerk of the weather has been extremely kind to the Coal Controller, and that it is most desirable now that he should give careful consideration to his policy.
    Sir A. STANLEY: I think perhaps it is desirable that I should intervene at this stage of the Debate, and attempt to deal with some of the questions which have been raised, and to which hon. Members desire to have answers. First of all, I should like to take the opportunity of thanking all hon. Members who have made such kindly reference to myself and to my associates. I assure hon. Members that the encouragement we get in this House is a really very great incentive in our efforts to carry on the very important work which is attached to the Board of Trade. Therefore, as I have said, any encouragement we get from hon. Members is very welcome and very helpful indeed. Before I deal with what may be described as the more important questions which have been discussed—season tickets and transport—I had perhaps better refer to one or two other matters which have been raised by hon. Members.
    Perhaps, first of all, I might deal with a, point raised by the hon. Member for one of the divisions of Cheshire in regard to the coal rationing scheme which we are proposing to establish very shortly. He asked whether coal consumers should be encouraged at the present time to stock coal during the summer months in anticipation of their needs next winter. I am glad he raised that question. It gives me the opportunity of saying that we propose in a few days to make public this new scheme of rationing. As soon as it is published we shall desire and be very glad that the public, when they know what their allowance is to be, should take advantage of the summer months to stock some part at least of the amount of coal which is allowed for their use next winter. It is not a question of coal alone, it is also one of transport. It will be helpful for us if the public generally do as they did in London last summer, secure some part of their coal in the summer.
    The hon. Gentleman (Sir C. Cory) raised the question of the commission allowed to coal brokers. This matter
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    is engaging the attention of the Coal Controller. He has arranged for to-morrow a meeting with the Executive Committee of the Exporters' Association. I hope that as a result of that interview he will be able to come to some satisfactory arrangement with them. I only desire to say this: As I understand the position, that arrangement, made some little time ago, which gave a fixed commission to the exporters, was a provisional one and not necessarily for the duration of the War. The circumstances to-day are so totally different to those prevailing when this voluntarly arrangement was entered into that it has been found necessary to make some change. I anticipate that it will be possible for the Coal Controller to make some arrangement with the exporters.
    The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Gulland) raised the question of the use of petrol. I should not wish to go so far as to say that in the Debate we have been thoroughly Hackened in character. But certainly it has been suggested, very modestly perhaps, that, on the one hand, we have adopted a policy of "the public be damned!" and, on the other hand, that we tend to interfere with those good people who desire to attend church. May I assure hon. Members that neither is the policy of the Board of Trade? We try as best we can, in dealing with these restrictions, to be considerate towards those affected by anything we may have to do. I am sure hon. Members will realise the extraordinary difficulty of our position. We do not desire to establish any restrictions interfering with the daily life of the public where those restrictions can possibly be avoided. I know that in some instances it may seem as though these restrictions had operated very harshly indeed. But I assure hon. Members that what we do is the result of the most careful deliberations, and certainly we attempt to secure the best advice we can upon all these problems before any action is taken. It does, perhaps, seem that we might allow those who have an allowance of petrol to use it for the particular purpose suggested by the hon. Gentleman. But I would remind him that while there has been an arrangement whereby a certain amount of petrol has been allowed, that the use of that petrol does not necessarily mean that those concerned shall have complete freedom to use it as they desire. I would remind the Committee that the petrol coming into this

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    country is imported in ships, and that, if petrol is to be brought in those ships, something else essential to us has to be denied. That is our position. We attempt as best we canto confine the use of petrol within the narrowest possible limit. Our experience has been—we have now had the experience of several years—that when once you open the door, when once you relax a restriction in the interests of any individual or of any group of individuals who may feel that they themselves have a particular claim to consideration, from that moment the restrictions cease to become effective and we have opened the door to all sorts of claims. We have found it impossible to carryon these restrictions by that method. I am exceedingly sorry to have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that we cannot accept any relaxation of these restrictions at the present time. It is not necessary for me to remind the Committee how critical is the tonnage situation and how imperatively necessary it is that in everything that has to do with the use of ships everybody should exercise the utmost degree of economy.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Is any petrol being produced in this country yet?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I am not aware of that. May I now turn to the question of season tickets? The Debate, if I understand it correctly, resolves itself into this: That there is no objection to restrictions being put upon the unnecessary use of season tickets, and that the objection is really to the proposed increase in prices. The suggestion has been made that a uniform increase should be made, irrespective of distance, or alternatively, that the limiting distance of 12 miles, which covers the 10 per cent. increase, should be increased to, say, some 20 miles. May I again say that in considering the question not only of the increase of prices of season tickets, but also with respect to all of the restrictions we are imposing, that they have only been decided upon after the most careful investigation. We have consulted with all sorts of people in this matter. We have consulted with those who ought to be qualified by their experience to advise us—railway managers, those associated with railway undertakings—and the restrictions that we are imposing and the increased prices we are putting upon season tickets, I can assure the Committee, are really the absolute minimum.
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    I have had this subject before me for many weeks and months. I have endeavoured in every direction I possibly could to find ways whereby the restrictions upon the travel of the people of this country would be interfered with as little as possible. I know the hardships which attach to any of these restrictions. I know that the increased prices of season tickets must bear hardly upon some individuals. But I have no alternative. I have to recognise that nothing would be more fatal to the interests of this country than that, at a time like this, the railways should break down.
    We are carrying on under extreme difficulty. I have tried to indicate partially to the Committee the difficulties that confront us. I honestly feel that what we are asking the public to do now is something that, on the whole, the public can well afford to bear. I can only express the hope that these restrictions and these increases we are proposing will not have to be extended. We have made constant appeals to the public—appeal after appeal has been made to them to keep away from the railways unless it is necessary that they should travel on them. The result of those appeals has been that they only advertise the railways more, and that travel increases rather than decreases. Now we have no alternative but to establish some restriction which, as I have said, we have honestly tried to make as little burdensome as possible. These restrictions have not been imposed except after careful investigation and with a full knowledge. If I may be permitted to say so, I have some knowledge of railway working, and I have not approached this problem as an amateur. I know something about railways, and in dealing with this problem I have brought to bear upon it all the knowledge that I have and all my resources, and I have done it with a desire to inconvenience the public as little as I could. I desire to impress upon hon. Members that, far from it being our desire to adopt what has been quietly suggested is the policy of "the public be damned!" they are the shareholders, and we are responsible to them for what we do. I sincerely hope that the impression will not go out that what we have done we have done ruthlessly and without proper regard to the interests of the public. I am sorry that we cannot make any concessions in a matter of this kind. I know if I did it would be a mistake, and that I should have to come to the House later

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    on and say that it was a mistake, and ask the House to allow me to make further restrictions rather than less. I appeal to hon. Members to recognise the position in which we find ourselves, that we are really up against an exceedingly difficult problem, and that nothing will be done which will affect travelling upon the railways unless it is absolutely necessary.
    Major NEWTON: Could the right hon. Gentleman say how increasing the price of season tickets is going substantially to diminish the number of persons who travel?
    Mr. RAWLINSON: Is he going to renew the season tickets to those who are not British subjects, and who are the cause of all the trouble?
    Sir A. STANLEY: I have tried to make it clear, with regard to the increase in the price of the season tickets, that it has not been done so much with the object of restricting travelling—although I think it will have a very considerable effect in that direction—as in order to fix a price which will bear some relation to the cost of carrying the particular traveller With regard to aliens, we have made it quite clear that those who have taken out season tickets since 1st January, 1917—
    Mr. RAWLINSON: Is there any difference made between a British subject and a person who is not a British subject?
    Sir A. STANLEY: It depends entirely upon the work that they are doing. If people are doing work of national importance, and must rids, then season tickets will be issued to them; but I am very doubtful myself whether the vast majority of what are described as aliens— those who are really interfering unnecessarily with the movement of traffic in the railways—will be able hereafter to secure season tickets.
    Major NEWTON: Is it work of national importance for a man to earn his living in order to pay Income Tax and local rates?
    Mr. KILEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say—
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Sir D.Maclean): Hon. Members are not entitled to interrupt in this way.
    Sir A. STANLEY: With regard to the question of transport, the suggestion that is made, as I understand it, is that a
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    Select Committee of this House should be appointed to go into the whole question, not only with respect to the railways but also the canals, docks, and road transport. My little experience in this House, so far as Committees are concerned, is that we have been criticised for appointing too many Committees.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: This is a Select Committee of the House.
    Sir A. STANLEY: It is an additional Committee. I am not raising any question about the appointment of a Select Committee of this House. I do not think that the time is opportune for the appointment of such a Committee. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] We have a Committee going into the question of the railways.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: What kind of Committee?
    Sir A. STANLEY: A Committee that was appointed some months ago, a thoroughly representative Committee, that is working with the President of the Board of Trade upon this question of railways.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Will the evidence be published for the information of the public?
    Sir A. STANLEY: This Committee is appointed only to advise the President of the Board of Trade, who in return will advise the Government as to what steps shall be taken for the future management of these railways. When those proposals are brought forward there will be an opportunity of debating the whole matter. I cannot but think that those who suggest a Select Committee to go into the whole question of transport do not realise the magnitude of what they are proposing. Enormous overlapping will arise, while others are working at exactly the same problem. Reference has been made to a particular scheme for improving the methods of distribution, particularly in London. I cannot feel that this is a place where the particular merits of any scheme can be successfully debated. I certainly would desire hon. Members to believe that no scheme which has any merit would not be considered at the Board of Trade. We are there with open doors to any practical suggestion, not only with respect to transport but any other problem with which we have to deal. As an indication of our willingness to consider

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    these matters I should like to say these few words in connection with the particular scheme which has been discussed, and that is, I did offer that during the War I would arrange for facilities being given for some practical experiments being made with respect to this particular scheme. Anything less to my mind will be absolutely futile.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Does that offer still hold good?
    Sir A. STANLEY: Certainly it does. This scheme means the investment of many millions. It is totally untried, and I myself think—I say this frankly to those interested in that particular scheme— that before a scheme of that kind can be attempted upon any such scale as that which is suggested, before you will find anybody who will invest such a vast sum of money they will first of all have to be satisfied that it has been tried upon a small scale and that it possesses all the merits and qualifications necessary in order to secure success. While we are dealing with railway problems as a whole in order that the bigger question of the future of the railways may be determined as well as that of the canals and docks, it would be possible for an experiment on a small scale to be tried. Whatever merit there may be in this particular scheme the smaller experiment might be tried without any waste of time. [An HON. MEMBER: "At the expense of the State !"] Yes, but the expense would be very small indeed, and it would be possible to arrange with the railway companies for this experiment to be tried. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about racing?"] As to racing, the hon. Member knows that this matter is being considered by the War Cabinet, and I hope that their decision will be announced in the next two or three days. It is not a matter that I myself could give any decision upon.' Meantime relief trains for race meetings will not be run. I am sorry I have not an opportunity of going further into many questions which have been raised, but on those points which have been raised I have given the best answer I could under the circumstances.
    Sir J. D. REES: My short speech begins where many longer speeches end, in smoke. I want to ask the fight hon. Gentleman on a matter which greatly
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    concerns the comfort of the travelling public. Although at least a half, probably more, of every train is composed of smoking carriages, it is almost impossible for one who does not smoke to get any accommodation without smoking. I do not propose to say very much in favour of non-smokers. They are feeble folk, but it is quite possible that the absence of this virtue in them is not due to original sin. There may be some fault in their composition, in their lungs, in their eyes, or what not, which makes a journey in a very stuffy atmosphere in a cloud of tobacco smoke unpleasant, disagreeable and unprofitable. Nevertheless, it is almost impossible for anyone, however much he may desire it, at present to escape that inconvenience. For instance, suppose a passenger, after great trouble, finds a seat in a non-smoker, and then goes to the refreshment-room to obtain, if he is fortunate, a fish-paste sandwich, let us say, by the time he has returned someone has persuaded the porter to put one of those temporary white labels, "Smoking," on the-window, and he finds himself in the unenviable position of having to assert his own feelings against the whole of the company, or having to sit during the whole journey—generally a very long journey now—insmoke. This is not a small matter. I am not bringing it forward in a spirit of carping against the railways. I do not complain about them. It is wonderful how polite, attentive, and efficient the largely reduced staffs are. It was not at all with that idea that I rose—very far from it I would express my extreme obligation, as a frequent traveller, to all the staffs of all the railways. But I ask the right hon. Gentleman to be so kind as to report to those who are immediately connected with the management of the railways that it would be right and fair to retain a certain amount of accommodation— [Interruption.] I have not been on my legs more than four minutes, after having waited more than four hours, and I protest against being hurried, seeing that I have suffered severely from the subject I am bringing before the President of the Board of Trade. I beseech my hon. Friends to exercise that virtue of patience which I have had to exercise on account of this very transgression which I am begging him to redress. So far about tobacco smoke.

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    I have been urged, and I do it with complete sympathy, to take the line already adopted by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Gulland). I urge the President of the Board of Trade to include church-going in the legitimate uses of petrol, not to give extra allowances.
    It being Eleven of the Clock, the Deputy-Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.
    The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
    Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Sir D. Maclean), pursuant to the Order of the House of the 13th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Adjourned accordingly at Two minute after Eleven o'clock.