Commons Sitting of 5 August 1919

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

PEIVATE BUSINESS.
Private Bills [Lords] (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with), —MR. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, namely:
British and Continental Bank Bill [Lords].
Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.
Clowes Settled Estates Bill [Lords],
Read the third time, and passed, without Amendment.
Birmingham Corporation Tramways Bill [lords], Blackpool Improvement Bill [Lords], East Ham Corporation Bill [Lords], Leeds Corporation Bill [Lords], London Electric Railway Bill [Lords], Shoreham-by-Sea Urban District Council Bill [Lords], Tynemouth Corporation Bill [Lords], West Hartlepool Corporation Bill [Lords].
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Private Bills,
Ordered,
"That Standing Orders 220 and 246, relating to Private Bills, to suspended for the remainder of the Session."
Ordered,
"That, as regards Private Bills to be returned by the House of Lords with Amendments, such Amendments (if unopposed) shall be considered forthwith."
Ordered,
"That, as regards Private Bills returned, or to be returned, by the House of Lords with Amendments, such Amendments (if opposed) shall be considered at such time as the Chair man of Ways and Means may determine."
Ordered,
"That, when it is intended to propose any Amendments thereto, a copy of such Amendments shall be deposited in the Committee and Private Bill Office, and notice given on the day on which the Bill shall have been returned from the House of Lords." —[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
Dundee Harbour and Tay Ferries Order Confirmation Bill,
"To confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Dundee Harbour and Tay Ferries." presented by Mr. MUNRO; and ordered (under Section 7 of the Act) to be considered To-morrow.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  CZECHO-SLOVAK REPUBLIC (AMBASSADOR).
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. HOAREasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs who was the Minister who had been appointed to the Czecho-Slovak Republic; and who were the political representatives to be sent to Vienna and Sofia?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): My hon. and gallant Friend will realise that the changes produced by the War necessitate a number of new appointments besides those to which he refers. All the various posts have to be considered in relation to each other, and the compilation of a list of the new appointments is an exceedingly complex matter. In point of fact, the list is now practically completed, and my hon. and gallant Friend may rest assured that it-will be made public at the earliest possible moment.
  Sir S. HOARE: Does the hon. Gentleman remember that, a fortnight ago, he told me that these appointments had actually been sanctioned and that the names had already been sent to Paris? How is it that a delay of a fortnight has taken place and these names have not yet been sanctioned?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: There have been delays, but certain consents have to be obtained and these are in process of being obtained. I hope in a few days to give the hon. and gallant Member a longer list than he has asked for.
  Sir S. HOARE: Would the hon. Gentleman give me this longer list if I put this question down next Tuesday?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: I shall endeavour to do so but I cannot give a definite answer.
  Sir S. HOARE: Is my hon. Friend aware that he has given me that answer once a week for three months?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: Yes. In reference to these appointments to the Diplomatic and Consular service it is most difficult to give complete lists.
  Sir S. HOARE: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Armistice has now existed for, I think, six months, and that three-quarters of our Diplomatic posts are still vacant? Is that a satisfactory state of affairs?
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the enormous importance of sending to these new democratic States an entirely different type of man?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: I can assure both my hon. and gallant Friends that all these matters receive very serious consideration.

  ROUMANIA (BESSARABIA ELECTIONS).
  Sir S. HOAREasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Roumanian Government proposed to hold in Bessarabia elections for the Roumanian Chamber; if so, whether the Allies had yet determined the future of Bessarabia; and, if the Allies had not yet determined it, whether they would arrange with the Roumanian Government to abandon their intention to hold the elections?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: It is understood that the elections for the whole of Roumania and Bessarabia will be held in the early autumn. It is probable that by that time the Peace Conference will have decided as to the future status of the Province, and there is no reason to suppose that the Roumanian Government will not loyally respect the decision of the Conference.
  Sir S. HOARE: Does that answer mean that, supposing Bessarabia is not ceded to Roumania, Roumanian elections will, none the less, take place in Bessarabia?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: I understand the elections will take place in any case.
  Sir S. HOARE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that will mean that Roumanian elections will take place in a country that is not ceded to Roumania?

  PEACE PROPOSALS, AUGUST, 1917.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention had been drawn to the statements made in the Weimar Assembly by Heir Erzberger and in Paris by M. Painlevé with regard to the alleged Peace offer made to Germany by the Allies in August, 1917; whether an exchange of Notes did take place in August and September, 1917, between the British Minister to the Vatican and the German Chancellor through the good offices of the Holy See; whether the initiative was taken by the British or by the German Governments; and when the relevant documents would be published?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: It is the intention of His Majesty's Government to lay Papers on this question before Parliament as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I may inform the hon. and gallant Member that the statements made by Herr Erzberger at "Weimar are not an accurate presentment of tins facts. On 21st August, 1917, His Majesty's Minister to the Vatican was instructed to inform the Cardinal Secretary of State that His Majesty's Government could not say what reply, if any, would be made to the Pope's peace proposals, as His Majesty's Government had not had time to consult their Allies; and in any case it appeared to be hopeless to try to bring the belligerents into agreement until the Central Powers had given some indication of the objects for which they were prosecuting the War. Cardinal Gasparri, in his answer, narrowed the issue by stating that the German Government had declared their intention to restore independence to Belgium, pointing to the Reichstag resolution in favour of peace without annexations. Count de Salis observed that His Majesty's Government had no authoritative text of this document and that it was not satisfactory, as the decision did not rest with the Reichstag. On 24th August the Cardinal asked that the following reply should be sent to the message from His Majesty's Government: "The Cardinal Secretary of State reserves to himself to answer the

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  telegram after having received from the German Government an official declaration relative to Belgium, for which he has asked."
  The Cardinal asked Count do Salis for his opinion on this reply, and the latter, thinking that there would be no objection to his expressing a personal opinion, stated that a declaration regarding Belgium seemed desirable, as the point was important, especially for Great Britain, but that the Cardinal would remember that it was only one of many issues between the belligerents. Oh receiving Count de Salis' report of this conversation, His Majesty's Government thought that it was undesirable to be drawn into a piecemeal discussion of this question, and that, if the Central Powers wished to negotiate, they should state their terms in full Count de Salis was, therefore, instructed not to intervene in any way in the negotiations between the Vatican and Germany, and that if he were again asked for his opinion he should decline to give it. The matter then dropped, as the German Government made no declaration regarding Belgium.
  It is thus clear that His Majesty's Government made no advance towards Germany at this time, but they were of course ready to examine, in conjunction with the Allies, any genuine proposals tending to Peace, which they might receive from the German Government.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY:Does that mean that we are to have Papers?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: Yes, it does.

  RUSSIA.

    SOVIET REPUBLIC (BLOCKADE).
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether war had been formally declared between His Majesty and the Russian Soviet Republic; if not, why a blockade was being exercised against the Russian Soviet Republic; whether notice of this blockade had been given to neutral Powers in accordance with international law; and whether drugs, anæsthetics, surgical instruments, lint, and bandages were contraband of war if destined to Soviet Russia?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. No blockade has been declared or is being exercised against any part of Russia. The third and fourth parts of the question, therefore, do not arise. Although no blockade exists either in the White Baltic or Black Seas, the existing conditions which are the result of the aggressive measures taken by the Soviet party in Russia against those portions of the former Empire which decline to acknowledge their authority render it, I believe, physically impossible for goods to reach the interior of Russia.
    Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: Are we at war with the Soviet Republic?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: The hon. and gallant Member knows that that subject has been discussed in this House.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Could the hon. Member say why neutral trading ships are prevented from proceeding to their destination, but are arrested and sent back?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman give me details of such a Case. I am not aware of such a case.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I will do so.

    COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY ARMY.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for War whether the Russian counter-revolutionary Army under Prince Lieven, recently at Libau, was equipped by the German military authorities; whether General von der Goltz and other German officers had joined this Army; whether this Army had recently been furnished with Allied transports; and whether this Army came under the orders of General Sir Hubert Gough or was otherwise co-operating with the Allies in the Eastern Baltic provinces?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Churchill): The force under Prince Lieven, recently at Libau, was equipped by the German military authorities. As far as is known neither General von der Goltz nor other German officers have joined this force. A portion of the force was recently moved by sea in ships provided locally. The force is not under the orders of General Sir Hubert Gough.

    COST OF MILITARY OPERATIONS.
    Sir D. MACLEANasked the Secretary of State for War if he will state what is the estimated cost of our operations in Russia, and also the estimated cost of munitions of war, food, or money sent in support of Russian military operations since the date of the Armistice to 1st July, 1919?
    Captain W. BENNasked the Prime Minister whether he will cause to be prepared a statement showing the total sum spent since the Armistice on the wars in Russia, distinguishing, if possible, the cost of shipping freights and munitions from the cost of maintenance and personnel?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I propose to make a statement on this subject before the House rises.
    Sir D. MACLEAN: Does my right hon. Friend remember that I have given him a margin of £10,000,000 for error, and does he not agree that the House is entitled to this information; and I would further ask him if he does not think that, within that margin which I have given him, the House is entitled to the information before the House rises, so as to give us an opportunity of making some comment on the information?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I will do my best to meet the request of my right hon. Friend.
    Captain BENN: Is he aware that the War Office has this afternoon given a full statement as to the expenses of the expeditions in Ireland?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: My hon. and gallant Friend cannot connect Ireland with Russia.
    Captain BENN: No; but there cannot be any more difficulty.

    EXPEDITIONS (COST).
    Captain BENNasked the Prime Minister whether any estimate of the cost or record of the expenditure in connection with the Russian expeditions has been considered by the Cabinet?
    Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): The financial aspect of this question has been constantly under the consideration of the Cabinet.
    Captain BENN: Has the right hon. Gentleman any precise figures as to the cost of the assistance rendered to the Russian Armies?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: We never have had detailed estimates, but we have always tried to form some idea of what the expenditure was.
    Captain BENN: Will the right hon. Gentleman convey to the House, as has been conveyed to the Cabinet, some idea of what the expense is?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I think that is not necessary, because I understand a promise has been given that more detailed estimates will be given to the House.
    Captain BENN: Before the end of the Session?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I hope so.
    Lieut.-Colonel C. MALONE: Are any options on concessions, or other forms of, credit, being obtained to pay for this expense?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: No.

    PEACE INQUIRIES.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lord H.CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Prime Minister whether the Government will make inquiries in Russia with the object of finding out whether it is possible to secure peace which is consistent with our obligations of honour to those who are our friends in that country?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: It is impossible to add anything on this subject to what has already been said in Debate by the Government.
    Lord H. CAVEND1SH-BENTINCK: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is an increasing impression in the country that the bulk of the Government's activities in Russia merely leads to the strengthening of Bolshevism in this country and to giving it a fictitious popularity in this country?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: It is obvious, I think, that is not a subject that can be dealt with by question and answer. It would have to be discussed in Debate.

  EGYPT (CAPITULATIONS)
  Captain W. BENNasked the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps the Government proposed to take for the representation of the interests of the non-Egyptian population on the abolition of the Capitulations?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: His Majesty's Government do not propose to take any steps in this matter until they have received the recommendations of Lord Milner's Mission.
  Captain BENN: In view of the changed status of Egypt will this House be consulted in this matter?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: That question should be addressed, surely, to the Leader of the House.

  BRITISH REPRESENTATIVE, BRUSSELS (STATUS).
  Commander BELLAIRSasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many representatives of other nations had precedence over the British Minister at the recent Belgian celebrations when President Poincaré visited Brussels; and whether there was any intention of raising the status of the British representative to that of Ambassador?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: As has already been announced in the Press, His Majesty's Legation at Brussels was raised to the rank of an Embassy on 25th July. As the visit of President Poincaré took place before that date, it is to be presumed that the United States and French Ambassadors took precedence of Sir Francis Villiers on that occasion.

  ARMY TRAINING (EDUCATION).
  Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAYasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the statement made in the pamphlet issued with Army Order No. 7, of 13th May, 1919, that educational training is not to be regarded as a secondary consideration, but as an essential element in the making of a soldier and an Army, and provides a link with civil life and the nation at large, he could say whether some such educational system as had proved so successful in the British Army of the Rhine will be a definite organisation of the future Army?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I am glad to be in a position to say that it has been decided that education is henceforward to be regarded as an integral part of Army training. Hon. Members will, however, realise that the establishment necessary to give
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  effect to this principle cannot be laid down in detail until the composition and conditions of service of the future Army are finally decided.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAYasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the statement made on 11th June by the President of the Board of Education, that the fact that education was henceforward to be an essential part of Army training was one of the great steps forward in social progress, he would say what arrangements had been made to afford to Regular units proceeding overseas the advantages of the present Army educational scheme?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: Arrangements are being made, as far as possible in the present circumstances, to ensure that Regular units proceeding overseas shall not suffer a break in the continuity of their present educational training, but shall be enabled to carry into effect the decision I have announced in answer to the previous question.
  Captain BOWYERasked the Secretary of State for War if he will state the nature of the facilities provided for the general and technical education of apprentices and others in the Army at home and abroad, and in particular of the Army of the Rhine; and the results that have attended the provision of these facilities?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: A full statement as to the educational organisation in the Army was given in my reply to the hon. and learned Member for York on the 3rd April last. This organisation has been confirmed and, where necessary, modified or supplemented by an Army Order issued on the 13th May which sets forth the principles, curricula, and the whole system. I am sending my hon. and gallant Friend a copy of the Army Order. Very satisfactory results have attended these educational facilities. For example, the last Return from the Array of the Rhine, to which my hon. and gallant Friend specially refers, shows that the numbers attending classes during June were 1,295 apprentices and 72,075 other students. In this Return the additional students in the three Army colleges, namely, the General and Commercial College at Cologne, the Science College at Bonn, and the Technical College at Siegburg, are not included owing to the fact that during part of June there was a break between the courses at these colleges.

  ARMY CLOTHING SUPPLIES.
  Mr. WALLACEasked the Secretary of State for War what were the total quantities of khaki cloth, flannel, hosiery, and blankets held by the War Office at home and abroad, and the number of finished garments in cloth and flannel, including any such cloth and flannel invoiced by the War Office to makers-up; what quantities of cloth and garments were required as reserves and upon what basis such reserves were estimated; and what quantities under the above categories had been declared surplus to requirements by the War Office since the Armistice?
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): The figures asked for in the question cover so wide a field that I regret I am not at the moment in a position to give my hon. Friend a detailed statement. If he will be kind enough to postpone the question till this day week, I will do my best to give him the information.

  ARMY COMMISSIONS (UNIVERSITY CANDIDATES).
  Sir HENRY CRAIKasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the valuable type of officer supplied to the Army by the universities, steps would be taken to put an end to the present embargo which made it impossible for any student at a university to enter Woolwich or Sandhurst?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: There is no embargo such as my hon. and learned Friend suggests. I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a more detailed reply to his question.
  The following is the reply referred to:
  There is no embargo on students at the universities competing for Woolwich or Sandhurst. They can do so in the same way as any other candidates, provided they fulfil the conditions as to age. In the case of those students who were serving in the Senior Division of the Officers' Training Corps on the 1st March, 1919 (or who had served prior to that date), they are allowed to compete for Woolwich or Sandhurst up to the age of twenty-one. A limited number of students can be recommended by universities for nomination to cadetships at Woolwich and Sandhurst. This number is dependent on the strength
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  of the university's contingent of the Officers Training Corps. It will be possible for a student to obtain a commission in the Army through a university as an alternative to passing through Woolwich or Sandhurst.
  Sir H. CRAIK: Is it the case that unless special terms are obtained for the universities the age limit shuts them out? I hope my right hon. Friend will keep in consideration the fact that the Commander-in-Chief of the victorious British Army was himself a man who joined the Army through a university?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, but the Regulations which are contemplated will make it possible for a student to obtain a commission in the Army from a university as an alternative to passing through Sandhurst.
  Sir H. CRAIK: At present that is stopped.
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not think so. At any rate it will be a great mistake for the Army to cut itself off from the supply from the universities of a proportion of its officers.
  Colonel ASHLEY: Could the right hon. Gentleman say that a definite number of commissions will be reserved for the universities, as was done before the War?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I think that the time has now come when it is possible to examine with some approach to practical results the problem of the composition and scale of our future Army.
  Mr. J. JONES: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the possibility of giving freedom and equality of opportunity to all men to become officers in the Army?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: Certainly; equality of opportunity according to merit.
  Captain W. BENN: Will the right hon. Gentleman appoint a Committee to inquire with a view to unifying the conditions for all three Services?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I could not answer any question that does not refer to the Service for which I am responsible.

  DEMOBILISATION.

    RELEASE ON COMPASSIONATE GROUNDS.
    Mr. N. MACLEANasked the Secretary of State for War whether he was aware that Sapper D. Logan, No. 282320.

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    L Signal Battalion, Royal Engineers, Havre Detachment, A.P.O. 1, Le Havre, France, was forty-one years of age and was unable to secure demobilisation; that Sapper Logan was with the 56th Divisional Signal Company up till the 21st February, 1919, when he was transferred to the 4th Army; that before transfer he had an interview with the commanding officer, Royal Engineers, in the endeavour to secure release on compassionate grounds; that he was informed that his demobilisation would not suffer, and that he was certain to be released within three months; whether he had been subsequently transferred to the D Corps Signal Company and to the 4th Area Signal Company; and whether, seeing that men of similar age and service had been released from each of these units, he would take immediate steps to release Sapper Logan?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: As I stated in reply to a similar question by the hon. Member for Morpeth on Wednesday last, if Sapper Logan's age is as stated in the question, he will be released in accordance with the instructions recently issued making provision for the early release of all men eligible for demobilisation.
    Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will amend Army Council Instruction No. 287, of 1919, so that a soldier who is the only child of a widowed mother in necessitous circumstances may not be precluded from being demobilised on compassionate grounds?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: As was stated on the 23rd July in reply to the hon. Member for St. Rollox, the Memorandum published on the 17th instant greatly enlarges the scope of the demobilisation regulations, and also renders eligible numbers of men not previously eligible for release. Under the circumstances, I regret that I cannot at present consent to any further modification of the Regulations governing demobilisation. During May and June, 7,864 releases on compassionate grounds were authorised, in addition to over 25,000 in previous months.
    Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENT1NCK: Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that a soldier who is the only child of a widow in necessitous circumstances is a subject of compassion?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, certainly of compassion, but whether it falls within the category of compassionate cases or not is another matter.
    Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: In view of the fact that compassionate regulations cause a great deal of hardship, is it not time they were amended?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I think we had much better try and wind up the whole question of retention of men in the Army. In the course of a limited number of months it will be achieved, and it is not worth while at this stage introducing a lot of complicated Regulations, when we are trying to bring them home from every theatre, and to release them as fast as we possibly can.

    ORDER OF RELEASE.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir F. HALLasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that in the early days of the War a large number of men offered themselves for general service with the Colours, and at each attempt were refused as medically unfit; that in August, 1916, a scheme was put forward by the administration of the War Office whereby men, who had previously been rejected, could present themselves for re-examination and, if acceptable, subsequent enlistment; and whether, considering that such men evinced their willingness to serve their country at an early date after the outbreak of hostilities, he is prepared to consider their claim to demobilisation on the same lines as those laid down for the release of Derby men?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The procedure set out in the Memorandum recently published was only decided upon after very careful consideration, as the beet method of releasing men and mitigating hardships. I regret, therefore, that I am unable to entertain my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion.

    RAILWAY MEN.
    Mr. WATERSONasked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware of the need of railway men being released from the forces in order to cope with congested traffic and prevent overtime being worked; if he is aware that many of these men were not allowed to join the forces at the commencement of the War because of their occupation, which was vital to the country; and if he intends now to penalise these men by retaining them in the Army of Occupation?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The demobilisation Regulations apply to all men alike. Any of the men referred to by the hon. Member who were applied for by the railway companies and registered by the War Office as pivotal or for special release, or who are otherwise eligible under the Memorandum recently published, will be released in accordance with procedure explained therein. I regret that I can take no special action to release men not provided for in those instructions.
    Mr. WATERSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of these men went to the recruiting offices three or four times, and were turned away because of their occupation, and at the present time they cannot get released from the Army, which is a serious penalisation on them, and is causing congestion of traffic on the railways?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I cannot reopen pivotalism under any circumstances. The only course worth while pursuing now is to release all these men—all Conscript men from the Army as fast as they can be released from the Colours.
    Mr. WATERSON: Has the right hon. Gentleman had any conversation with the Railway Executive with reference to the release of these men, or is that Executive merely relying on his generosity in this respect?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No, Sir. The Government have come to the definite decision in principle that we will not reopen pivotalism in any shape at any time.

    1/9TH HAMPSHIRE TERRITORIALS.
    Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSONasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the l/9th Hampshire Territorials have been on active service since 1914; whether he can state if any arrangements have been made to bring them back from India; and, if so, when they may be expected home?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: This battalion is serving in Siberia, and, as I stated during the Debate on Tuesday last, the two battalions in Siberia are to be withdrawn.

    1/4TH DEVON REGIMENT.
    Mr. GEORGE LAMBERTasked the Secretary of State for War if the l/4th Devon Regiment having served three years in Mesopotamia, and while waiting to embark for home, was detained in India
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    and is now to be sent to the Afghan front; and if he is aware that this regiment after its hardships is not fit to take part in a. new campaign?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: As I have already explained, it was found necessary, owing to the conditions prevailing in India, to detain men from Mesopotamia who were being sent home for demobilisation viâ India, but as soon as demobilisation in. that country recommences these men will be among the first to leave.
    Mr. LAMBERT: Has the right hon. Gentleman taken notice of the last part of the question as to whether these men are now to be sent to the Afghan front?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: No one is more anxious than I am that these Mesopotamian men should be brought home to this country at the earliest possible moment, and every instruction to that end has been given. At the same time the authorities in India are facing emergencies of a serious character at the present time.
    Mr. LAMBERT: Can the right hon. Gentleman reply to my question—are those men being sent to the Afghan front?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I do not know.

    IRISH VOLUNTEERS.
    Major O'NEILLasked the Secretary of State for War what priority in the extended scheme of demobilisation is given to Irish soldiers who volunteered for service after 1st January, 1916?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: The Memorandum recently published sets forth the procedure we hope to carry out for the release of all classes of men, and I regret that, unless the men referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend are provided for therein, I can take no steps to grant them any priority of release
    Major O'NEILL: Is he aware that the Memorandum does not provide for these men, and does he mean to say that these men are to placed in worse categories than Derby men who enlisted up to June 1916?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I think the gain will only be a very few months in the case of any class picked out for early release. We are bringing home and endeavouring to release all our conscript soldiers.
    Major O'NEILL: But may I point out that these men are not conscript soldiers;

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    and does he mean to say that absolutely no priority of any kind is to be given, as against Derby men, to Irish soldiers who volunteered, often in face of the strongest representations against volunteering, and can the Government give no other information than that which they have given me to-day about this matter?
    Mr. CHURCHILL: I will not refuse to consider the point, which undoubtedly is one of some substance.
    Sir F. HALL: Does he recognise that these people have been treated in a worse way than conscientious objectors?

  SANDHURST AND WOOLWICH (CADETS).
  Sir F. HALLasked the Secretary of State for War if it has been decided to revert to the pre-war arrangements as regards the fees and expenses of cadets entering Sandhurst and Woolwich; if the result of this will be to make it impossible for parents not possessing ample means to enter their sons for the Army; and if, in view of the proof afforded by the War of the importance of securing officers of intelligence and initiative, irrespective of their financial resources, he will consider the question of continuing the practice followed during the War, under which a career in the Army shall be open to all suitable candidates?
  Mr. FORSTER: The question of the scale of fees to be charged at Sandhurst and Woolwich is under consideration.
  Sir F. HALL: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me whether it is the intention of the Government in future to allow such conditions as will enable all classes of men to go to Sandhurst irrespective of the financial standing of the parents?
  Mr. FORSTER: That is the point that is under consideration now, and I hope when a decision will be reached it will be in accordance with the desires of the hon. and gallant Gentleman.
  Sir F. HALL: Will it be reached in the near future?
  Mr. FORSTER: I hope so, but I cannot say.

  WAR DECORATIONS (SERVICES AT HOME).
  Lieut.-Colonel RAWasked the Secretary of State for War if he will consider the desirability of awarding the General Service Medal to all those nurses and Voluntary Aid Detachment nurses who were engaged in nursing soldiers and sailors in home hospitals?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: As already stated, the question of an award in recognition of services rendered at home during the War is under consideration. I must add this word of warning in order not to encourage false hopes. Every medal which is given to people who did not take part in the fighting detracts from the distinction enjoyed by those who have earned their medals through taking part in the fighting.
  Mr. J. JONES: Does that include the men working on the guns for the barrage in connection with the air raids?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: Up to the present, the only decision, taken by the Government is that the War Medal is to be given to those who embarked from this country to proceed to the theatre of war. When you come to consider the question of services rendered at home, quite another issue is raised and one which must be very carefully considered if justice is to be done.
  Mr. JONES: Will some medal be given to those people who took part in such operations at home?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: That is not settled yet, and I hope the House will think first of all of the soldier who went through the actual fighting.
  Mr. HOGGE: Will the right hon. Gentleman, at any rate, consider some concession to those men whom he and his predecessors compulsorily retained in this country in order to train them and who would otherwise have gone and desired to go all the time, and asked to go all the time, to the front?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: Of course, there are numbers of hard cases. If a medal for home service is to be given, it must be considered entirely separate from the War Medal to those who went out to fight in the War. Whether it is practicable to give a medal for home service or not is

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  not yet decided, because the forms of service are very varied and the difficulties of appreciating them are so varied also.
  Mr. ROYCE: Does the right hon. Gentleman include in those the services of men engaged in connection with the rebellion in Ireland?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: Up to the present time we are confining the War Medal to those who left this country to proceed to the theatre of war against the enemy. I do not regard the services which took place in Ireland as coming within that definition, though certainly a number of men lost their lives.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: If there is a separate medal for home service, will the right hon. Gentleman see that the ribbon is a different one from the other?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I take a strong view on this subject. I am in entire agreement with the purport of the question just asked by my hon. and gallant Friend.

  ARMY IN IRELAND (COST).
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for War what is the cost per month of the British Army in Ireland?
  Mr. FORSTER: Approximately £900,000.

  ARMY OFFICERS (PROMOTION).
  Major GLYNasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider the possibility of granting to all officers of the Regular Forces now serving who have completed ten years' service the right to retire at once with the pension to which they would be entitled in seven years time; whether he is aware that at present a considerable number of officers are remaining in the Service for the purpose of qualifying for a pension, thereby retarding the promotion of younger officers who have previously risen to higher, temporary, or acting rank, which they have filled with success and distinction; and whether, in the interest of the Army, younger officers shall not be discouraged as to their chances of promotion?
  Mr. FORSTER: The measures to be taken in furtherance of the object indicated by my hon. and gallant Friend are
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  already tinder consideration, but I am unable to adopt the precise method indicated by him.

  TERRITORIAL FORCE (CONDITIONS OF SERVICE).
  Major COURTHOPEasked the Secretary of State for War when he will announce the conditions of service and pay of the Territorial Force?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: It is hoped to make an announcement on this subject at a very early date.

  SOLDIERS' LEAVE (OVERSEA SERVICE).
  Captain FALCONasked the Secretary of State for War if soldiers who have served a long period overseas during the War without leave are entitled to seven days or any additional leave for every six months so served abroad without leave; and whether, if they are so entitled, facilties will be given to ensure that these men are now granted this extra leave?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: The period of demobilisation furlough has been fixed at twenty-eight days in all cases. This furlough is additional to the one month's time-expired leave granted to warrant officers, non-commissioned officers and men under Army Council Instruction 851 of 1918, if entitled to the same on termination of engagement and retention with the Colours under the Military Service Acts. Careful consideration has been given, to the question of granting additional furlough or of a bonus in lieu in the cases suggested, but I regret it has been found impossible to depart from the existing Rules.

  CIVIL LIABILITIES DEPARTMENT (APPLICATION FOR ASSISTANCE).
  Major Earl WINTERT.ONasked the Secretary of State for War if he will explain why no answer has been sent to Mr. L. T. Jacobs, Southcot, 8, Pavilion Road, Worthing, in reply to the application he has made to the Civil Liabilities Board for assistance?
  The MINISTER for LABOUR (Sir R. Home): I have been asked to reply to this question. I have not received the application mentioned by the Noble and gallant

  159
  Member. If Mr. Jacobs will communicate with the Civil Liabilities Department at Savoy Court, Victoria Embankment, London, W.C. 2, I will see that the matter is inquired into.
  Earl WINTERTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries as to whether there is not some default in the Department? Constantly men make application, and the answer is given in this House that no application has been received. This is about the third such case I have brought to his notice.
  Sir R. HORNE: I shall be very glad to make inquiries.

  EX-SERVICE MEN (EMPLOYMENT).
  Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEEasked the Secretary of State for War if he can say what steps have been taken to ascertain whether ex-Service men are available as motor drivers and to make the requirements of the War Office known; and whether he will consider the possibility of forming a corps of such men to act as motor drivers in place of the women at present employed, the necessity for whose employment has now ceased with the conclusion of Peace?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: Instructions as regards the employment of men in civil life to fill vacancies created by demobilisation were issued to all commands shortly after the Armistice. The requirements of the War Office are fully made known through the medium of the Labour Exchanges. Ex-Service men are employed wherever possible. Revised terms for re-enlistment in the Army for mechanical transport duties have also been issued, which enable ex-soldiers who are motor drivers to re-enlist for short periods.
  There are certain services which it is considered must be performed by enlisted soldiers or properly enrolled persons; the number of women drivers employed is being gradually reduced as enlisted soldiers becomes available to take their places.
  With regard to the latter part of the question, I am afraid it is not feasible to form a separate corps of civilian drivers, as my hon. and gallant Friend suggests, but he may rest assured that ex-Service men are being, and will be, employed as far as the exigencies of the Service permit.
  Colonel ASHLEY: Is he aware that especially in Dublin and the surrounding districts, there are a large number of unemployed ex-Service men who were trained in the Army and are competent to drive motor cars, and that women continue to be employed there, in large numbers, and will he substitute these ex-Service men, when they come forward, for these women drivers?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: I will make an inquiry into the special fact which has been brought forward by my hon. and gallant Friend.

  FLAGS FOR SERVICE BATTALIONS.
  Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEEasked the Secretary of State for War whether, under the Army Order issued on 24th July, silk Union flags will be issued for service battalions disbanded prior to the Armistice, such as the 12th (Bristol) Battalion the Gloucestershire Regiment, which served in France from November, 1915, and was disbanded on the 5th October, 1918?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: Yes, Sir.

  SERBIAN MILITARY DECORATIONS.
  Major ENTWISTLEasked the Secretary of State for War whether the recommendations of officers and men in the Mechanical Transport Section, Army Service Corps, Salonika Forces, for Serbian decorations, invited by the Serbian Government, have been rejected by the War Office; and, if so, for what reason?
  Mr. CHURCHILL: The answer to my hon. and gallant Friend's question is in the negative.

  INDIAN ARMY OFFICERS IN FRANCE (PAY).
  Colonel YATEasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office if he will state why officers of the Indian Army appointed to command brigades or divisions in France have not been paid at Indian rates the same as in other theatres of war; and will he have the money deducted from the pay of those officers refunded?
  Mr. FORSTER: I think my hon. and gallant Friend is under some misappre-

  161
  hension. Indian Army officers appointed to the staff of British formations have no claim to draw Indian staff rates whether in France or elsewhere. They draw British rates with the option of the pay of their last Indian appointment if more advantageous.
  Colonel YATE: If an officer in France is ordered to take command of a brigade, why should his pay be stopped?
  Mr. FORSTER: When the officer takes over an appointment in the British formation, he draws British rates of pay.
  Colonel YATE: What is the reason? He comes from India and is guaranteed Indian rates of pay; he is ordered to do certain duty, and he does it, and he is under his original guarantee.
  Mr. FORSTER: I would point out that in the last part of my answer I say that they have the option of the pay of their last Indian appointment if it is more advantageous to them.

  WEIGHTS AND MEASURES ACT.
  Mr. ALFRED SHORTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has received any representations in favour of the administration of the Weights and Measures Acts being transferred from the police and put in the hands of civilian inspectors; and whether he will consider the advisability of taking steps to this end?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): The question has received much consideration, but I do not see my way at present to interfere with the discretion vested in local authorities with regard to it.

  INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS (SONS OF DEMOBILISED MEN).
  Major ENTWISTLEasked the Home Secretary whether Donald Hill, son of Gunner S. Hill, No. 39434, Royal Field Artillery, who was committed to the industrial school at Stockport in 1917 for playing truant from school during his father's absence on active service, can now be restored to his home, in view of the fact that his father was demobilised in March last and now desires his boy's return, and is capable and willing to look
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  after the boy in the future; and whether he will give general instructions in similar cases for the return of boys to their fathers when the latter are demobilised?
  Mr. SHORTT: I have caused inquiry to be made into this case and am communicating the facts to the hon. and gallant Member. I should not feel justified in giving general instructions such as are suggested in the latter part of the question, but all such cases will be considered sympathetically with reference to the history and character of the child and the character and circumstances of the parents.

  POLICE PENSIONS.
  Colonel ASHLEYasked the Home Secretary if he will state what steps are being taken to revise the pensions of those members of the police force who retired previous to the outbreak of war, in order to compensate them for the increased cost of living; and whether special consideration will be given to the claims of those who re joined subsequent to August, 1914?
  Lieut.-Colonel A. HERBERTasked the Home Secretary if those constables who left the force before 1914 are not to receive equal treatment with regard to pensions with" those who left the force later?
  Mr. SHORTT: I would refer the hon. and gallant Members to the replies which I gave to the hon. and gallant Members for Dùlwich and Yeovil on the 10th and 22nd July respectively.
  Colonel ASHLEY: Could the right hon. Gentleman answer that part of my question which is not answered, whether special consideration will be given to those who rejoined subsequent to August, 1914?
  Mr. SHORTT: I am afraid that cannot be done.

  WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT.
  Mr. W. CARTERasked the Home Secretary whether he will expedite the findings of the Committee appointed to consider the Workmen's Compensation Act, as the high cost of living makes it impossible for the recipients of compensation to get the bare necessities of life?
  Mr. SHORTT: I am not in a position, to interfere with the procedure of the Com-

  163
  mittee, but I am sure that they will use the utmost expedition. Meanwhile, I have under consideration proposals which have been laid before me by certain organisations of employers and workmen for the Amendment of the Workmen's Compensation (War Addition) Act, 1917, and I hope that it will be possible to reach, in consultation with the general body of employers' organisations, an agreement which will enable me to take immediate action.

  PROHIBITION CAMPAIGN.
  Mr. INSKIPasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that a number of American subjects are preparing a campaign in this country on American lines, to be financed by American money, with a view to the prohibition of the sale of alcoholic drinks; and whether, in view of the bitterness and disorder which this campaign may arouse in this country at a very critical time, he will consider the possibility of informing these persons that the British electors prefer to settle their domestic questions for themselves?
  Mr. SHORTT: I am not indisposed to agree with the suggestion that the British people can settle this matter for itself, but as I informed the hon. Member for Nottingham last Thursday, I do not think any steps by the Government are necessary.
  Sir J. D. REES: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the hon. Member for Nottingham was not satisfied with that answer?
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will any obstacle be placed in the way of our retaliation, of our sending missionaries to America to reconvert them back to our system in this country?
  Mr. SHORTT: Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will consider that.

  UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAYasked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to announce the appointment of a British Ambassador to the United States of America?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I regret that I am not yet in a position to state the name of the new Ambassador,
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Minister-Plenipotentiary, Mr. Barclay, who did very valuable work, is now back in this country; that the Chargé d' Affaires at the Embassy has not yet received the rank of Counsellor; that the bulk of the Embassy staff is new; and that there is a Minister on the Front Bench who would fill the post very admirably?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I have no doubt as to the last part of the question. The reason, for the delay is that we felt that at that moment nothing could be more important for the future relations of the whole world than to get the best man possible for this post. It is now under consideration, and if, as I hope, he is able to accept it, I am sure the House will think it has been worth while waiting.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: Are we likely to have that information before the House rises?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I shall certainly be greatly disappointed if we are not able to-announce the name before the House rises.

  CIVIL LIST PENSIONS.
  Mr. RAPERasked the Prime Minister the number of persons on the Civil List of pensions, the average annual amount paid, the highest and lowest pensions, and the total amount?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: There are at present 310 persons drawing Civil List Pensions— the average pension being £77. The highest is one of £300, and the lowest one of £20. The total amount of pensions at present in existence is £23,714.

  CELLULOSE INQUIRY.
  Mr. RAPERasked the Prime Minister When Lord Simmer's Report on the cellulose inquiry will be forthcoming?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: It is hoped that the Report will be in the hands of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the course of a few days.
  Mr. RAPER: Is it not a fact that it was stated in this House by the Prime Minister, in reply to a similar question a few weeks ago, that the Report would be forthcoming before the end of last month, and may I take it the Report will be forthcoming before the House adjourns?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I think that is certain.
  Mr. LAMBERT: Will the Report be in the hands of Members as well as the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Oh, yes.

  PEACE TREATY.

    BULGARIA.
    Sir F. HALLasked the Prime Minister if the terms of the Peace Treaty proposed by the Allies in the case of Bulgaria have yet been determined; if they have been presented to the Bulgarian Government; and whether such terms provide for the cession to Bulgaria of any territory which was not in her possession before she entered into the War?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. The other two parts, therefore, do not arise.

    MILCH COWS FROM GERMANY AND AUSTRIA.
    Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that the shortage of milk is not such as seriously to affect the population of Belgium and France, and that the withdrawal of 140,000 milch cows from Germany and Austria would endanger the lives of 600,000 babies, the Government will take steps to induce the Governments of France and Belgium to postpone execution of this obligation?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I cannot add anything to the previous replies on this subject.

  LIQUOR TRADE (STATE CONTROL).
  Mr. SITCHasked the Prime Minister whether at any time during the War the War Cabinet had definitely resolved upon a policy of State purchase and public control of the liquor trade; if so, whether in the interval the considerations which induced them to adopt this policy have lost anything of their force; and, if not, whether it may be assumed that the Government are still prepared at the appropriate moment to give effect to this policy?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Silver town on 6th July.

  MISS VIOLET DOUGLAS-PENNANT (SELECT COMMITTEE).
  Sir J. BUTCHERasked the Prime Minister whether the expenses of the Select Committee ordered by the House of Lords on the case of Miss Violet Douglas-Pennant will appear on the Votes and, if so, under what heading; and whether the Government will consider the desirability of refusing to pay any of the expenses of this Committee?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Any such expenses would be chargeable to the Vote for House of Lords' Offices, which includes provision for witnesses attending the Committees and shorthand-writers. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative.
  Sir J. D. REES: May I ask what course the head of a Department must adopt in future when he thinks it desirable to remove a lady who by birth, brains, or beauty possesses powerful influence?
  Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of this question.

  FEDERAL DEVOLUTION.
  Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Prime Minister when the Committee on Federal Devolution will be appointed?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the answer which I gave yesterday to a question by my hon. and gallant friend the Member for Midlothian and Peebles.

  GENERAL STRIKE.
  Lord R. CECILasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the proposal to bring about a general strike of all those engaged in the coal-mining, railway, and other transport industries so as to force the Government, by the dislocation of those industries, to adopt certain policies in connection with Russia, military service, and conscientious objectors; and whether this House can be assured that the Government will resist with all the resources at its disposal this revolutionary attempt to set aside the constitutional authorities of this country by the action of sectional organisations of its citizens?
  Mr. BONARLAW: Any attempt to force a decision on political questions which affect the whole community by the methods suggested in the question would, if it were successful, mean the end of democratic and constitutional Government in this country, and it is, therefore, unnecessary to say that it would be the duty of the Government to resist such an attempt with all the resources at their disposal.
  Mr. J. JONES: Will equal treatment be served out to all who disobey the laws?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Certainly.
  Mr. ROSE: In, view of the momentous issues developed by this agitation, and in view of the fact that the Labour party have chosen to play the role of Mr. Facing-both-ways in reference to it, will the right hon. Gentleman give facilities to the House for discussing this question and coming to an opinion?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I really do not think there is any doubt—I should be sorry to believe there was any doubt—as to the opinion of the House upon this question.

  PEACE CELEBRATIONS (EAST LONDON).
  Major BLAIRasked the Prime Minister if, in view of the fact that the East End of London has always, since the Armistice, been left out of official Peace celebrations, processions, triumphal marches, and pageants, he will give the reason why the River Pageant yesterday could not have started opposite Greenwich and Poplar and finished at Chelsea instead of making the return journey and thus afforded a larger number of wounded and war workers an opportunity of viewing the pageant; and, considering the amount of war service done by the residents of the eastern portion of the Metropolis, will he see that the East End has its share in any future official rejoicing?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The River Pageant was not a part of the official Peace celebrations, although the Admiralty rendered every assistance possible. I am informed that the factors governing the length of the course were time, tide, landing facilities, and the fact that the principal boats-were pulling boats which rendered any extension impracticable. As regards the position of the East End, I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the previous answers which I have given on this subject.

  SUB-POST OFFICES (FAIR-WAGES CLAUSE).
  Mr. R. YOUNGasked the Prime Minister whether the Fair-Wages Clause which is inserted in all Government con tracts requires all Government contractors to pay the rates of wages agreed upon between the employers and the workpeople's representatives; whether this Clause is inserted in all agreements between the Post master-General and the contractors who act as scale-payment sub-postmasters; and, if not, whether he will see that such a Clause is inserted for the protection of the badly-paid clerks for whose conditions the Postmaster-General declines responsibility?
  The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pease): There is no agreed rate of wages for assistants at sub-offices, but sub-postmasters are required to give their assistants not less favourable pay and conditions of service than those of shop assistants in the service of good shopkeepers in the same district.

  COAL INDUSTRY COMMISSION.
  Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the Prime Minister whether the Government has decided on a policy with reference to the second Report of the Sankey Commission?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I can add nothing to previous replies on this subject.

  MINISTRY OF WAYS AND COMMUNICATIONS.
  Colonel GRETTONasked the Prime Minister if any appointments have been made to the staff of the proposed Ministry of Ways and Communications; if any offices are yet acquired; and if any salaries have yet been paid on account of the staff of the new Ministry?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: No appointments have yet been made, but certain highly qualified officials have been invited, in the event of the Ministry of Ways and Communications being established, to join the staff. The names of these gentlemen have been announced. No offices are yet acquired, and no salaries have been paid on account of the staff of the new Ministry.

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  A certain number of staff from other Departments have been loaned in connection with the preparation of the Bill.

  CENTRAL CONTROL BOARD (LIQUOR TRAFFIC).
  Colonel GRETTONasked the Prime Minister when the proposals of the Government for the abolition of the Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic) and setting up a Commission in its place will be laid before Parliament; and will these proposals involve legislation?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I regret that I am not yet in a position to make any statement. The answer to the last part of the question is in the affirmative.
  Sir S. HOARE: Can my right hon. Friend say when he will introduce the Bill of which he spoke?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: We do not know that it will be possible to introduce it before the Recess.

  MR. JUSTICE SANKEY.
  Sir RICHARD COOPERasked the Prime Minister if Mr. Justice Sankey, before his elevation to the bench, had held the position of standing counsel to the Miners' Federation; and was this fact brought to his notice when he asked Mr. Justice Sankey to preside over the recent Coal Commission?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I am unaware whether or not the suggestion contained in the question represents the facts; but I am quite certain that the inuendo which it contains against the impartiality of a Judge of the Realm ought not to be made.
  Sir R. COOPER: Is it not in the public interest that rumours which have got very widespread should be crushed by hon. Members asking deliberate questions on the matter?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: No; but I think it is in the public interest that Members of this House should do their best not to spread, but to crush such rumours.
  Mr. W. CARTER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that questions of that kind usually come out of the minds of men who judge of the character and honour of other people by their own?

  PRIME MINISTER (ATTENDANCE AT THE HOUSE).
  Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Lord Privy Seal whether the absence of the Prime Minister at Question Time is to be a permanent arrangement for the present Parliament, or whether the Prime Minister will resume the leadership of this House at the earliest possible moment?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I can add nothing to what has already been said on this subject.
  Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: May I very respectfully ask the Leader of the House whether the arrangement that now exists is to be permanent throughout the present Parliament?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: No, Sir. We have come to no conclusion in that respect. All that has been decided is that, so long as the pressure on the Prime Minister is as great as it is now, we shall not alter the present arrangement.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: The House as a whole quite understands the great pressure upon the time of the Prime Minister at present, and also understands that he is very much wearied with his great labours in Paris—we all understand that—but can the right hon. Gentleman give any assurance that when the House meets after the Autumn Vacation we may expect to see the Prime Minister take his accustomed place in the House of Commons?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: No, Sir, I cannot give that assurance. But I can say that it is only a question of special pressure. At this moment, so far as I can judge, the pressure on the time of the Prime Minister is as great as it was during the War.
  Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: Would not the pressure on the Prime Minister be removed if ordinary Cabinet Government were resumed?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: No, Sir.

  NATIONAL FINANCE.
  Mr. G. MURRAYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in order to attract investments from sources which have not been tapped by the Victory Loan, and with a view to reducing the floating debt, he will consider the desirability of issuing a long-term loan bearing interest at 1¾If per cent., and free of Income Tax, Super-tax, and Death Duties?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): I shall naturally consider all suggestions for dealing with the debt, but, as at present advised, I do not think I could adopt the policy of a tax-free loan of the kind indicated.
  Mr. LAMBERTasked what were the amounts of the currency note issues on the 1st April, 1918, the 1st April, 1919, and the 1st August, 1919; what were the Bank of England note issues for the same dates; and the amount of the gold reserve?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The nearest available figures are as follow:
  Currency Notes. —3rd April, 1918, £230,851,192; 2nd April, 1919, £332,122,712; 30th July, 1919, £338,787,087. Bank of England Notes. —3rd April, 1918, £79,007,145; 2nd April, 1919, £101,943,655; 30th July, 1919, £104,681,285. The gold held in the Currency Note Reserve Account has been on all three dates £28,500,000, and that held by the Bank of England Issue Department at the dates named £60,557,145, £83,493,655, and £86,231,285 respectively.
  Major O'NEILLasked the exact amount of the floating debt which has been or will be liquidated as a result of the recent Government Loan and the amount which will remain outstanding after such liquidation?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Between the 12th July, the date on which the Loan closed, and the 2nd instant, there has been a net reduction in the floating debt of about £377,000,000, the total outstanding being reduced from £1,558,676,600 to £1,181,255,600. There are about £90,000,000 of the proceeds of the Loans still to be received. I give these figures with all reserve, since the extent to which it may be possible to make any further reduction or even to maintain the reduction already made must depend on how far the Budget estimates of receipts and expenditure can be made good.
  Major O'NEILL: In regard to the reduction of the floating debt, and the result of the Loan as it affects it, is the £250,000,000 which is to be borrowed for this year's current expenditure, referred to in the answer of the right hon. Gentleman, considered a reduction of the floating debt?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. and gallant Member asks me what amount of floating debt has been or will be
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  liquidated. I have told him the amount of the floating debt which has been liquidated. I have given these figures, subject to a caution as to the future which was indicated at the end of my answer. What the position of the floating debt will be at the end of the financial year depends upon the question of how far the estimate of receipts and expenditure given to the Budget Statement is realised.
  Sir D. MACLEANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the amount of Treasury notes issued at the date of the Armistice, at 1st January, 1919, at 1st May,. 1919, and at 1st July, 1919?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The currency notes (including certificates) outstanding, as shown in the weekly Return published in the "London Gazette," have been as follow:

  £

  13th November, 1918

  …

  293,790,972

  1st January, 1919

  …

  323,240,501

  30th April, 1919

  …

  348,339,626

  2nd July, 1919

  …

  342,952,149

  I am glad to be able to add that on 31st July the amount had fallen to £338,787,087.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: May I ask my right hon. Friend, in view of the very serious position disclosed by these figures, whether he has brought to the notice of the Prime Minister the very great urgency of a ruthless cutting down of unnecessary public expenditure'?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My right hon. Friend is as fully seised of the necessity for economy in every branch of public expenditure as I myself am; and I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to him for the assistance he has given me.
  Sir F. BANBURY: Am I correct in assuming that at the present moment the currency note issue is £40.000,000 larger than it was at the date of the Armistice?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think my right hon. Friend can make the calculation in his head as rapidly as I can.
  Sir F. BANBURY: As the right hon. Gentleman has asked me to make the calculation, will he take my answer that my calculation is correct?

  INCOME TAX.
  Mr. T. WILSONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is

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  aware that, under a recommendation of the Coal Industry Commission, miners received during April last arrears of pay for work done in the previous financial year; whether this sum will be reckoned as part of this year's income; and whether, in view of the fact that to reckon it as part of this year's income in the case of a man whose income last year was under the Income Tax limit will work hardship, ho will give instructions that this particular sum shall be regarded as income for the previous year?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The arrears of pay to which the hon. Member refers are regarded for Income Tax purposes as earnings of the quarter in respect of which they accrued —i.e., the quarter ended 5th April last —and will not be reckoned as part of this year's income.
  Mr. MURCHISONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether any stops can be taken to prevent the loss of revenue to the Treasury caused by a large number of people who are not ordinarily resident in this country investing their money in War Loan for the sole purpose of avoiding the payment of Income Tax?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The exemption in question is one of the privileges given under the terms of certain war issues, and there can, of course, be no question of depriving holdersof such issues of their prospectus rights.

  SUPER-TAX.
  Mr. MURCHISONasked what steps, if any, are taken to collect Super-tax from British subjects who are not ordinarily resident in this country and whose incomes are over the Super-tax limit?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Non-residents who are known to be in receipt of income from this country in excess of the Super tax exemption limit are called upon to make returns in the same way as residents. Provision is also made in Section 7 of the Income Tax Act, 1918, for the assessment of non-residents through resident agents where such exist. I may add that the law is not effective to secure the collection of Super-tax in all cases from persons resident outside the jurisdiction of the Courts of this country, and that the question of the avoidance of Super-tax by non-residents is one of the matters which will be considered by the Royal Commission on the Income Tax.

  ACCOUNTANTS (APPOINTMENTS).
  Commander BELLAIRSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the restriction of permanent appointments as accountants in the Board of Inland Revenue in a recent advertisement to members of certain societies prevents many public accountants of wide experience and practical ability in every branch of their profession applying; whether he is aware that mere membership of any society gives no guarantee that the applicant is a practical accountant; and whether, in order to widen the field of selection and obtain the best men, he will allow members of other incorporated societies of accountants to apply for the appointments?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply I gave to a question by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Deptford on the 15th ultimo.

  AUSTRIA-HUNGARY (PEACE TERMS).
  Sir F. HALLasked the Prime Minister if he can state approximately the latest date which will be agreed to by the Allies for the acceptance or rejection of the terms of peace which have been offered to Austria-Hungary?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: The Austrians have been given to 6th August to reply to the Allied peace terms. Until such reply is received and considered no date can be given by which the term must be finally accepted. No terms of peace have as yet been submitted to Hungary.

  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

    ACCIDENT IN TRENCHES.
    Mr. N. MACLEANasked the Pensions Minister whether he is aware that ex-Private George Armstrong, No. 46G1, 18th Highland Light Infantry, has been discharged from the Army and refused a pension, although he has lost one of his legs through an accident with his rifle in the trenches; whether he is aware that this soldier has served four years and five days during the War, was wounded at the Somme, 17th July. 1916, and gassed at Guillemont Farm, 9th July, 1917, and has

    175
    been given the silver badge; whether he is aware that this man is now compelled, in order to earn a living for his wife and three children, to play an organ in the streets of Glasgow; and what steps he is prepared to take to secure to this man the pension to which his service and disability entitle him?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Colonel Sir James Craig): Pension could not be awarded to Private Armstrong under the Royal Warrant, because the accident was caused by his own serious negligence while he was cleaning his rifle. In the circumstances of this case, however, the Treasury were approached with a view to the Grant of a modified pension under the Dispensing Warrant, and authority has now been obtained to award Private Armstrong a pension of 22s. a week for thirteen weeks and then 11s. a week permanently, with proportionate children's allowances. Immediate steps are being taken for the issue of this pension
    Mr. MACLEAN: Does not the granting of the silver badge acquit this soldier of any fault with regard to negligence and will the hon. and gallant Gentleman take into consideration the possibility of granting to this soldier the full pension and thus removing from the streets of Glasgow a sight which is causing a good deal of unrest amongst the people.
    Sir J. CRAIG: When the pension warrant was drawn up it had no relation whatever to the silver badge. In the meantime I think we have done all that is possible to modify the form of pension for this man.
    Mr. CLYNES: In a case like this could not the hon. and gallant Gentleman cause steps to be taken which would continue the support to be given to the women and children referred to in the question, even though the man might be in fault.
    Sir J. CRAIG: I will consider this point with the Minister.
    Mr. MACLEAN: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman know the circumstances, because this man is playing a barrel organ in the streets—[AN HON. MEMBER: "Speak up, you are just having a conversation."]

    TREATMENT ALLOWANCE.
    Colonel ASHLEYasked, in view of the fact that where a disabled man's medical adviser disagrees with the medical referee an independent medical man may be called in; why the case of Private A. Kemp, No. 12101, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, was not referred to an independent medical man when the matter was brought to the notice of the Ministry, as not only this man's medical adviser but the medical officer of the Birmingham General Hospital, where he attended for treatment under instructions from the pensions committee, both certified that he was unfit for work, while the medical referee stated that he was fit for light in-work and in consequence his treatment allowance was stopped; and whether this case will be reconsidered with a view to-the retrospective payment of treatment allowance from November, 1918, to March, 1919, when Kemp was compelled to return to work against medical advice?
    Sir J. CRAIG: On the report of the medical referee that Mr. Kemp was "fit for light sedentary work," treatment allowances ceased on the 26thNovember, 1918. In the following month the pension was re-assessed at 80 per cent. and payment at that rate has been made as from the date when the treatment allowances ceased. The certificates given in this case by Mr. Kemp's medical adviser and by the hospital medical officer appear to have been in the form "that he is not fit for his usual employment," which does not necessarily conflict with the medical referee's certificate.

  STEAMSHIP "MACEDONIA" (REPAIRS).
  Mr. G. LLOYDasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Controller if he is aware that the steamship "Macedonia" was ordered to Newport, Monmouthshire, for refitting over six months ago; if the nature of the repairs are unusual for the port, and if they are too extensive for the port; if there is but a very limited supply of shipwright labour; if such shipwright labour as is available refuse to work overtime; if there have been continual delays and interruptions during the progress of the work; and if he will in the public interest order the vessel to some other port for completion of repairs?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): I have been asked to reply. I am advised that after consultation with the local authorities, the repairs to this ship were not considered too extensive for the port in question. Shipwright labour is limited and in great demand all over the country. There have been delays and interruption during the progress of the work, but at this late period it is not considered expedient to order the vessel to another port for her completion.

  TRANSPORT WORKERS' BATTALIONS.
  Mr. MARSHALL STEVENSasked what civilian work the transport workers' battalions, recently disbanded, performed under the direction of the Port and Transit Executive Committee; whether they were solely used to supplement proved deficiencies in civilian labour, or whether they were used to compete with civilian labour; what disputes with labour arose through their employment; what number of soldiers formed the battalions; what was the aggregate time worked by the men, the tonnage of traffic handled by them, and the civil pay earned by them; to what extent was the work of the battalions effective; and did they while serving at the ports maintain their efficiency as units in the Home Defence Army?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of SHIPPING (Colonel Wilson): The transport workers battalions supplemented civilian labour wherever there was a proved shortage in the ports, railway centres, canals, and iron and steel works in the discharge of cargoes. They were solely used to supplement proved deficiencies in civilian labour, and on no occasion did they ever compete with civilian labour, nor were there any disputes with civil labour in regard to the employment of men of the Transport Workers' Battalions. The Transport Workers' Battalion scheme was inaugurated with the sanction of the War Cabinet in May, 1916, one battalion being then formed. Early in 1917 the number of the battalions was increased to a strength of 5,000 men, and ultimately to an effective strength of 35,000.
  The men did some 5,712,200 days' work throughout; they handled 27,341,000 tons, they earned £2,069,245 of civil pay, and
  178
  while so working saved £980,000 to Army funds by paying for their own food and billets. The work of the battalions again and again stopped a port becoming blocked. I am glad to say that the scheme was a complete success from the start, and from all reports received by the Port and Transit Executive Committee the battalions maintained a very high state of efficiency as units of the Homo Defence Army.
  Mr. STEVENS: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman consider the granting of some honours to this wonderful battalion of workers to-morrow?
  Colonel WILSON: This battalion has already received some thirty-two decorations, and fourteen more have been recommended. I hope my hon. Friend's suggestion will receive favourable consideration from the authorities.

  CARPENTERS AND JOINERS (WAGES).
  Mr. T. WILSONasked the Secretary for Scotland if he is aware that the Board of Agriculture for Scotland is employing carpenters and joiners on work at Nigg, Ross-shire, and only paying them at the rate of 1s. 4d. per hour for a fifty-two-hour week, the rate of pay for the district being 1s. 8 ¾d. per hour for a forty-four-hour week; and whether he will take steps to enforce the provisions of the Fair-Wages Clause in connection with this work?
  The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Munro): I am informed by the Board of Agriculture for Scotland that the carpenters and joiners employed by them at Nigg, Ross-shire, are paid at the maximum rate for the district in which they are employed. The rate of Is. 8 ¾d. mentioned by the hon. Member is, I understand, a rate fixed for Invergordon and district under an agreement between certain contractors and the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, Cabinet-Makers, and Joiners. According to the information before me, Nigg does not lie within this district.

  HOUSING SCHEMES (SCOTLAND).
  Mr. RODGERasked if the Scottish Board of Health has fixed or recom-

  179
  mended that rooms in houses erected under housing schemes be limited to the following dimensions: Area of floors, living room 180 feet, principal bedroom 150 feet, second bedroom 100 feet, height of ceiling 8 ½ feet; and, if so, will he specially reconsider the dimensions of the living room both as to area and height of ceiling, in order that the houses may better fulfil the necessary conditions of family comfort?
  Mr. MUNRO: The floor areas of the apartments cited by my hon. Friend are those referred to in the Report by the Committee on Building Construction, presided over by the hon. Member for Bright-side as being desirable minima, and they have been adopted as such by the Scottish Board of Health in houses being erected under State assistance. The Board, however, have neither fixed nor recommended that the floor areas of the apartments in question should be limited to these dimensions. They have approved many plans showing greater floor areas. As regards the height of ceilings, the Board are of opinion that a height of 8 ft. 6 ins. is sufficient for one and two-storeyed houses. In tenements, however, minimum of 9 ft. is insisted upon.

  FOOD SUPPLIES.

    POTATOES.
    Mr. WILLIAM SHAWasked the Food Controller if he can now state the tonnage of 1918 potatoes remaining on the hands of growers in Scotland for which compensation has been claimed; what the approximate loss to the Exchequer will be; and will he state the number of tons claimed for, respectively, by farmers and merchant-growers, and the number of tons claimed for by the members of the allocation committees?
    The MINISTER of FOOD (Mr. Roberts): The total quantity of potatoes tendered by Scottish growers on the 30th June was 51,000 tons, including 649 tons tendered by merchant-growers and 984 tons by members of the Allocation Authority. Of this quantity, 29,000 tons have been delivered since the 30th June. It is impossible at present to give any estimate of the loss to the Exchequer, as a large proportion of the loss will fall to be borne by foreign Governments who
    180
    have failed to take delivery of the whole of the potatoes which they contracted to buy.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Sir D. MACLEAN: May I ask the Leader of the House what Bill he proposes to take after eleven o'clock to-night, and particularly what he proposes to take after nine o'clock? Will it be either the Ministries and Secretaries Bill or the War-Emergency Laws (Continuance) Bill?
Mr. BONAR LAW: We only hope to take the first two Orders to-day. We should like to proceed with the Ministries and Secretaries Bill if we have an opportunity after nine o'clock.
Sir D. MACLEAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the great interest taken in the Ministries and Secretaires Bill? I think we should be given an opportunity of raising questions relating to the Prime Minister and the War Cabinet.
Sir F. BANBURY: Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to take more than one stage of any Bill after eleven o'clock?
Mr. BONAR LAW: Not to-night. I think we had better judge of the form the discussion is likely to take after we come to the Bill. I am sure my right hon. Friend and the House will realise that it is very important, if we can, to push on these Committees on account of the Adjournment.
Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Ministries and Secretaries Bill is the second Order?
Mr. BONAR LAW: I said we would take the first two Orders, and I would take the Ministries and Secretaries Bill after nine o'clock.
Lord R. CECIL: I would like to know whether the Government intends to issue any Paper explanatory of the Welsh Church Tenporalities Bill, and, if so, when will it be issued?
Mr. BONAR LAW: Such a Memorandum has been prepared, and the delay is due to difficulties of printing. I think it will be available this afternoon, or, at any rate, by to-morrow.
Colonel ASHLEY: Are we to distinctly understand that the War Emergency Laws (Continuance) Bill is not to be taken to-night? If that be so, will the right hon.

181
Gentleman say when it is going to be taken, because a good many hon. Members attach great interest to it?
Mr. BONAR LAW: It is not going to be taken to night, but I cannot say now when it will be taken.
Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: May I put a point to you, Mr. Speaker, with reference to the Forestry Bill? A Report has been issued which is largely founded upon, the Report of a Sub-committee of the Reconstruction Committee. I asked in the Vote Office this morning whether I could obtain a copy of that Report for 1917, and there was no such Report in the Vote Office. 1 wish to ask whether on a similar occasion in the future it will be possible to obtain such a Report in regard to a question of this kind before the House is asked to consider it?
Mr. SPEAKER: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman had given me notice, I would have seen that copies were there. But it is impossible to know what hon. Members may want, and it is not practicable to keep
all documents in the Vote Office, which is very small. They are, however, all kept in the Sale Office, and if the hon. and gallant Member will go down to that office, which is only a few steps further, he will be able to get a copy.
Captain W. BENN: There are thirteen pages of the Schedule of the War Emergency Laws (Continuance) Bill relating to War enactments which it is proposed to continue. Would the right hon. Gentleman consider the possibility of publishing a Paper, so that hon. Members may know what are these enactments?
Mr. BONAR LAW: I will consider that suggestion with my right hon. Friend who has prepared the Bill.
Motion made, and Question put,
"That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted at this day's Sitting from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sitting of the House)."—[Mr. Bonar Law]
The House divided: Ayes, 224; Noes, 50.

Division No. 83.]

AYES.

[3.56 p.m.

Adair, Rear-Admiral

Cooper, Sir Richard Ashmole

Hacking, Captain D. H.

Adkins, Sir W. Ryland D.

Coote, Colin R. (Isle of Ely)

Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir Fred. (Dulwich)

Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte

Cope, Major W. (Glamorgan)

Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Luton, Beds.)

Ainsworth, Captain c.

Courthope, Major George Loyd

Harris, Sir H. P. (Paddington, S.)

Astor, Major Hon. Waldort

Cowan, D. M. (Scottish University)

Henderson, Major V. L,

Atkey, A. R.

Cowan, Sir H. (Aberdeen and Kinc.)

Hennessy, Major G.

Bagley, Captain E. A.

Craig, Col. Sir James (Down, Mid.)

Henry, Danis S. (Londonderry, S.)

Baird, John Lawrence

Craig, Lt.-Com. N. (Isle of Thanet)

Herbert, Col. Hon. A. (Yeovil)

Baldwin, Stanley

Craik, Right Hon. Sir Henry

Herbert, Denniss (Hertford)

Barnes, Rt. Hon. G. N. (Gorbals)

Curzon, Commander Viscount

Hewart, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

Barnston, Major Harry

Davies, Sir Joseph (Crewe)

Hinds, John

Barrand, A. R.

Davies, T. (Cirencester)

Hoare, Lt.-Col. Sir Samuel J. G.

Bellairs, Com. Carlyon W.

Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)

Hope, Harry (Stirling)

Benn, Sir Arthur S. (Plymouth)

Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan)

Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

Bennett, T. J.

Dawes, J. A.

Hope, Lt.-Col. Sir J. (Midlothian)

Bentinck, Lt. Col. Lord H. Cavendish

Dennis, J. W.

Hopkins, J. W. W.

Betterton, H. B.

Doyle, N. Grattan

Hopkinson, Austin (Mossley)

Birchall, Major J. D.

Du Pre, Colonel W. B.

Houston, Robert Paterson

Bird, Alfred

Edge, Captain William

Hughes, Spencer Leigh

Blair, Major Reginald

Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)

Hunter, Gen. Sir A. (Lancaster)

Blake, Sir Francis Douglas

Eyres-Monsell, Commander

Jameson, Major J. G.

Borwick, Major G. O.

Falcon, Captain M.

Jesson, C.

Boscawen, Sir Arthur Griffith-

Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray

Jodrell, N. P.

Bowles. Col. H. F.

Farquharson, Major A. C.

Johnstone, J.

Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.

Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.

Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)

Boyd-Carpenter, Major A.

FitzRoy, Capt. Hon. Edward A.

Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

Bridgeman, William Clive

Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue

Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen)

Buchanan, Lieut.-Col. A. L. H.

Forestier-Walker, L.

Jones, William Kennedy (Hornsey)

Burdon, Colonel Rowland

Forster, Rt. Hon. H. W.

Kelly, Major Fred (Rotherham)

Carr, W. T.

Foxcroft, Captain C.

Kidd, James

Carter, R. A. D. (Manchester)

France, Gerald Ashburner

Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement

Casey, T. W.

Ganzoni, Captain F. C.

Knights, Captain H.

Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Astor Manor)

George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd

Lane-Fox, Major G. R.

Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord Hugh (Oxford U.)

Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham

Larmor, sir J.

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Birm., W.)

Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel John.

Law, Right Hon. A. Bonar (Glasgow)

Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)

Glyn, Major R.

Lewis, T. A. (Pontypridd, Glam.)

Child, Brig,-General Sir Hill

Goff, Sir R. Park

Lindsay, William Arthur

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Gray, Major E.

Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Hunt'don)

Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

Green, J. F. (Leicester)

Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)

Cough, R.

Greenwood, Col. Sir Hamar

Loseby, Captain C. E.

Cobb, Sir Cyril

Greig, Colonel James William

M'Donald, Dr. B. F. P. (Wallasey)

Cohen, Major J. B. B.

Gretton, Colonel John

Macdonald, Rt. Hon. J. M. (Stirling)

Colvin, Brigadier-General R. II.

Guinness, Capt. Hon. (Southend)

M'Laren, R. (Lanark, N.)

Conway, Sir W, Martin

Guinness, Lt.-Col. Hon. W. E. (B. St. E.)

Macquisten, F. A.

Maddocks, Henry

Prescott, Major W. H.

Talbot, G. A. (Hemel Hempstead)

Magnus, Sir Philip

Pretyman, Rt. Hon. Ernest G.

Taylor, J. (Dumbarton)

Malone, Col. C. L. (Leyton, E.)

Purchase, H. G.

Terrell, G. (Chippenham, Wilts)

Mason, Robert

Rae, H. Norman

Terrell, Capt. R. (Henley, Oxford)

Matthews, David

Raeburn, Sir William

Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)

Mildmay, Col. Rt. Hon. Francis B.

Raper, A. Baldwin

Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, W.)

Moles, Thomas

Raw, Lieut.-Colonel Dr. N.

Tryon, Major George Clement

Moreing, Captain Algernon H.

Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Vickers, D.

Mount, William Arthur

Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, E.)

Waddington, R.

Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert

Rendall, Athelstan

Wallace J.

Murchison, C. K.

Roberts, Rt. Hon. George H. (Norwich)

Ward, Colonel L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)

Murray, Lt.-Col. Hon. A. C. (Aberdeen)

Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

Wardle, George J.

Murray, Major C. D. (Edinburgh, S.)

Robinson, S. (Brecon and Radnor)

Waring, Major Walter

Murray, Hon. G. (St. Rollox)

Rodger, A. K.

Warren, Sir Alfred H.

Murray, William (Dumfries)

Roundell, Lieutenant-Colonel R. F.

Watson, Captain John Bertrand

Nall, Major Joseph

Rowlands, James

White, Col. G. D. (Southport)

Neal, Arthur

Samuel, A. M. (Farnham, Surrey)

Whitla, Sir William

Nelson, R. F. W. R.

Sanders, Colonel Robert Arthur

Whittaker, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas P.

Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. (Exeter)

Seddon, J. A.

Williams, Col. Sir R. (Dorset, W.)

Nicholl, Com. Sir Edward

Seely, Maj.-Gen. Rt. Hon. John

Wills, Lt.-Col. Sir Gilbert Alan H.

Nicholson, R. (Doncaster)

Shaw, Hon. A. (Kilmarnock)

Wilson, Capt. A. Stanley (Hold'ness)

Nicholson, W. (Petersfield)

Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)

Wilson, Colonel Leslie (Reading)

O'Neill, Captain Hon. Robert W. H.

Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T., W.)

Wilson, Col. M. (Richmond, Yorks.)

Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William

Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander

Winterton, Major Earl

Palmer, Major G. M. (Jarrow)

Stanley, Colonel Hon. G. F. (Preston)

Wood, Major Hon. E. (Ripon)

Palmer, Brig.-Gen. G. (Wastbury)

Steel, Major S. Strang

Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, W.)

Parker, James

Stephenson, Colonel H. K.

Yate, Colonel Charles Edward

Parry, Major Thomas Henry

Stevens, Marshall

Yeo, Sir Alfred William

Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike

Stewart, Gershom

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—.Lord E.

Pollock, Sir Ernest Murray

Strauss, Edward Anthony

Talbot and Captain F. Guest.

Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton

Sugden, W. H.

Pratt, John William

Sutherland, Sir William

NOES.

Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis Dyke

Harbison, T. J. S

Royce, William Stapleton

Adamson, Rt. Hon. William

Hartshorn, V.

Short, A. (Wednesbury)

Ashley, Col. Wilfred W.

Hayward, Major Evan

Sitch, C. H.

Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir F. G.

Hirst, G. H.

Spoor, B. G.

Benn, Capt. W. (Leith)

Holmes, J. S.

Swan, J. E. C.

Briant, F.

Jones, J. (Silvertown)

Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby)

Grown, J. (Ayr and Bute)

Kenworthy, Lieut.-Commander

Thome, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E)

Cairns, John

Kenyon, Barnet

Tootill, Robert

Carter, W. (Mansfield)

Lunn, William

Waterson, A. E.

Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord R. (Hitchin)

Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)

Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.

Clynes, Right Hon. John R.

Maclean, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (Midlothian)

Williams, A. (Conset, Durham)

Crooks, Rt. Hon. William

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

Davies, Alfred (Clitheroe)

Murray, Dr. D. (Western Isles)

Wood, Major Mackenzie (Aberdeen, C.)

Entwistle, Major C. F.

O'Connor, T. P.

Young, Robert (Newton, Lanes.)

Graham, D. M. (Hamilton)

Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

Griffiths, T. (Pontypool)

Richardson, R. (Houghton)

Hogge and Mr. Newbould.

Grundy, T. W.

Roberts, F. O. (W. Bromwich)

Hall, F. (Yorks. Normanton)

Robertson, J.

Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House, for To-morrow. —[Sir A. Boscawen.]

STANDING COMMITTEES (CHAIRMEN'S PANEL).
Sir SAMUEL ROBERTS reported from the Chairmen's Panel; That they had appointed Mr. William. Nicholson to act as Chairman of Standing Committee C (in respect of the Patents and Designs Bill and the Trade Marks Bill).
Report to lie upon the Table.

NAVAL AND MILITARY WAR SERVICES.
  MESSAGE FROM HIS MAJESTY.

    PROPOSED GRANTS BY PARLIAMENT.
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Lloyd George), at the Bar, acquainted the House
    184
    that he had a Message from His Majesty, signed by His Majesty's own hand, and he presented the same to the House.
    Mr. SPEAKER read the Message (all the Members of the House being uncovered),as followeth:
    "His Majesty taking tutu consideration the eminent service rendered during the late War by those officer who commanded and directed His forces by sea, on land, and in the air, and being desirous in recognition of such services to confer upon them some signal mark of His favour, recommends to His faithful Commons that He should be enabled to a runt to: —

    Navy—

    £

    Admiral of the fleet Sir David Beatty

    100,000

    Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Jellicoe

    50,000

    Navy—

    Admiral Sir Charles E. Madden

    10,000

    Admiral Sir F. G. Doveton Sturdee

    10,000

    Rear-Admiral Sir Roger J. B. Keyes

    10,000

    Vice-Admiral Sir John de Robec

    10,000

    Commodore Sir Reginald Y. Tyrwhitt

    10,000

    Army —

    Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig

    100,000

    Field Marshal Viscount French

    50,000

    Field Marshal Sir Edmund Allenby

    50,000

    Field Marshal Sir Herbert plumer

    30,000

    Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson

    10,000

    General Sir Henry Rawlinson

    30,000

    General the Hon. Sir Julian Byng

    30,000

    General Sir Henry Home.

    30,000

    General Sir William Robertson

    10,000

    General Sir William Birdwood

    10,000

    Lieut.-Colonel Sir Maurice Hankey

    25,000

    Air —

    Air Vice-Marshal Sir Hugh Trenchard

    10,000."

    Ordered,
    "That His Majesty's Most Gracious Message be referred to the Committee of Supply." — [The Prime. Minister.]

NEW MEMBER SWORN.
John Robertson, esquire, for the County of Lanark (Bothwell Division).

BILL PRESENTED.
WAR PENSIONS (ADMINISTRATIVE PROVISIONS) BILL, —"to make further provision for the administration of the enactments relating to naval, military, and Air Force war pensions, grants, and allowances; and for certain other purposes connected with such pensions, grants, and allowances," presented by Sir LAMING WOBTHINGTON-
EVANS; supported by Colonel Sir James Craig; to be read a second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 167.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,
National Health Insurance Bill,
Commons Regulation (Coity Wallia) Provisional Order Bill,
Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders Bill,
Electric Lighting Provisional Order Bill, without Amendment.
Checkweighing in Various Industries Bill,
Rotherham Corporation Bill, with an Amendment.
Gas and Water Provisional Orders Bill,
London County Council(Money) Bill, with Amendments.
Amendments to —
Merchant Shipping (Wireless Telegraphy) Bill [Lords],
Newark Gas Bill [Lords], without Amendment.

BOLAND'S DIVORCE BILL [Lords].
That they communicate the Minutes of Evidence and Proceedings taken uponthe Second Reading of Boland's Divorce Bill [Lords], as desired by the Commons, with a request that the same may be returned.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Dover Gas Bill [Lords],
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table.
Gas and Water Provisional Orders Bill,
Lords Amendments to be considered To-morrow.

COAL MINES BILL
Reported, without Amendment, from Standing Committee A.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 153.]
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 158.]
Bill, not amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration To-morrow.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

  STANDING COMMITTEE D.
  SIR SAMUEL ROBERTS reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee D: Sir John Tudor Walters.
  SIR SAMUEL KOBERTS further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Members from Standing Committee D: Major Boyd-Carpenter, Mr. James Brown, Colonel Burn, and Dr. Murray.

  STANDING COMMITTEE E.
  SIR SAMUEL ROBERTS further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee E (added in respect of the Compensation for Subsidence Bill): Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the Compensation for Subsidence Bill): the Solicitor-General.

  STANDING COMMITTEE C.
  Sir SAMUEL EOBERTS further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee C (added in respect of the Patents and Designs Bill and the Trade Marks Bill): Major Lloyd Greame; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the Patents and Designs Bill and the Trade Marks Bill): Mr. Grattan Doyle.
  Reports to lie upon the Table.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA BILL.
Ordered,
"That Sir Donald Maclean be discharged from the Select Committee on the Government of India Bill. —[Colonel Gibbs.]
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Acland be added to the Committee." —[Colonel Gibbs.]
Colonel YATE: I think I should take this opportunity of protesting, not against the personality of the appointment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Camborne (Mr. Acland), but because the opportunity has not been taken to appoint some Member with a recent knowledge of India. There are a number of Members of this House who
188
have had experience in India, and I think the occasion should have been seised to appoint one of these rather than a right hon. Gentleman who has never been in India. Although, of course, I am delighted that the hon. Member for Cam-borne should join the Committee, I do feel that now that a vacancy has occurred the Prime Minister should take the matter into consideration and appoint someone with recent knowledge of India. I hope indeed, he will consider this matter before finally sanctioning this appointment.
Mr. BONAR LAW: No doubt there is a great deal of force in what my hon. and gallant Friend has said about the value of Indian experience, but he is a very old Member of the House of Commons, and he knows perfectly well the principle on which these Committees are appointed. The members are taken from different parties. My right hon. Friend opposite has resigned, and one of the oldest rules we have is that the party to which the retiring Member belongs should have the nomination of his successor. I think it would be a great mistake to depart from that practice.
Colonel YATE: May I ask —
Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Gentleman has exhausted his right of speaking.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  FORESTRY BILL [Lords].
  Order for Second Heading read.
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Arthur Boscawen): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  This Bill has already passed through all its stages in another place, and it comes down to this House for Second Reading this afternoon. The object of the Bill is that we may at last make a real step forward with a very important matter, a matter in which it is true to say that we have as a country lagged behind the rest of Europe. In the past we have always prided ourselves that in most things we are in the van of progress, but it cannot truly be said that that is the case with regard to forestry. In fact, when we consider what is being done, and what has been done in other countries, we find that there is only one country in Europe so sparsely wooded as our own, and that is Portugal. I should like to give the House a few figures that were before the Reconstruction Committee which went into this subject quite lately. The amount of land under timber in this country—and I am speaking of the whole of the United Kingdom —is only 4 per cent. In Belgium it is 17 per cent.; in France, 18 per cent.; in Germany, 25 per cent. in Russia, 37 per cent.; and in Sweden no less than 47 per cent.; so that as regards the amount of timber in this country we occupy an exceedingly low position. But that is not all. Such woodland as we possess has not been cultivated in the best manner in the past, and I am informed that the wood yield is only one-third per acre of that of any other country in which the science of sylviculture has been properly developed. It is a melancholy fact to be considered that we are in times both of peace and of war very great consumers of timber, and yet although the consumption of timber per head of population is contantly growing, we supply only 8 per cent. of the timber consumed in this country from our own resources and no loss than 92 per cent. is imported. I feel sure the House will realise that that position is not at all satisfactory and it is made worse by this fact, that we have an immense acreage in this country which is very suitable for plant-
  218
  ing with timber, and therefore it is not a matter of our sacrificing something else in order that we may have a better supply of timber.
  There are here vast wastes of land devoted in some cases to sport and in other cases to rough grazing that carry a vary small head of sheep, or something of that sort. We have vast acres of land, estimated at something like 5,000,000 acres, which might with advantage be afforested and so enable us to supply that timber which we are importing from abroad at the present moment. Therefore, the Government feel that the time has come when this matter of afforestation should be seriously taken up and a real national effort made to develop those resources which are latent, but which have never been developed up to the present time. The state of affairs which was revealed by the War was most serious. We found, as I have said, we were importing most of our timber. We found that we had a very small timber reserve in this country. At the same time the consumption of timber during the War was enormous. It might have been thought that as building had come to a standstill and many of the uses for which timber was ordinarily required were no longer in operation it might have been thought that the amount of timber consumed would have largely decreased. It did decrease to some extent, but at the same time this fact emerged, that military operations in their present form require an immense amount of timber. Anybody who has served, either at home or abroad, knows perfectly well that for trenches, for huts, for packing cases, for munition boxes, and for every conceivable object which we had in view during the War, timber was absolutely necessary. We had to import immense quantities of timber. It was very irksome from a shipping point of view, because timber is almost the most bulky thing you can carry on board ship, and the amount of tonnage required was very great. The cost also was very great. During the years 1915 and 1916 we imported something like two-thirds or three-fourths of the timber used before the War, but the cost was no leas than £37,000,000 more than it cost during the two years before the War. Nearly the whole of that went to foreign producers and foreign shippers. After that we made a great effort here, and endeavoured, by felling a great many of our own trees, to set free the shipping that had been employed in carrying timber. To some extent we were successful—in-

  219
  deed, we had to do that, because we had not the shipping available. We had to do it in order even to supply ourselves with those pit-props without which coal-mining could not be carried on during the War. The result has been that we have still further depleted the reserves of timber which we had in this country, and we have to-day not only the pressing need of afforestating a great many acres that have not carried trees before, but we have the necessity of replanting those woods which were destroyed —usefully destroyed —for the sake of the nation during the War. The object of this Bill is to endeavour to make a really big, serious, national effort to cope with the situation. We do not think that we ought to lag behind any more. We think we ought to take the matter seriously in hand, and for that reason the Forestry Bill is brought in by the Government.
  I should like to make it perfectly clear at the outset that the credit for this Bill, and for the work that has preceded it, does not belong to the Board which I represent, nor in any way to myself personally. We have assisted, but the real credit is due to two bodies —firstly, to the very strong Subcommittee of the Reconstruction Committee, which investigated the whole matter and presented a most valuable and unanimous Report; and, secondly, to a body known as the Interim Forest Authority, which, since that Report was presented, has been carrying on the work and doing a very great deal of spade work which, I hope, will be found exceedingly useful to the forestry authority when it is constituted. I should like to add that, if credit is due to one individual more than another, it is due to my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne (Mr. Acland), who, as chairman of the Interim Forest Authority, has shown a degree of energy, ability, and zeal in this work which is entirely beyond praise. When I say that he is responsible and that I, representing the Board, am not, I am in the position of a man representing a Government Department which proposes to give up some of its powers. I believe that that is an almost unique position. We very often hear that Government Departments are very acquisitive of new powers, and. at all events, they do not with pleasure yield up the powers that they already possess. I confess that, in some respects, I regret the separation of agriculture and forestry. I will mention one. I think it most desirable that, in the
  220
  matter of small holdings, the new forest authority and ourselves, and also, of course, the Scottish Board of Agriculture and the Irish Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, should work closely together, and I think we can. There can be no doubt that when new forests are planted, and when many men are employed in the forests as woodcutters, woodmen, and so on, those men will fill in their spare time to great advantage by cultivating a bit of land as a small holding. For that reason I earnestly hope and believe that there will be no difficulty about the new forest authority and the Board of Agriculture working together perfectly amicably with that object in the future.
  I realise, however, that if we are really to get a move on, if this thing is really to be done in a businesslike manner, there must be one single forest authority for the whole of the United Kingdom which will deal in a comprehensive manner with this matter. We believe that, in handing over our powers to certain bodies, we are doing what is absolutely necessary, and we think we must have this single forest authority, which, in the words of the Bill, will be charged with the duty of promoting the interests of forestry, the development of afforeistation, and the production and supply of timber; and to this body the powers hitherto exercised by the Boards of Agriculture for England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and also the local Commissioners, are handed over. We believe that in that way alone we shall get a real comprehensive policy for the whole of the United Kingdom. I realise, of course, as much as any man, that there may be a difficulty here. I can already hear hon. Members from Scotland, and probably from Ireland, saying that we are proceeding on the wrong lines, that we are flying in the face of experience, that we are centralising instead of decentralising, that Scotland is to be run from Whitehall, and all the rest of it. I reply that that is really not the case. Although there must be a central authority for the direction of policy and for such important questions as research, experiment, training, and so forth, all of which must be done upon a uniform and concerted basis, I realise that there must be decentralisation of the actual administration. Accordingly the Bill proposes that, although there shall be a central forest authority, there shall also be three

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  Assistant Commissioners, one for Scotland, one for England and Wales, and one for Ireland; and not only so, but that there shall be also four consultative committees, who will be able to advise the Forestry Commission on various local aspects, and as far as possible assist the central authority in dealing with local authorities and local conditions. There is to be a consultative committee for England, another for Wales, another for Scotland, and another for Ireland. Great care is taken that these consultative committees shall have upon them men of thorough experience and knowledge of the local conditions of forestry in all its aspects, and with their help, and with the executive work carried out by the Assistant Commissioners, I can assure the House that there is no intention whatever of centralising the administration. On the contrary, the administration will be decentralised, with simply this controlling central authority to guide the operations as a whole.
  I would put one argument to any of my Scottish Friends who in principle object to this. It may be that you have a central authority. It may be that, notwithstanding the existence of an Assistant Commissioner, and a consultative committee for Scotland, the whole control is not vested in Edinburgh. Let me point out that there will be great financial advantages to Scotland from that. At the present moment we reckon that, of the 5,000,000 acres that may be afforested, more than half is in Scotland, and we expect and intend that a very considerable proportion of the money that is to be devoted to this purpose shall be expended in Scotland. Would that be the result if there were a separate Commission for Scotland? You would go back to that old principle of percentages, under which I think Scotland got eleven-eightieths. If you had a central authority for Scotland, the chances are that you would get only eleven-eightieths of the money. If you have one central forest authority with local administration, I venture to say that Scotland will get a great deal more than eleven-eightieths, and possibly the economic advantage from that point of view may outweigh the sentimental objection. At all events our view is that we should deal with the United Kingdom as a whole, and that the money should be expended and the work done in those parts of the United Kingdom, irrespective of
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  where they may happen to be, where the money can be expended to the best possible advantage.
  I would make one further remark as to the necessity for this one central forest authority. The Reconstruction Subcommittee, which investigated this question were absolutely unanimous on this point with two small exceptions. It is quite true that the Treasury representative had Treasury doubts, as of course he was bound to have, and the reservations he made were perfectly proper on his part. Lord Lovat, who after all is well known as an energetic champion of Scotland, also made a reservation; but what was the nature of his reservation? It was not an objection to a central authority: far from it. He underlined the necessity for a central authority much more than the rest of his colleagues. His words are these:
  "While I agree in all essential particulars with the Forestry Committee's Report which I have signed, I think it is my duty to insist, with perhaps more emphasis than my colleagues have seen fit to do, on the importance of a single Forest Authority for Great Britain."
  He goes on to say:
  "The creation of a single forest authority for the British Isles is required, firstly, and principally, to make a definite break with the past, to get out of the welter of conflicting authorities, and to escape from the arena or party politics, Royal Commissions, and amateur inquiries; secondly, to make it possible for an accredited authority not only to draw up a definite policy for the British Isles, but also to set in motion the machinery for carrying it into effect; thirdly, to constitute a body who can view the forestry situation in Great Britain as a whole, and decide on purely forest al grounds the conflicting claims of the various countries unbiassed by local or political pressure; fourthly, to constitute a body who, in time of war, could act with the military authorities to exploit both State and private forests for the benefit of the country."
  Therefore, we hold that the need for one authority has been absolutely proved, and the establishment of a single authority is the most important part of this Bill. I should like, in a very few more words, just to describe the powers which the central authority will have, and also to say one word about finance. I have already told the House that the general power of the central authority is to promote afforestation and the supply of timber. By Clause 3 they can take land by lease or purchase, they can buy or sell standing timber, and they can make advances by way of loan or grant, or both, to private individuals or to local authorities. A great many local authorities have pur-

  223
  chased large areas of land in connection with the water supply, and a great part of those areas can very well be afforested when, for sanitary reasons, they cannot be used for ordinary agricultural purposes. Then the central authority can undertake the management of woodlands, and can promote woodlands. By Clause 4 they have extensive powers to prevent damage, and by Clause 7 they can, through local Commissioners, acquire land compulsorily in cases where they cannot obtain it by agreement. When it becomes law, as it will in a few days time, the powers of the Acquisition of Land Bill, for the purpose of estimating the compensation to be paid in disputed cases, will be applicable in the case of forestry. Lastly, by Clause 9, they can enter upon any land they like for the purpose of survey. These are very wide powers, but they are not wider, in my opinion, than are necessary if forestry is really to be carried on on a businesslike footing in the future.
  It is estimated that we have something like 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 acres of land which is plan table with timber at present. The Report of the Reconstruction Committee does not propose that the whole of that should be planted. We have to take long views in forestry, and that is one thing that differentiates it from agriculture, where we have, comparatively speaking, quick returns and short rotation. You have to have longer returns in forestry, and your rotation is about eighty years. It is proposed that in the first eighty years 1,750,000 acres should be planted. That figure is arrived at by ascertaining how much reserve of timber we ought to have in this country if we had to subsist for three years without the possibility of foreign imports. I am not going to anticipate another war like the last, but we found during the last war that we had reached a point of national danger, and we are bound to have security in view of any possible emergency in the future. During the first eighty years it is proposed to plant 1,750,000 acres, and of that, during the first forty years, 1,180,000. The Bill itself, which starts the thing and puts it on a business basis and enables us to get on with the work, applies only, as far as the actual terms of the present Bill go, to ten years. During those ten years it is proposed that 150,000 acres should be planted by direct State action. In the case of 25,000 more acres

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  there will be a profit-sharing scheme between the owners and the State, roughly speaking, the owner supplying the land and the State supplying the necessary capital for the afforestation. In regard to 25,000 other acres, it is proposed that they should be planted, with the assistance of the State by way of loan or grant, by local authorities or by private individuals. In addition to that, there are something like 50,000 acres of woodland which require replanting, or, it may be, woodland that has been cleared during the War which will require replanting as soon as possible. That is a programme of altogether 200,000 new acres and 50,000 acres of replanting in the next ten years, and although, of course, the matter will have to be carried much farther, we consider that is a very good start. It is as much as can be made at the present moment. That is the proposal of the Reconstruction Sub-committee, and that is the proposal of the Bill.
  As to finance, it is proposed that during the next ten years there shall be paid out of the Consolidated Fund an amount of £3,500,000 for the purpose of afforestation. It is not proposed, by indicating this large sum to be spread over ten years, to withdraw the matter from the control of Parliament. It is intended that Estimates should be presented of the amount proposed to be expended in each year.
  Mr. HOGGE: By whom?
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: It will have to be done probably by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. That is a point I am prepared to consider in Committee as to the best method of responsibility for the Estimates. It is proposed that Estimates should be presented each year, that the House and the Treasury should have a voice in controlling the amount to be expended each year, and that the accounts should be presented to the Controller and Auditor-General. It may be that the Clause dealing with finance in its present form will have to be redrafted. If so, that will certainly be considered in Committee; but we want to establish the two principles—first of all, that there is to be control by Parliament, and, secondly, that there is to be a general guarantee of a certain sum of money for a definite period of years in order that the Forestry Department may know where it is, and be able to forecast its policy and to put it on a thorough business basis. For that reason a guarantee is necessary for a certain

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  definite sum. That is really the scheme. I believe it is the best that can be devised to meet the present situation, which is a very serious one. I shall be only too glad to consider any suggestions or proposals for Amendments in Committee, but this is the scheme unanimously presented by the Reconstruction Sub-committee, supported, as I understand, by the Interim Forest Authority. No other schema that I can think of is likely to fill the Bill. We have had attempts in the past to deal with the question. Each of the three Boards of Agriculture has rights and duties with regard to forestry, but very little has been done, as can be seen by the present state of affairs. It is only natural that the Board of Agriculture, whether it be in England, Scotland or Ireland will look more to agriculture itself and to the quick return than to the long deferred hope of afforestation. Similarly something has been done by the Development Commissioners. I am not going to belittle the work they have done. On the whole they have done very well. But it is clear that these separate and inconclusive efforts up to the present have not been sufficient. Because we think a broad-minded scheme with a central authority and general control is necessary, I move the Second Reading and I commend the Bill to the House as the best manner in which to deal with a very important and urgent subject.
  Mr. HOGGE: I am afraid the hon. Gentleman had his eye on those who sit on this bench who are Scotsmen as well as members of the Opposition. Throughout his argument he made the suggestion that Scotsmen might after all consider this Bill from the point of view of the economic advantage which might result to Scotland on account of the fact that that country is probably the most suitable area for afforestation, and he ventured the view that that might outweigh our sentimental considerations in accepting the Bill. Scotsmen are not going to be influenced either by economies or by sentimental views in this matter. There is nothing which will contribute more to the repopulation of those districts in Scotland which have been depopulated than will the successful association of afforestation and land settlement, and we are not in the least worried about whether we are going to get many salaried officials or large machinery, but we are concerned,
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  and will continue to be concerned, in the repopulation of our own country, which is very much depopulated on account of economic conditions, and more so on account of the effects of the great War. So I address myself to this problem without any of those feelings which have been suggested by the hon. Gentleman. I am opposed radically to this measure. The only reason why I will not move its rejection at this stage is that I understand the Government is not prepared to force through the remaining stages before the Recess.
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I can give no pledge of that sort.
  Mr. HOGGE: In that case some of us who feel strongly on this may reconsider our point of view before the close of the Debate. I certainly was under the impression, from what I have gathered—I do not say more than casually—that the Government did not intend to proceed with this before the Recess, because there is always the value of the opinions which can be obtained on a measure of this sort in the interval that elapses between our rising and our reassembly. The first point I want to make against the Bill is that it is setting up a centralised and extraordinarily extensive bureaucracy. We in Scotland have done something with regard to forestry, but on the general point we have had more than enough of this concentration of power in the hands of a few people who are outside the real control of Parliament. I interpolated a remark when my hon. Friend was referring to the financial arrangements with regard to who is to be responsible for the laying of the Estimates on this question of forestry. My hon. Friend said he thought it would be the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, but at the same time he referred to the fact that Clause 8, which deals with the question of finance, would probably require to be readjusted. As it stands cow there is no control by Parliament. My hon. Friend realises that it would be difficult to re-examine from year to year the expenditure upon forestry as the Financial Clause is now drafted. Everyone knows how the discussion on the Consolidated Fund Bill comes on, and how difficult it would be to find an opportunity for raising a discussion on a detailed estimate of that kind. Incidentally, therefore, I hope that whatever arrangement is made that the Estimates will be laid in a fashion so that if neces-

  227
  sary we can disease them from time to time. Something like £3,500,000 is proposed to be taken out of the Consolidated Fund and put into the Forestry Fund, which is to be controlled by seven Commissioners, three of whom are to be paid. They are to receive salaries of £1,500 a year each or, at any rate, £4,500 in all. That is only the beginning of the expense. The staff which it is proposed to set up will cost, from information I have been able to get, something between £40,000 and £50,000 a year. Therefore, what the House has to realise in assenting to this Bill is the creation of a new spending authority, over and above the spending authorities which exist, at a cost of some £50,000 a year to the State for this new service.
  My objection to this new centralised bureaucracy, at this time in particular, and especially from the point of view of the Scottish Member, is that it was only yesterday announced in the House that you, Mr. Speaker, were going to preside presently over a Committee of this House, or some other kind of Committee, not necessarily of Members of this House, for the purpose of dealing with the question of Devolution. Devolution is more in the air than any other political topic. Devolution, so far as Scotland is concerned, has frequently been argued and argued with great force from the point of view of afforestation and the repopulation of our derelict country and county districts in Scotland, and it seems the height of folly at the same moment that we are entering upon a discussion of how far we can devolute to the various nations which make up the United Kingdom their own domestic concerns, that at the same time you are forcing through this House, in the dog days of the Summer Session, a Bill which seeks to take away from Scotland in particular the control of one of its largest industries. Scotland, compared with any other forestry industry in the United Kingdom, has by far the largest proportion of that industry. All the conditions of to-day are making towards devolution. The conditions are very different in different parts of the United Kingdom, and it is pure folly on the part of those who represent English constituencies and Welsh constituencies to think of afforestation in the same category and in the same terms as those of us who are accustomed to think of afforestation in Scotland. The various reports which have been rendered from time to time by the Board of Agriculture
  228
  with regard to Scotland have emphasised the fact that below the thousand feet altitude which is the necessary altitude, I understand, for successful afforestation, there is a larger acreage in Scotland—the acreage in that respect in Scotland is over 1,000,000 acres—which can be afforested than in any other part of the Kingdom.
  The main objection to the separation of forestry into a separate Department so far as Scotland is concerned is that we believe—I do not know how far I can speak for other Scottish Members, but it is fair to say that the average Scottish Member does take this view— that afforestation so far as Scotland is concerned must be carried on in conjunction with land settlement and agricultural development. The whole problem in Scotland of land settlement is acute. Yesterday, for instance, when other Members were absent Scottish Members were discussing this very question of small holdings in its relation to afforestation. We have found, and I think the proof can easily be produced, that in Scotland our scheme of small holdings is largely impossible from the point of view of economic success unless these small holdings are associated with subsidiary industries, and the attempt has continually been made in Scotland, particularly in our Highland and Island districts, to associate the system of small holdings with a system of afforestation, so that a man placed upon a small holding may continue to work to the extent that farming operations are possible and still have a subsidiary occupation, that occupation being his connection with afforestation. This has been fully recognised by the Scottish Board of Agriculture in the past. Efforts in Scotland were made to associate afforestation with small holdings prior to the outbreak of war. I see hon. Members opposite who used to develop this topic on every possible occasion, and however little or however much was done they will agree that the Scottish Board of Agriculture was making some attempt to secure the association of afforestation with our scheme of small holdings. If I remember rightly, a special officer was appointed prior to the outbreak of war by the Scottish Board of Agriculture, and his whole work was to look after afforestation.
  By this Bill the Government take powers to purchase large estates, the bulk of which estates will not be suitable for afforestation. One of the difficulties in the past has always been that the landlords

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  have refused to come to terms for that part of their land which has been the object of afforestation. That may be a reasonable position from the point of view of the landlords, but it cuts both ways, and if you take large estates by the powers that are given you under this Bill you are obviously going to hand over to this new forestry authority land which will not be used for afforestation. I should like any occupant of the Front Bench to deal with that point. You are taking away from the Board of Agriculture large powers which they at present possess. One of the means by which you are doing it is to purchase whole estates in order to get that part of the estate which will be suitable for afforestation. That will obviously leave in the hands of the forestry authority large tracts of land which ought to be used by the Board of Agriculture for the purpose of enabling smallholders to get upon the land. Thereby you are going to create a certain amount of overlapping between the Board of Agriculture and this new forestry authority.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: Would they not be as entitled to take that land as any other under the law as it stands?
  Mr. HOGGE: They would be able to take that land for small holdings, but the Board of Agriculture is the proper body to take it.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: They can take it now, only they are ruled by the Forestry Commissioners. It makes no difference.
  Mr. HOGGE: I do not think you would get two authorities buying the same portion of land. You would not have two public authorities competing for the estate of one individual. There might be an arrangement. I do not know what the arrangement would be, but I put it as a question. When an estate of that kind was purchased could not that portion of the estate which could be used for smallholders be handed over to the administration of the Board of Agriculture for the purpose of small holdings? I want to make it quite clear that you, if you are to have purchases of large estates, and you have this separate authority, there ought to be a clear line of demarcation.
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: What my hon. Friend suggests is quite possible under the terms of the Bill, in Clause 3.
  Mr. HOGGE: So much the better. Then we do not need to discuss that point any
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  longer. If it is clear that this land can be divided between the two authorities then we will leave it. My further point is that this Bill gives power to grant bounties to private individuals to conduct experiments in afforestation and that the State is to take all the risks. I hope I do not do injustice to my hon. Friend if I say that the landlord is to get 4 per cent. on his expenditure, that the State is to get 4 per cent. on the money that it advances to the landlord for the experiment, and that the surplus profit after that is to go to the landlord. I think that is the scheme, and I do not think I have stated it unfairly.
  Sir F. BANBURY: Will there be any surplus?
  Mr. HOGGE: I should like to hear from the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London in which, of course, there are many forests, to give us his experience on the question of afforestation in the City of London. If there is any surplus profit under this Bill it goes to the landlords, but if there is no surplus profit the State is to bear the loss. The point I wish to make is that if the State is to suffer through advancing money for the purpose of these experiments, if there is any profit after the apportionment referred to surely the excess of that ought to go back to the State. If it does not go back to the State it ought to be divided between the landlord and the State in a bigger proportion than is suggested in the Bill Scottish Members will remember that we discussed this question on the Housing Bill in Scottish Grand Committee. [AN HON. MEMBER: "We did not agree upon it!"] I do not say that, but we discussed it, and some hon. Members suggested that we ought to give a bounty to private individuals to promote the extension of houses.
  Sir G. YOUNGER: They never suggested that. They suggested a payment in order to induce them to use their own money.
  5.0 P.M.
  Mr. HOGGE: If that is not a bounty, I do not know what it is. At any rate, they discussed the question of giving people an inducement to build houses. Houses are much more urgent than afforestation. The urgency for this Bill suggested by my hon. Friend is an urgency which is disappearing every day. Apart altogether from legitimate competition with other countries in the world, the urgency of this Bill is that, in the event of the outbreak of another great war, we should not again be left

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  without a proper supply of timber. I do not think, unless all our hopes are going to be falsified, that we need build up huge forests with the object of providing for another great European war. Therefore I think we may dismiss that and say that housing is far more urgent than afforestation, and if the Government refuse to give an inducement to private individuals to build houses, in addition to what is provided for the local authorities, why should they be willing to assist individuals in afforestation which is not so urgent as the question of houses? This Bill has been based far too much on the Report of the Committee presided over by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Acland). I think that the basis on which that Committee did its work and reported was entirely wrong, and that this problem ought to have been faced not from the point of view of making this country secure in the case of future needs, but that it ought to have been dealt with from one aspect as to the problem of reconstruction and in relation to the whole question of land settlement.
  It is not often, in the course of my political career, that I have been able to go to the" Scotsman "newspaper for support for my argument, but I find that the greatest Unionist newspaper in Scotland, writing editorially upon this question of afforestation so recently as June, agrees entirely with the point of view which I am putting now. Referring to the Boards of Agriculture in England and Scotland, the "Scotsman" says:
  "The Boards of Agriculture, whose duties will lie more and more in the direction of social development and the fostering of rural industry, would seem more likely to hold mutual confidence as administrators of the enterprise we have now to undertake than a Commission of specialists in forestry, whose set purpose would be to concentrate on the planting of a fixed acreage of land in a given time. The existing Forestry Departments of the Board should be strengthened as required for the work and given broader powers than now in settling landholders and workers. In this aspect of the case it is well to bear in mind the entire dependence of sylviculture on labour. Given the land, nearly every penny of capital cost can go out in wages.
  In the wise decision of the question now before us Scotland has special concern, as forestry interests and knowledge are much greater there than in any other part of the United Kingdom, and the areas readily available for planting are much larger, at least a million acres within plan table elevation lying hitherto entirely unproductive, apart from deer and sport."
  Sir G. YOUNGER: Is that a leading article?
  Mr. HOGGE: That is a leading article I will send my hon. Friend a copy of it with great pleasure, because I think that he can read it with advantage. An hon. Member has said that it is no credit to them. It is not much credit to the landowners. They have kept that land for the cultivation of grouse and deer and made Scotland the sporting place for people all over the United Kingdom.
  Sir PHILIP MAGNUS: Is not that all the more reason why this Bill should be brought into this House?
  Mr. HOGGE: No; it is all the more reason why Scotland should control its own affairs and its own policies with regard to land in Scotland from the point of view of Scotland. Taking, if you like, the pendulum of Tory successes and Liberal successes in recent years, we in Scotland could have forged a much better system for our own country than by having to come here year after year, and even now with the Coalition Government being compelled to accept a Bill which takes away from us what power we have had in Scotland and put us under a central power dominated from Whitehall. We object to that. We in Scotland do not want our forests controlled from Whitehall. That is my great objection to this Bill. Take the policy of the Government with regard to transport. They have had in this Government the greatest difficulty in transport. The greatest signs of revolution inside the Coalition have been on the subject of transport. There have been rumours of revolution both in this House and in another place with regard to transports? Why? Because the Government in that case have considered the question as a whole. They have considered on the question of transport, railway, roads, waterways, and harbours. Will anyone for a moment say that that is a smaller problem than the question of afforestation in this country? It is a much larger problem. If the Government can deal with that large problem in all its aspects, why should the Government deal with this problem only in one aspect! Why should the Government take from us in Scotland the power to deal with our own land settlement in conjunction with afforestation and concèntrate on a bureaucratic expensive centralised department in London? That power ought to reside with the people of Scotland.

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  The War has only emphasised the question of the difficulty of procuring timber in this country. This question existed before the War, but my hon. Friend will admit that probably more has been done in Scotland towards moving this question than in any other portion of the Kingdom. At any rate my hon. Friend knows of the effort made in Edinburgh University with its Chair of Forestry to train students in scientific afforestation. He will also know that more applications have been made to Edinburgh University for scientifically and technically trained men for positions all over the world than to any other place in this country, and because the Government denies opportunities to Scotsmen, the men who are being trained are leaving Edinburgh and going to all other parts of the world. So no one can accuse Scotland of not doing what it could, hampered as it is in this House by the fact that we are so few in numbers in making any real progress on this question. Having made those criticisms, it is only fair to say now what my alternative policy is. My alternative policy on this question is to strengthen the Board of Agriculture in such a way as to deal with afforestation. We want in Scotland our Board of Agriculture to be strengthened on its afforestation side. We want that afforestation to be carried through in conjunction with the scheme of land settlement. Afforestation in Scotland might be a remunerative industry for the people who put their money into it as an industry, but it is not going to help the question of the repopulation of Scotland.
  Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTT: The Scottish Board has had the power.
  Mr. HOGGE: Yes; but what power have the Scottish representatives and Scottish Boards had so long as we were controlled in this House as we are? My hon. Friend was here yesterday, and did not speak on the Scottish Estimates. He knows that for the discussion of the only question that we tried to raise on the Scottish Estimate we could not get more than a couple of hours on the last day of the Estimates. My hon. Friend knows perfectly well that if we had a scheme of devolution, such as may eventuate in the Committee over which Mr. Speaker is going presently to preside, and we had it in the face of public opinion in Scotland, not only our Board of Agriculture but all our other Boards would be very much more alive than they are. I am opposed radic-
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  ally to this Bill, because at a time when the whole tendency of our modern political development is towards devolution, and we are reaching a period when Scotland may control its own affairs, which is vital for securing our future prosperity, you are seeking in this House to take away those powers from the people of Scotland which they possess and centralise them in a Department in Whitehall far remote from the influences of Scottish public opinion from which experience has never led us in the past to expect any real reform.
  Colonel Sir A. SPROT: It gives me the greatest pleasure to support the Bill which has been so ably and clearly brought in by the hon. and gallant Member. This is the first attempt in this country to give us a real and proper afforestation Department on the continental model. I remember some years ago attending a lecture in Edinburgh by Herbert Maxwell, who is a great authority on the subject, and hearing him make a statement, which was repeated by the hon. and gallant Member this afternoon and which filled me with surprise when I first heard it, that our country is the most treeless country in Europe with the exception of Portugal. The reason is that forestry has not yet been really taken up officially by our country in the way in which it has been taken up in foreign countries. We have had, no doubt, large forests in England—the New Forest and the Forest of Dean—but we have never had any real and proper system of forestry. We have never had a proper Forestry Department, and we have never had a school of forestry in this country. I should like to allude to the experience of India, which I am rather surprised not to have heard mentioned before. About fifty years ago a relative of mine, who was an officer serving in the Indian Army, and who was known to have a good knowledge of botany, was summoned by the Viceroy, and was told to go and form an Indian Forest Department. He qualified himself for that by making a tour through the Himalayas and through all the districts where big forests were to be found. He wrote a most valuable report, and a book, which is still his standard work, and he was made the first Conservator of Forests in India. When he gave up his appointment and retired home, what happened? They looked round for a successor to him, and they were obliged to appoint a German. When that German's time was up as the second Conservator of

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  Forests, they appointed another German. That is tantamount to saying that there did not exist in our country a school of forestry at all, or any body of people to whom you might go and say, "Send us a good man to be our Conservator of Forests." Let me carry the story still further. I remember very well when the Franco-German War of 1870 occurred, the young men who passed in London in their literary examination for the Indian Forestry Department had to receive special technical training afterwards. That had to be done in those days either in Germany or in France, and my recollection is that those young men who were qualified to be sent out to India as forest officers, and who, in the ordinary course of events, would have gone to the Forestry School at Nancy, could not go to France because of the Franco-German War, and they were sent, some of them, to my own home in Scot-land, where they visited the forests in Perthshire and other parts of the country and carried on their instruction as a sort of makeshift. That was the pass to which we were reduced owing to the absence of a proper forest Department and forestry school in Great Britain.
  We know that the Indian Forest Department has been a great success. I think I am also justified in saying that it is a money-making institution. It brings revenue to that country, as do the Forest Departments of Germany and of France. We know also that since the day of which I am speaking a good deal has been done sporadically with regard to the improvement of forestry and forestry education. The Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) was quite right when he said that the relative of whom I have been speaking, who was at one time president of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society, of which I am a member, was instrumental in getting a lectureship in Forestry in the University of Edinburgh. Here I may mention that the Scottish Aboricultural Society existed for a good many years before the English Arboricultural Society was formed. I join with him, therefore, in claiming for our country a foremost place in the advance of forestry. A great deal has been done in various ways; We know that other universities and institutions have followed it up to some extent, but we are still in want of a sound and properly organised Forestry Department and school of forestry in this
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  country. The hon. and gallant Member (Sir A. Boscawen) must be familiar—I know that he is—with some of the forests of France. He knows, for instance, the forest of Nieppe, where a great deal of fighting went on both at the beginning and at the end of the War; also the forest of Esquelbec, and that of Tournehem, and the large forest outside Boulogne. One saw during the War the splendid work done by the French foresters, and of how great a use the Forest Department was in the prosecution of the War. We saw British, French and Canadian soldiers cutting material for revetments which had to be sent up to the trenches, and, although the War lasted for over four years, an immense amount of such material still existed in reserve in the forests, a fact which showed that France made good use of her forests from a military point of view.
  I need not go much further in making the point which I have put forward. It is simply this, that we have neglected our forests as a nation up to now. It has been the much-abused landlord or landowner who has done all the tree-planting that has been done. I need hardly point out that a single individual has not got the opportunities for carrying on scientific forestry that is possessed by a State Department. Our landowners, no doubt, very often planted a great many trees. They did it for shelter, for ornament, and, perhaps, for the preservation of game, but they did it according to their own sweet will. They could not in many cases expect to survive long enough to see the results of their planting, and, therefore, they did not do it upon a recognised and scientific system in the same way as a Government Department would have done it. That is what is done in foreign countries. In France, in these forests I have mentioned, you do not see all sorts of trees planted together as you do in British woods. You come across a large area of oaks planted in a certain year and all of the same size. When they get to maturity they are reaped like a crop and the ground is replanted. In another place you will see a large area of beeches, and so on. That is scientific forestry. That is what we want to introduce in our country.
  Passing from that, I would desire to meet what has been said by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh. He has objected to this Bill on the ground of what I may describe as the Home Rule for Scotland

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  principle. He thinks there ought to be one Forestry Department for Scotland, another for England, another for Ireland, and so on. We are not discussing now a question of Home Rule for Scotland, or devolution, or anything else. I may say this: I am as thorough and as good a Scotsman as he is; I have not got a single drop of English blood in my veins. I am a Scotsman and I represent a Scottish constituency, and I am just as entitled as he is to speak for the generality of my thinking fellow countrymen in my own country. I would submit that this is not a point upon which one ought to insist upon a separate Scottish nationality. If there were any question of the ancient laws and customs, or even of the peculiarities of Scotland, I should be the very first to stand up for them, but this is not one of those points. I think it has been thoroughly well brought out by the hon. and gallant Gentleman who brought in this Bill, that it is to the advantage of Scotland that there shall be one Forestry Department for the whole of Great Britain. I think the shortest way of putting that is this: If you have one Department, supposing that you have a good man in the South, who is good, we will say, in the management of fir trees, and there is a vacancy in the North for such a person, you can at once send him out to the place for which he is best fitted; and, similarly, you can bring down from the North any man who may have shown great capabilities for managing different sorts of trees that prevail in the South. By having the one Department I think you will ensure a steady flow of intelligent and capable and hard-working public servants in your Forestry Department, to a much larger extent than if you had Departments limited to each of the three or four countries composing the United Kingdom. That is my opinion. I leave the hon. and gallant Gentleman who brought in the Bill to deal with the other objections which were urged by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh. I must say that I disagree entirely with him when he states that there is any sound objection to the Bill upon the ground of the interests of Scotland. From a pecuniary point of view, as has been pointed out, Scotland will be the gainer and not the loser by the proposals of the Bill. On the whole, I have great pleasure in supporting this Bill. It will go far to meet a want which has for
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  long been felt. We were dealing a short time ago with a Housing Bill, and we discovered in our Scottish Committee that although a good deal of public money is to be spent upon the houses which are about to be provided, there will be few, if any, provided for our rural districts. This is a Bill which does meet some of the wants of our rural districts in Scotland, and for that reason I support it. I support the Bill because it is going to give us an organised Forestry Department for our country, and State forests, which, I think, are required, and a forestry school, which will help us to raise up in certain country districts a healthy and strong and virile class of men, which is exactly the sort of people we want to raise in our country and not in our big towns.
  Major STEEL: I would ask the indulgence of the House in addressing it for the first time I desire to support this Bill and to say a word in regard to it from the point of view of Scotland, because, although I do not represent a Scottish constituency, I am a Scotsman and have lived in that country all my life. From that point of view I heartily support the Bill. I could not understand the argument of the hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge), who opposed on the ground that a central bureaucracy was going to be set up in Whitehall, while he wanted the Scottish Board of Agriculture to have a separate Forestry Department, in order that the matter might be run in Edinburgh instead of in London. Under the present suggestion of the setting up of a central authority, Scotland, as I understand it, will probably have expended in the country about half the total money that is to be spent on this question, whereas, if the matter were worked by the Scottish Board of Agriculture, Scotland would only get something like eleven-eightieths of the total amount. Most Scotsmen like to get all they can, and as one of those who like to get all I can I support a scheme which is going to give us a half instead of eleven-eightieths. Forestry, as has been pointed out by the Parliamentary Secretary, is at present in a very deplorable condition. The hon. Gentleman mentioned that we have only got a very small portion of woodlands in this country as compared with the Continent of Europe, and even that small portion only provides about a third of what it would do if it were under proper sylvicultural management. That is, to a

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  certain extent at all events, due to the fact that up to the present we have had so many Departments competing with one another in trying to run this question of forestry. You have the Development Commissioners, and the English and Scottish Boards of Agriculture, and the Irish Department of Agriculture, and, after all, what have we found? In Scotland, notwithstanding the efforts of the Scottish Board and of the Development Commission, all that has been done is a forestry survey in one county and the training of a few individual foresters. I think that that fact alone is clear proof that some central authority is needed.
  In forestry you have to look a very long time ahead, and you have to make plans for fifty or sixty years in advance, so as to ensure that during the time of your working you have got a proportion of the various ages of trees and also a proportion of the different sorts of trees and a proportion of hard woods and coniferous trees. If you are going to look at the matter, as I think you should, from a national point of view, it is, I think, absolutely necessary to have one central authority which shall make out one national working plan for the whole country, and which will decide how much hard wood and how much coniferous trees you should have, and which will be able to say in such and such a forest or in such and such a county coniferous trees grow best, while in some other districts hard wood is more suitable. Unless you have such a central authority you will have to deal with competing claims of different parts of the country. The other argument which the hon. Member for East Edinburgh brought forward against this Bill was the separation of the question of forestry from the Board of Agriculture. He wanted forestry to be run in future by some separate Department of the Board of Agriculture. I am a sheep farmer in Scotland, on one of those hill farms which might be considered suitable for afforestation, and therefore I am in a position to look at this topic not only from the point of view of the farmer but also from the point of view of the forester, and I say that the points of view of the farmer and of the forester are diametrically opposed to one another. If, as a farmer, I know trees are going to be planted on a farm, I will do my very best to have the land which is enclosed for that purpose selected from
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  the poorest and most exposed places, where hardly any tree can be grown at a profit. That is the point of view of the farmer. If I look at the matter from the point of view of the forester. I see at once how absolutely hopeless it would be to enclose such ground as that chosen by the farmer in order to try and grow trees at a proper profit. Personally I feel that it would be fatal to the future of forestry if it were to be controlled by an agricultural body.
  Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: I am sure that the House listened with peculiar pleasure to the maiden effort of my hon. Friend who has just spoken, and will desire to congratulate him, not only on his eloquence, but on the knowledge of the subject which he exhibited. We have listened to three speeches, one violently opposed to the measure, and the other two in support of it. The three hon. Gentlemen who have addressed the House are Scotsmen, although one of them does not represent a Scottish constituency. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the j Member for the Gorbals Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes) is in the House to-day as representing the Scottish side of the Government, and that he proposes to reply in this Debate as representing the view the Government takes upon this subject from the Scottish aspect. My principal reason for intervening is because the Constituency I represent (Kincardine and Western) comprises one of the largest timber-growing and potential timber-growing areas in Scotland. It is from that point of view I have given very careful consideration to the Bill now before the House. I will say at once quite frankly that the measure, in my judgment, contains some very grave defects, but I have to ask myself whether, in view of the long history of afforestation in this country, when, after many years of appeals from those interested in the subject, nothing has been done by successive Governments, I should be warranted in opposing this Bill on Second Reading. The conclusion I have come to is that, however grave may be the defects contained in the Bill, they do not warrant me in opposing it on Second Reading, but I reserve to myself the right, after this Bill has been through Committee, of opposing it on Third Reading, should the Amendments put into the Bill during its passage through Committee not be consistent with the views of nay Constituents on the measure. The hon.

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  and gallant Gentleman the Member for East Fife (Sir A. Sprot), speaking a few moments ago, suggested that the main op position of the hon. Member for East Edinburgh to this Bill was on the ground that it was not consistent with the demand for Scottish Home Rule. I do not think that is the case. I think, if the hon. and gallant Member had listened a little more closely to the speech of the hon. Member for East Edinburgh, he would have found that the main opposition of that hon. Member was based on the contention that under the provisions of this Bill there would be almost complete separation between agriculture and afforestation in Scotland. Those are the reasons why I desire to see included in the Bill in Committee provisions which will ensure co-operation between agriculture and afforestation in Scotland. That is all the more necessary if we are to have regard to the argument used by the hon. Member who has just spoken. He told us that the interests of the forester and farmer in Scotland are diametrically opposed. If that be so, it is all the more important that there should be laid down by Statute co-operation between the interests of agriculture and afforestation which in Scotland ought certainly to be developed side by side. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh very rightly drew attention to the article in the "Scotsman" newspaper which advocated the alternative policy which I shall hope to see incorporated in the Bill during its passage through Committee. There is nothing in the Bill at the present moment to ensure that co-operation which is so essential to the future social progress of the Scottish people. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh said, quite truly, that under this Bill it was possible for the Forestry Authority to acquire a whole estate, of which, according to the Report of the Reconstruction Committee, only amps; third would be afforested, and he asked what was to be done with the rest. The hon. and gallant Gentleman who represents the Government and the hon. Baronet the Member for the Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger) said it would be possible for the Board of Agriculture to acquire the rest of that estate for land settlement purposes. But what if the rest of that estate is not suitable for land settlement purposes? The hon. and gallant Gentleman need not smile so contemptuously.
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I was not smiling contemptuously.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: I am glad that is so, because it is really quite a good point. Is the rest of that estate for which public money has been paid to go to waste T That is one of the particular reasons cited by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh why there should be the closest co-operation between the Board of Agriculture and the Forestry Authority, co-operation empowered by Statute in order that the case instanced by the hon. Member should not arise. I turn for a moment to another objection which has been raised against this Bill, and that is that it does not provide for sufficient supervision of the operations of the Forestry Authority on the part of the Scottish people. I am glad the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Camborne Division of Cornwall (Mr. Acland) is in his place to-day, because he has contributed to this particular aspect of the question some very interesting remarks. In the April number of the "Contemporary Review "the right hon. Gentleman wrote an article entitled" The Prospects of Starting State Forestry," and in that article the right hon. Gentleman said:
  "The Forestry Authority to be established will undoubtedly have a far more active and experienced representation in Scotland upon it than any body has hither to had which has been concerned with forestry. The whole of their administrative and executive work is to be carried out, as it is now being carried out, under the interim authority, by a wholly Scottish body sitting in Edinburgh."
  I ask the attention of the House to those words, "by a wholly Scottish body sitting in Edinburgh. "Then the right hon. Gentleman goes on to say, and necessarily his words carry great weight:
  "There will be set up by Statute a most representative consultative committee of Scotland, also wholly Scottish, and it seems likely that the central authority itself will probably meet quite as often in Scotland as in England. '
  What is actually in the Bill which is now under discussion? There are seven Forestry Commissioners, who form the Forestry Authority. There are three Assistant Commissioners, one for Scotland, one for England, and one for Ireland, and a consultative committee for each of the three countries and also, I think, for Wales, but there is not a word in this Bill, so far as I can see, about the wholly Scottish body sitting in Edinburgh to which the right hon. Gentleman referred

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  in his article, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman who introduced the Bill had nothing to say about that point at all. Perhaps he or the right hon. Member for Gorbals will be able to tell us the reason why the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Camborne, which was quite clearly in the minds of the Interim Forestry Authority, is not now contained in this Bill, or perhaps the writer of the article himself will be able to tell us. At any rate, let me say this. The fact that there is no such provision as a wholly Scottish body incorporated in the provisions of this Bill to administer the powers and the duties of the central authority on behalf of the Scottish people, and in the very closest co-operation with the Scottish Board of Agriculture, makes the Bill unsatisfactory, in my judgment, from the point of view of Scotland. I pass on to one other aspect of the Bill, and I propose to ask the Government whether they can answer a question that I desire to put. I turn to Clause 7 of the Bill, and there I see that if the Commissioners are unable to acquire by agreement and on reasonable terms any land which they consider it necessary to acquire, they may apply to the Development Commissioners for power to acquire the land compulsorily in accordance with the provisions of the Schedule, and in Sub-section (1) of the Schedule it states:
  "Where the Commissioners propose to purchase land compulsorily under this Act, they may submit to the Development Commissioners a draft order putting in force, as respects the lands specified in the order, the provisions of the Lands Clauses Acts with respect to the purchase and taking of land otherwise than by agreement."
  It therefore appears that any land that is required is to be acquired under the Lands Clauses Acts.
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: May I explain? This Schedule was drafted with a view to the fact that up to the present time the Acquisition of Land Bill has not become law, and, of course, it was necessary in the Bill to make provision for the acquisition of land, but I am advised that as soon as the Acquisition of Land Bill becomes law it will override anything which would be inconsistent with it in this Schedule, and the intention is that as regards any question of compensation it would be assessed in accordance with the provisions of the Acquisition of Land Bill. If there is any
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  doubt on that, I will take steps to remove the doubt in the Committee stage on this Bill.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: I am much obliged to the hon. and gallant Gentleman because it certainly was a point to my mind of very considerable substance, and the reason I raised it was this, that in the discussions on the Report stage of the Land Acquisition Bill the Government, to the best of my recollection, specifically stated—and it was not so very long ago—that land to be acquired for public purposes other than for afforestation was to be acquired under the Land Acquisition Bill, but I now gather from the hon. and gallant Gentleman that the land is to be acquired under, I conclude, Clause 7 of the Land Acquisition Bill, and that if there is any doubt in regard to that particular point he will see that it is made quite clear in Committee That is all I wish to say. As I said at the commencement of my remarks, this Bill is one which vitally affects the Constituency which I have the honour to represent. I do not think it was quite fair, if I may say so, of the hon. and gallant Gentleman to say that unless Scotland accepted this Bill she would not obtain under the Bill the same financial assistance as she would if she gave her approval to it. If there are in Scotland areas for afforestation purposes more favourable than in any other portion of the United Kingdom, then quite clearly those areas ought to be planted, irrespective of whether or not Scotsmen in this House have agreed with a particular Bill which the Government have brought forward; but so far as I am concerned, I desire to say that I shall support this Bill on the Second Beading, and I shall hope to see included in its provisions during its passage through the Committee stage some such Amendments as I have indicated as being necessary.
  6.0 P.M.
  Sir PHILIP MAGNUS: As an Englishman, I hope I may be allowed to say a few words in support of the Bill before the House. Anyone who has listened so far to the Debate would certainly think that this Bill has been introduced for the benefit of Scotland alone. I am ready to admit that Scotland contains almost half the number of acres that can be used for forest purposes in the United Kingdom, but that is no reason, so far as I can see, why poor England should be altogether neglected in the consideration of the advantages or disadvantages that would

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  result to the United Kingdom from the passage of this Bill. The only real opponent of the Second Reading of this Bill is my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge), and, so far as I was able to gather from his speech, which was as lucid and as clear as his speeches always are, his objection to this Bill arises in the first place, because he thinks it inopportune that a Bill of this kind should be introduced at the present time, when there is a possibility—a strong possibility as some of us may hope; a faint possibility as others may hope—of a scheme of Devolution coming into operation very shortly, by means of which Scotland would have a Government and a Parliament of its own. So far as that argument goes, I do not think it is on the whole wise that we should postpone the passing of a Bill that might be of great advantage to the United Kingdom, because a system of Devolution has not yet been introduced into this country. It is not quite certain, whether such a system ever will be introduced, but, at any rate, what we are considering now is the question of introducing a Forestry Bill for the whole of the United Kingdom, and not the question of the advantage or disadvantage of Devolution. Then the other argument which was supported by the hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just Bat down, was that this Bill does not unite, or sufficiently co-ordinate, the Department of Agriculture and the newly-proposed Department of Forestry. That might be a valid objection, and the hon. and gallant Gentleman thinks that that objection might be removed when the Bill comes to Committee.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: From the point of view of Scotland.
  Sir P. MAGNUS:But we are discussing a Bill for the United Kingdom, I believe. Personally, I cannot say that I consider the separation of the Board of Agriculture from this new Department of Forestry altogether objectionable. Everybody must know that the conditions of the growth of timber are altogether different from the growth of those plants with which the Department of Agriculture have mainly to deal. The area to be used for the purposes of forestry is quite different, much larger, and the whole conditions of the planting of young trees is altogether distinct from the conditions governing the planting of any other plants or trees. For that reason I cannot say I consider it any disadvantage
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  that these two Departments should be separated. Then, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for East Fife (Sir A. Sprot), in an extremely interesting speech, there exists a separate Department for Forestry in every, or nearly every, Continental country, and one knows how vast are the improvements that have been made in France by having a Department of Forestry, which intervenes in all questions of afforestation in all parts of that large country, and the same is true of Germany to a less extent. I venture to think that this Bill has been long desired, and the necessity has been long recognised. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh pointed out that the difficulties under which we at present suffer, or under which we did suffer during the War, in consequence of the insufficient supply of timber in this country, were not likely to recur, because none of us looked forward to a war of that dimension, or, let us hope, of any dimension within the knowledge of those now living. But we suffered considerably from, want of timber even before the War. The War has emphasised this, very great want, and unless we do something for the organisation of our forestry we shall continue to suffer from the want of timber for very many years to come, and it is a very desirable thing that this country should be less dependent than it has been in the past on the importation, of timber from other countries. We have had pointed out the enormous cost of importing timber, the great space occupied in our vessels, and the immediate demand for timber in this country for the purposes for which timber is used—housing, for instance—and many other matters which render it absolutely necessary that we should, even at this late period, do what we can for the organisation of so important an industry on which the welfare of this country so largely depends.
  It is for that reason that I welcome this Bill as a Bill of great importance to the whole of the United Kingdom. But, whereas I consider that there may be certain advantages in the centralisation of the main authority, I recognise that this Bill does provide in no small degree for decentralisation, as was pointed out by my hon. and gallant Friend who introduced the Bill. It is not a small thing that there should be, in accordance with this Bill, separate Commissioners for England, Scotland, and Ireland, each of whom would be familiar with the particular requirements of those countries, although I

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  should point out that there are the same difficulties, though to a lesser extent, perhaps, in Scotland, than we find in England, the same necessity for recognising the importance of planting trees in the soil that is most suitable for their growth and development, in England, as there is in Scotland, or in Wales or in Ireland. But, at any rate, the Commissioners in those countries would have the opportunity of recognising and pointing out any distinct differences, any specialities, in those countries which require separate consideration, and to that I attach great importance. But, besides that, there are to be consultative committees, and those consultative committees, I believe, will exercise a very great influence on the administration and organisation. If I have any fault to find with this Bill—and I expect we may all desire to introduce some Amendments in Committee—it is in connection, not so much with the powers of the Commissioners proposed to be appointed in Clause 1, as with regard to the relation of those duties, to the ability with which the Commissioners will discharge those duties. I am very glad to see that among the duties which are to be discharged by these Commissioners there occur the duties to
  "make or aid in making such inquiries, experiments, and research, and collect or aid in collecting such information, as they may think important for the purpose of promoting forestry and the teaching of forestry, and publish or otherwise take steps to make known the results of such inquiries, experiments or research and to disseminate such information."
  It is in connection with science as applied to forestry that we have been more behindhand than possibly any other country in Europe, and not with standing the excellent work that has been done by the University of Edinburgh, it must be admitted that the application of the results of scientific investigation to the manifold problems which occur in connection with tree planting, has not hitherto had the attention bestowed upon it that is desired. It is not for me to point out how numerous those applications of science to forestry may be made. We have already derived considerable advantage from some of the results of scientific investigation as applied to forestry, but there is almost a virgin field open for investigation and research in connection with tree-planting, the investigation of the seeds to be employed in planting, and various other
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  matters connected with forestry, all of which, we hope, will be carefully considered.
  But I do want to point out—and it is on that matter that I shall ask leave to introduce some Amendment when the Bill comes into Committee—that I do not see there is any indication in this Bill that any one of the seven Commissioners who are to be appointed to superintend the whole of this administrative and scientific and educational work is required to have any knowledge of science whatever, and I shall certainly suggest in Committee that one at least of the paid Commissioners shall be a man who has been selected for his great scientific and technical knowledge of matters connected with forestry. It is not enough that these men should be familiar with the organisation of afforestation. It is also necessary that they should be able to realise the nature and value of the problems that may be submitted to them by the several consultative committees. It is in this respect that we have suffered in so many of our industries, not from the want of scientific men, but from the absence of any appreciation by those who control the scientific men of the scientific results of their investigations. Therefore, I do hope when this Bill comes into Committee some Amendment will be accepted by the Minister in charge with a view of taking care that of these Commissioners who are to be appointed, at least one—and I would suggest two— should have some considerable scientific knowledge. My only desire in intervening in this Debate was to indicate that I consider British interests, Welsh interests and Irish interests ought also to be considered by those who are taking part in the discussion, and to indicate practically the only Amendment that, personally, I felt very desirous of introducing in the Bill.
  Mr. F. C. THOMSON: I desire to intervene for only a few moments in this Debate in order to support this Bill, which I think on the whole is a Bill which will be of vast benefit to the whole of the United Kingdom, and especially to Scotland. In his interesting speech the hon. Member for East Fife (Sir A. Sprot) spoke of the enormous advantage that has accrued to Continental countries by a central forestry department. We know the condition of Scotland as regards woodlands. We had, not long ago, an interesting address by a forestry expert to a number of Scottish Members, and we were

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  told that Scotland was the best—it has been demonstrated byexperiment—tree-growing country in Europe, and that the trees for timber purposes grew at a more rapid rate in certain parts of Scotland than anywhere else. With these facts, it seems almost a disgrace that we should be in the position we are with regard to timber. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge), dealing with this matter from the point of view of Scottish devolution, deprecated this Bill as a retrograde measure. I, too, believe in Scottish devolution in such matters as education and local government, but I think we have to look at this from a larger point of view. I think this is an Imperial question. One will see in Clause 3
  "The Commissioners shall be charged with the general duty of promoting the interests of forestry, the development of afforestation, and the production and supply of timber, in the United Kingdom."
  That is, of course, an important Imperial duty, and the Commissioners have also the duty to
  "make or aid in making such inquiries as they think necessary for the purpose of securing an adequate supply of timber in the United Kingdom and promoting the production of timber in is Majesty's dominions."
  So that it is altogether a big Imperial scheme which is required. There is something which is most attractive to the mind of a Scotsman, very naturally, of managing things in his own way and on his own soil. We have now a Board of Agriculture like that of England and Ireland, and at first sight it may seem to Scotsmen to be a retrograde step to have a central authority in England. But may I point out that this is a big Imperial matter, and it must be looked at from the broadest standpoint. The last speaker and others have pointed out that this is a great matter of forestry. We want to get the maximum drive on. It is a matter which will brook no delay. If it is dealt with in a separate fashion in England, Scotland, and Ireland, the result will certainly be that Scotland will be very much the loser. The hon. Member opposite considered, I think, that it was rather mean that the point should be made that Scotland did not refuse to take this Bill.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: I did not say that; I said I thought it was a little unfair.
  Mr. THOMSON:I beg the hon. and gallant Gentleman's pardon for using a word he did not use. He indicated it would be unfair—
  Lieut.-Colonel URRAY: A "little" unfair.
  Mr. THOMSON:To take up the point of view that Scotland had not refused this Bill. In view of the fact that she is a large timber-bearing area, the suggestion was that she should be taken into account as a sort of special entity. We must look at this question in a practical way. The Treasury being what it is, if there were only the Board of Agriculture alone in charge of the forestry, we should only get that small amount which was due to Scotland, whereas under this Bill the terms will be more generous. There is something superficially attractive in the idea of our Board of Agriculture managing both woodlands and the small holdings adjacent. We have, however, to look at this question of woodland in the light of expert opinion, and this is unanimously to the effect—and I personally have been a great deal impressed by it—that this is a great Imperial work, and once it is set going we may look for further development in the future. If we get Government support we must have one central authority, otherwise the matter will never get going in a proper way. Therefore, while, no doubt, the Bill is capable of improvement—and this can be done in Committee—I warmly support it. It does provide for administrative devolution by the calling in of three Assistant Commissioners, and consultative committees, whose functions will be most important. For these different reasons I strongly support this measure. I think it is one of the biggest things we have had for Scotland for many years. As pointed out by the hon. Member for East Edinburgh, many of the holdings in our country are not economic, and unless it happens, as in France, that men can get work in woodlands they are not likely to be. Therefore, we want woodlands started on a bigger scale, and laid out in as economic a manner as possible. Surely the Board of Agriculture, working along with these Commissioners, can arrange for holdings in the neighbourhood of the forests? We have to look at this forestry matter as an Imperial question, and for the Board of Agriculture of Scotland to do its part in working together. If it does that, one has confidence that by this means, and possibly by this means alone, we shall see that real regeneration throughout Scotland that we look for with confidence in the immediate future.
  Captain C. CRAIG: I intervene for one moment to express to my hon. and gallant Friend who has introduced this Bill my personal pleasure, to tender my gratitude for its introduction, and to assure him of the support, not only of myself, but, I think, of all my colleagues. Now that the question has been raised as to whether a separate Department of Forestry should be set up, whether this question of afforestation should or should not be put into the hands of the agricultural authorities of England, Scotland, and Ireland, seems to me to be a very small matter, and of secondary importance compared with the fact that the Government have at last realised the necessity for dealing with this question on a large scale. So far as I am concerned, it would not make the slightest difference as to whether the authority in whose hands this matter is to be, or has been, confided were the Agricultural Board or anyone else. The important point to me is that this question is being tackled. With respect to my own country, possibly more than any other part of the Kingdom is it necessary to do something in this matter of afforestation. Certainly innumerable Land Acts have been passed for Ireland. While they have had beneficial effects in one respect they have done harm in another. The ordinary tenant farmer in Ireland, as soon as he got possession of a farm, if that farm had a tree upon it, probably cut it down. Many districts, which twenty or thirty years ago had a fairly wooded appearance, are now absolutely denuded of trees. There is the aesthetic point of view. Apart, however, from that the Bill will do good. In Ireland also, not to as great an extent as in Scotland, but to a very considerable extent, there are very many admirable tree-growing areas, which for years, for centuries even, have been lying idle, or have been put to very little use. I hope under this Bill, those areas will in the future prove of considerable benefit to the Kingdom. There are no doubt, as hon. Members have said, points in the Bill which will require to be amended in Committee. On the whole, however, the Bill, from my point of view, and the point of view of Ireland, I think, is a very valuable Bill, and my hon. and gallant Friend may assure himself of our heartiest support.
  Mr. REMER: As one who is commercially interested in the timber industry in this country, perhaps it may be of some
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  moment if I inform the House of my complete approval of this measure. It is one of the most important measures that have been introduced into this House for some considerable time. It relates to no new problem. The problem is a very old one. This is not the first attempt which has been made to solve it. But I am afraid that the attempts in days gone by have been spasmodic. They have been the result of scares. If we go back some considerable time in history we find there was a scare in this country because there was a shortage of yew for making bows and arrows. We find that in those days the people planted yew trees in their churchyards, and you will find a yew tree existing at the present time in a great many churchyard's. Later, there was a further scare because there was a shortage of oak with which to build battleships. There were a great many patriotic landowners in those days, and they did their duty in planting oaks in their hedge rows. As a result you find many oaks in the hedge rows of England at the present time.
  During the present War there was another scare owing to the shortage of ash which was required for making aeroplanes. Another scare was in connection with pit-props for mines, and yet another about the shortage of general timber in view of the importance of saving tonnage. While on the question of pit-props may I refer to some of the speeches which have been made as to the shortage of pit-props and the bad quality referred to by several hon. Members. The reason for that bad quality, of which complaint was made, was because it was impossible to secure foreign pit-props. The pit-props used during the War were very largely English, and the bad quality was due to the fact that timber in England was grown haphazard, without scientific method, and, indeed, without any thought as to how the timber was going to be used.
  I give complete approval to this measure. While doing so, however, there are one or two points on which I should like to give a word or two of criticism. In the Bill it states that in the constitution of those consultative committees regard shall be had to persons having practical experience relating to forestry, woodcraft, and woodland industry. It is of the greatest importance, too, that there should be someone on these committees who should have commercial experience of timber after it has been grown, and for

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  that reason I think that on the consultative committees there should be someone who has practical sawmill experience, and who is in the habit of sawing up timber, and knows what if is going to be made into afterwards. I should like to refer to the speech of the hon. Member for East Edinburgh, and his claims for Home Rule for Scotland. It is most important that the whole scheme should be under one central authority, because of the difficulty which would naturally exist if Englishmen, Irishmen, or Welshmen wanted to go and buy timber in Scotland. It is most important that they should be free to go throughout the country, to go into the four Kingdoms with their teams of men, felling the timber after it has been grown. It you have a central authority difficulties, naturally, would not arise.
  My second point of criticism against the Bill is that it is an attempt—it is no good blinking the fact—to subsidise another industry. Along with the great industries that have been subsidised, food, transport, and other industries, we are going to add the forestry industry. It is most important that we should do our utmost to place this industry on an economic basis. There is no doubt whatever that at the present moment trees cannot be properly grown in the United Kingdom. There is no doubt trees have been grown by landowners who have been philanthropists to the nation. Some undoubtedly have been grown for sporting reasons. Mainly, however, they have been grown for patriotic reasons, and without certainly any thought to secure any commercial profit. For that reason, I think it is most important that the Government should take steps to place this great industry— for it can be a very great industry—on a thoroughly sound economic basis. If the War has taught us anything about forestry, it has taught us one solid, salient fact, that when the War broke out this country was very rich in timber lands. It was particularly rich in Scotland, and the value of that timber had a very great effect on winning the War. Yet, in spite of the fact that when the War broke out we were rich in this country in timber land, we imported nine-tenths—I think I am correct in my figure—of our timber requirements. It may very pertinently be asked that, with the position we were in, why did we import such a large quantity of timber, when we were so rich in timber land? The reason is not far to seek.
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  The price of imported foreign deals was£6 to£8 per standard, whilst in England the same deals could not be produced under£20 to£30 per standard. It is not particularly necessary to inquire as to why there was that considerable difference in producing timber in this country in comparison with foreign lands. Some portion of it cannot be avoided, for the reason that we have not in this country any great rivers like the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, where the timber can be rafted to the saw-mills, ports, and the railheads. There are other reasons. The first is the very high cost of rail charges, the second the absence of loading facilities on the railways, and the third the question of the extraordinary traffic on the roads. I propose to show how these difficulties can be removed. With regard to the high cost of rail charges on timber, the railways have undoubtedly done their utmost to drive this trade away. They said it was difficult to handle and inconvenient to their staffs, and they did their best to kill the industry, and more than one railway manager has deliberately told me that it was their policy to avoid carrying English timber as much as they could. To draw a comparison between the charges in this country as compared with other countries, I only need to mention that in pre-war days you could bring timber from a place 1,000 miles from the interior of the United States, and then 2,000 miles across the Atlantic, at a lower charge than you could convey that timber from Liverpool to Birmingham, and that proves that the rail charges killed this important industry, and made it impossible to run it upon an economic basis.
  Another point is the absence of loading facilities at country stations. There are at very few stations cranes by which timber can be lifted on to the trucks. Timber is very heavy, and you must have a crane in order to load it. What happens at country stations?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think that is relevant to this Bill. This measure deals only with the earlier stages of planting trees
  Mr. REMER: If that is out of order I will not pursue it, but I thought it was important to show that the trees should be profitably sold after they were grown.
  Mr. SPEAKER: We have been told that these trees will take about eighty years to grow.
  Mr. REMER: I will not pursue that point further, but there is one further point dealing with extraordinary traffic. It trees are going to be grown on timber land it is necessary to provide roads. When the trees are carted away the people who are carting them are charged very excessive amounts for damage to the roads. I think this Bill is going to be of advantage to the country, quite apart from the utilitarian reasons that have been advanced. There is the point of view of our landscapes. I do not know whether hon. Members have been into North Wales during recent times, but there is there a well-known road between Dolgelly and Bar-mouth. If you go there you will find, instead of Sills covered with beautiful trees, that those trees are all bare and black. I think it is necessary that we should put our country back again to the beautiful landscapes of pre-war days. We are all familiar with the Prime Minister's references to beautiful Wales, and in one of his speeches he referred to the forestry resources of Wales. Personally, I can vouch for the valuable timber secured for the War from the Prime Minister's native village, and I appeal for support for this Bill, not only on account of national and economic reasons, but in order to restore Britain's beautiful landscapes and to make this country fit for heroes to live in.
  Mr. A. SHAW: I beg to move, to leave out the word "now," and, at the end of the Question, to add the words "upon this day three months."
  I yield to no hon. Member in my conviction as to the need of afforestation in this country, and particularly in Scotland. This Bill, if I may the permitted to use the expression, is rotten to the core, and I hope to give some reasons for making that statement. May I draw the attention of every hon. Member, in the first instance, to the provisions of Clause 8? Under Sub-section (2), paragraph (a), it is provided
  "There shall be paid into the Forestry Fund—

  (a) the sums issued oat of the Consolidated Fund under this Section; and

  (b) all sums received by the Commissioners in respect of the sale of any land or timber or otherwise received by the Commissioners in respect of any transactions carried out by them in toe exercise of their powers and duties under this Act."

  That means that there shall be paid into the Forestry Fund all the trading profits of this great Government Department, and over all those profits and transactions this House is not to have one single scrap of
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  control. There is no provision for an Estimate. There is a provision in Sub-section (3) of Clause 8, which says:
  "Provided that the amount to be so issued and paid in each year shall be such as Parliament may determine on an estimate to be presented by the Treasury."
  That applies to moneys issued out of the Consolidated Fund, but so far as the general control of the House of Commons over the acts of this important and expensive now Government Department goes, the only conclusion one can come to is that the House of Commons has been left out altogether, and no scrap of control in this respect has been provided for at all
  We had an example yesterday of the sort of treatment Scotland receives in an English Parliament. We had questions of this very kind discussed on a Bank Holiday when there were prominent attraction is outside, and when many Scottish Members absented themselves as a protest against the treatment Scotland is receiving. Here is a Bill which takes from the Secretary for Scotland and the Scottish Office large sections of peculiarly Scottish administration, and neither the Secretary for Scotland, the Lord Advocate, nor the Solicitor-General' are occupying their seats on the Treasury Bench, and, perhaps, like my humbler colleagues, they share the objections which I am putting forward to this measure.
  With all due respect to the hon. Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger), some of us who represent rural as well as urban constituencies are brought in closer touch with the facts on this question than the hon. Member. What is the outstanding fact which this Bill ignores from A to Z? It is that if you would regenerate and re-people those great tracts of wilderness which exist, especially in the North of Scotland, you must have something beside small holdings. Where you are bordering on the sea you must have canning industries and fisheries, but inland you must Have forestry, because your small holdings and afforestation must work side by side, and just at the time when that is being appreciated by everybody you have introduced a Bill which divorces these two things and which take away the whole area of afforestation from the Board of Agriculture in Scotland and which sets up to effect this marriage between forestry and agriculture, two conflicting Departments, with results which will ensue here, as they always do, when conflicting De-

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  partments are in charge of matters which are really bound up with one another. You are bound to fall between two stools.
  Another aspect of this question in Scotland is that a divorce between agriculture and afforestation as 'being carried out when a marriage is something we should try to secure. This is what we ought to avoid, especially at the present critical time. Now we are creating a new Department when all that is wanted is to inspire new life and vigour into the existing Department. This reminds me of the gentleman who, instead of pouring new spirit into his motor car when the petrol ran out, bought a new car. We do not want new machinery for expending great capital sums. We do not want machinery inspired by landlords, or the buying out of landlords at their own prices. Some of us know a little of the personalities and of the machinations which the behind this Bill, and we shall not rest until the House of Commons is furnished with the facts. There has been a growing feeling in Scotland that the proper way to conduct afforestation is not by making huge payments to landowners. I do not agree with anyone who suggests that landowners have not done their duty by afforestation in the past. I know that now they have more slender resources than ever, and those who have done their duty deserve well of the State, but I object to the payment of large capital sums now, and we ought to adopt some other policy instead of putting in the forefront of Clause 3 schemes for buying land, apparently at prices to be fixed by reference to the Lands Clauses Acts.
  Sir A. BOSCAWEN: No.
  Mr. SHAW: You will find in Clause 3, Sub-section (3), it is provided, under paragraph (a), for the following
  "Purchase or take on lease and hold any land suitable for afforestation or required for purposes in connection with afforestation,"
  and under paragraph (b) it is provided that the Commissioners shall have power to
  "sell or lot any land which in their opinion is not needed or has proved unsuitable for the purpose for which it was acquired."
  These things are put in the forefront of the Bill, and the Board of Agriculture or the Forestry Commission may agree with the landlord and say to him, "If you will give us your land free of charge for seventy years, we shall have an actuarial calculation made and share with your successors on a just basis the profit accruing at the
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  end of that time. "I should have thought the advantage of that course was so apparent that it must commend itself to the Government. It would save the capital expenditure involved in the purchase of land, and it would be perfectly easy to have an actuarial calculation at the beginning of the term and to bring the landlord into an amicable arrangement by which, after you had occupied his land for seventy years for nothing, he would at the end of that time, or perhaps it might be his successor, have an equitable share of the profits realised by the transaction. But there is not one word about that in this Bill from beginning to end.
  I said something just now about small holdings in Scotland. There is not in this Bill a single clause or word which shows that the Government have realised that the great need is small holdings and that such a system can only be operated along with a scheme of afforestation. You are, it is true, setting up a Commission which may, perhaps, have a Scottish chairman—although there are some chairmen who, although not Scotsmen would be very excellent, and others who, although they are Scotsmen, might prove not so good. But we fear we are going to have a Commission dominated by English sentiment, a Commission largely operating in London, and a very expensive body out of touch with Scottish opinion, which is rapidly moving and hardening at the present moment. This Government, in taking away from the Scottish Office— in defiance, I would like to think, of the opinion of the Secretary for Scotland, who is soon to be made a Secretary of State, and of the Law Officers of the Crown for Scotland, and certainly in defiance of the great bulk of Scottish opinion— [An HON. MEMBER: "No, no!"] —which is, I fear, not represented by the hon. Member who dissents—in taking away this great tract of Scottish administration is not treating Scotland fairly, because it is accompanying its offer with a bribe, and that is a very poor tribute to the Scottish character. I object to that low estimate of Scottish opinion which apparently animates the Treasury Bench. Scottish opinion is moving in the direction of Scottish Home Rule. If you are going to take away many territories of Scottish administration, and you have filched a good many of them up to the present, "you may depend upon it that the day will come when you will have to give them back, accompanied, not by these niggardly

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  financial provisions, but you will have to bring in a Bill which will have to be presented by the Government, and we shall then have the spectacle possibly of the Prime Minister standing at that box and using arguments which will overthrow the very arguments now put up by the supporters of this Bill, and asking the then House of Commons to give a Second Reading to a Bill under which Scotland will be treated in accordance with her full rights as a nation.
  Sir F. BANBURY: I beg to second the Amendment, but not for the reasons advanced by the hon. Gentleman who moved the rejection of the Bill, because I do not share the view that Scotland or Scottish interests are neglected in this House. Ever since I entered the House I have regretted that I have not been a Scotsman, because had I been I might now be seated among the distinguished occupants of the Front Bench instead of occupying the position I do at the present moment. My reason for objecting to this Bill is that I do not think at the present moment we ought to embark on any further expenditure, however good the object may be. The expenditure which is provided for under this Bill may be excellent. I do not suggest that it is not. I do not believe it is going to be in any way a bribe to the landlords. I do not see how under the hon. Member's scheme of sharing the profits at the end of seventy years the landlord is going to live during those seventy years.
  Mr. SHAW: I said the profits would be shared with the landlord or his successor, and if there be no successor the position would be nil the better.
  Sir F. BANBURY: A man cannot live on his successors.
  Mr. SHAW: I am very grateful to the right hon. Baronet for seconding my Amendment, but may I remind him that the scheme which I advocate is one which is actually in operation at this moment in Scotland?
  Sir F. BANBURY: I suppose the reason for that is that the Scotsmen concerned have taken such good care of their possessions that they are able to live on other income than that which they would be likely to get under this afforestation proposal. My reason for objecting to this Bill is that the time has come when the
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  Government itself should set an example of economy. Every day we come down to this House and are brought face to face with Bills which increase our bureaucracy, and which increases the money that is to be spent in providing for new Ministries with big salaries. We have a Bill coming on after this which provides for higher salaries for Ministers, and yet at this time it is almost impossible to conceive how we can meet our existing liabilities. How can the Government think that the people in this country are going to exercise that economy which alone can save us from bankruptcy when they come down here continually and ask for more money! There are many things ail of us would like but we cannot get because we have not the money. When will the Government learn that, they are in such a position that their chief endeavour should be to curtail the appointments of Ministers, to reduce the number of Undersecretaries, to lessen the expenditure of the country, and not to increase it for whatever purpose, however good it may be? The hon. Gentleman who moved the rejection of this Bill said quite truly there was a peculiar Clause with regard to finance. Three and a half million sterling is to be spent in ten years, or an average of about £350,000 a year. The provision of the Financial Clause cannot at present be discussed, but there is a proviso that an Estimate shall be submitted and subjected to discussion. Of course one does not know what profits, if any, there are going to be under this scheme, but under the powers to be given it will be quite easy, supposing there is something being done to which certain Members of this House objects, to postpone the sum to be allotted for the year until the next year and in that way to avoid any discussion on the Estimate of the year. There will hi no difficulty whatever in doing that, and that is a provision which, in my opinion, requires very drastic alteration.
  7.0 P.M.
  Let us see what the powers of the Commissioners will be. They may purchase or take or lease and hold any land suitable for afforestation, and they may sell or let any land which, in their opinion, is not needed or which has proved unsuitable for afforestation. They have, in fact, a roving commission to go all over the country and buy land, and if they make a mistake they can sell it again. Under such circumstances how far will£3,500,000 carry them? It looks to me as though we are going to have a repetition of the Slough

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  fiasco, and at the end of ten years the Department will come to us and say, "We have already sunk the £3,500,000, and we have nothing to show for it. "Over and over again it has been proved that the Government has not been successful when entering into ventures of this kind. Although it may be very vital to Scotland to have more trees, I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman opposite who said that the Government were going to do this thing well. I do not know of anything the Government have ever done well when they have assumed control of such an undertaking. It has always resulted in a serious deficit. The Government have never been successful in controlling commercial transactions. I happen myself to have planted trees, not with much success I admit, but I am sure I have been as successful as any Government official would be. May I point out that success in afforestation involves the expenditure of a great deal of money, time, and labour? There are all sorts of things to be fought. There are difficulties with regard to -weeds and to rabbits. I believe they do not grow many weeds in Scotland because the soil is so poor that even weeds will not grow there, but in England we have not only the difficulty with weeds, but we have also the difficulty with rabbits, and it is not an easy matter, therefore, to be successful in afforestation. I end as I began, with imploring the Government most earnestly to consider whether this is not the time for them to put a stop to expenditure. I do not care how good the object may be. I am quite prepared to admit that if we Here a rich country with a debt ofonly£500,000,000 or£600,300,000, such as we had at the commencement of the War, instead of being a poor country with a debt of£7,000,000,000 or£8,000,000,000 and an annual expenditure the extent of which no Member knows, it might be quite right to go in for this sort of thing. But as we are in that position the one thing we ought to do is to cut down all this expenditure and all this extravagance
  Mr. ACLAND: Perhaps the House will allow mo to intervene for a short time at this stage in the Debate. I want first of all to answer a question definitely asked me by the hon. and gallant Member for Kincardine and Western Aberdeen (Lieut.-Colonel Murray). He did me the honour of quoting an article which I wrote on the prospects of State forestry, and he referred to the sentence in which I
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  suggested that the central authority would not centralise all the work in itself, but that the local centres of administration would be in the offices of Assistant Commissioners in Edinburgh, Dublin, and London respectively. I can only speak for the plans of the Interim Forest Authority which would, I think, be carried out by the Forest Commissioners if, to some extent at any rate, the same persons who had been in charge of the work on that Interim Authority were entrusted with it when it was put on a permanent basis. If I have the honour to succeed in having brought this question of forestry under a permanent authority, I hope I shall be allowed to step aside, and that I shall not be one of the Commissioners under the Bill. I can speak with certainty as to what was intended by the Interim Forest Authority and what has been done by them. I shall not have any personal share in carrying that policy any further if this Forestry Commission is set up; but undoubtedly, as far as the decisions of the Government go, it is intended that the actual centres of administrative and executive work should be decentralised, and that there should not be a great bureaucratic centre of offices in London. The persons I refer to who would have, in the case of Scotland, a purely Scottish staff in charge of the Scottish portions, would be the Assistant Commissioner and the divisional and district officers under him, officers in charge of acquisition, estate officers, and so on. All the work in regard to the acquisition of land, in the leasing of land, in the management of the woods, in the actual planting, in the giving of advice in regard to forestry, in regard to woodland schools, and to providing training schemes and in the giving of assistance to local authorities—all that would be decentralised from the centre, and put in the hands of persons in the national centres, such as Edinurgh.
  I very much welcome what my hon. and gallant Friend said with regard to the need of the closest possible co-operation between the Forestry Commission and the Departments of Agriculture. I hope that if any Amendment is moved in Committee to make that more certain, if possible, than it is now, it will be favourably regarded by the Government. The hon. and gallant Member said, perfectly truly, that it would be necessary in some cases to acquire, either by lease or purchase, considerable tracts of land, and that the whole of those tracts would not be suitable for

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  afforestation; some would be too high to do practically anything with, and some would be more suitable for agriculture than for forestry. The Commission which would acquire those estates would, I think, in the first place, have some responsibility to the persons whom they were going to employ directly. There would be certain persons directly employed all the year round, first on the planting and afterwards in looking after the growing woods. Those persons must undoubtedly be equipped with small holdings, so that they shall have some definite interest in cultivation, and that shall be settlers in the truest sense of the word. Therefore, certain parts of the areas acquired would have to be set aside to provide them with small holdings and some subsidiary interest in the district besides that which they would have as being directly employed in forestry. But when they have set aside areas for these small holdings, undoubtedly the Forestry Commissioners would not consider themselves competent to undertake anything in the nature of a small-holdings policy. It is certainly their intention to keep in the closest touch with the Board of Agriculture in acquiring certain areas, and to agree with them, before they acquire them, what parts of those areas would remain under the direct management of the Forestry Commission and what parts could be better acquired by the Board of Agriculture for their smallholdings policy.
  I was very glad to hear that the Bill was so welcome in Ireland. I went to Ireland very recently with the other members of the Interim Forest Authority, and I was appalled at the state of things, where the country was being absolutely denuded of timber. I have been informed recently that there is a district in the West of Ireland which is now priding itself on the timbered appearance given to it by the erection of a line of telegraph poles stretching across from one side of it to the other. There arc parts of the country, very far from a rail way station, where, unless some measures of afforestation are taken, hand-in-hand I hope with the co-operation of the county councils, there will be an absolute dearth of timber even to mend a cart or a gate, or to put in an axe-head or the spoke of a wheel. No country can need regeneration in forestry more than parts of Ireland undoubtedly do. One could see in other districts that the foundation of forest nurseries or woodland schools had been
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  appreciated, because as soon as one came within a radius of some bit of planting that had been done by the Irish authorities one began to see, here and there, a forest tree or a little group of forest trees—not always, one feared, honestly came by by the farmers who put them in in the corners of their holdings—showing that the State nursery had been useful to the settlers, who put in a few seedlings here and there in the corners of their farms, and proving that they were quite interested in forestry if it could only be developed on proper lines in their part of the country.
  Turning to the Motion for the rejection of the Bill, which has been moved and seconded by the somewhat ill-assorted hon. Members who are responsible for the Motion, I think the argument which more than anything else appealed to me in trying to work this question through is that it is time that there should be one single authority responsible for producing adequate supplies of timber. At present it is always possible for every authority you go to to say that it is somebody else's fault that nothing is done. The production of an adequate amount of timber is almost as essential in defence service as the service of the Admiralty. Nobody would propose to split up the Admiralty so that you could say," Oh, it is true we have not provided many ships, but the other authority ought to do it. There must be some central persons who have influence and who govern and who can be had up, and if necessary hanged, for neglect of their duty. You will not get timber production dealt with very adequately in this country, even if the authority exercises a general supervisory control, unless there is somebody whom you can hold really responsible. If it were left to the Board of Agriculture, they might say, "We have not been able to make terms because the demands of the owners were too high." Another authority might say, "We cannot make progress because of the small holdings. "You would find yourselves in twenty years, in face of the steady progress of denudation of our timber, which was going on before the War and is now continuing, without any adequate provision for the production of timber in this country.
  Of course, I only come into this as an amateur, and I know nothing about it really from a professional point of view, but one of the things that impresses me about this forestry service is the difficulty of being certain that measures of afforesta-

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  tion will be really well carried out. In forestry you cannot afford to make a mistake. If you make a mistake in manuring a sugar-beet crop or in planting oats, you see it in a year, and you can do the right thing the next year with your crop. The worst is one rotation. You can put it right in the next rotation. In forestry your mistake will not be seen for forty years, and cannot be put right until then. Therefore the people in afforestation must have the very best experience. If Scotland gets it sown powers absolutely by itself, and all the persons employed in Scottish forests as divisional officers, foresters, foremen, and so on, will have to start from scratch. There are no State forests in Scotland except one of very small area. They will have to start from scratch, from establishing their nurseries, and growing up in the forests, and if they serve the State for thirty or forty years they will still not have got the forests up to the condition of producing proper crops of timber. That is not the best training for foresters or forest officers. If mistakes are to be avoided these men should have proper training in the forests, and if there is an interchange of service with one term in Scotland and then a term in one of the Crown woods in England, this difficulty will be avoided, because in England there will be, under one administration and under the general control of the forest authority, all the Crown woods, which means some 63,000 acres of existing forests of very largely matured timber. So that the forester or forest officer who has the chance of working as a servant of the Crown will have a chance of serving in an actual forest, whereas, if the Scottish service is separate, he will not, for forty years, have a chance of seeing a matured forest at all. It is as if a person going into the teaching service were condemned to be a nursery governess all the time, dealing only with the youngest possible children, and never seeing education developed as it ought to be.
  This Bill does provide a basis for making forestry a matter of Imperial concern. It is not too soon for that to be done. Hon. Members may have noticed recently the appalling losses that have been suffered in Canada and in the United States by forest fires during this summer. We read a few weeks ago of a forest fire in two or three of the States of America which is expected could not be put out until the
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  arrival of the snows of winter. To be able to concert Imperial measures with regard to dealing with the danger of forest fires is quite an urgent matter. It is a very remarkable thing, of which I had no idea until I began to look into the statistics, that during the fifteen years before the War the proportion of our timber that we obtained from the Empire had very considerably decreased, in comparison with the amount of timber we obtained from foreign countries. It does seem to be of the highest importance to try to concert measures with our great Dominions for establishing something in the nature of an Imperial forest service. The Interim Forest Authority has already begun in a small way on that basis. We are hoping to hold, in connection with an exhibition which is being organised by the Overseas Trade Department, an Imperial Forest Conference in December or January, at which the Dominions, India, and the Crown Colonies will be represented, and which will lay the foundations, we hope, of an Imperial bureau of information with regard to forestry, so that forestry statistics, methods of raising timber, methods of disposing of timber, and arrangements in regard to staff and administration, may be, compared, and different parts of the Dominions may be able to take advantage of the experience of other parts, which at present they cannot do. With all respect to what has been done by the Boards of Agriculture, it is inconceivable that the Boards of Agriculture should have said that it was their job to convene an Imperial conference about forestry. That sort of thing is not possible when the matter is split up between two or three different Departments. A single forestry authority is necessary in order that they may take a large view of the question, and make themselves useful to the whole Empire, as it is hoped that this authority will be able to do.
  With regard to the observations of the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. A. Shaw), it is not really quite true to say, as I understand him to say, that no provision is made for Estimates being laid before this House. That certainly is not intended, and I am perfectly certain that it will be brought out quite clearly in the Clause which will be moved to take the place of the Clause which has come from the Lords. I think it is pretty definitely provided, in Sub-section (3) of Clause 8, that there

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  shall be just as definite annual Estimates for the Forestry service as for any other Department.
  Mr. SHAW: The particular Clause to which the right hon. Gentleman refers relates only to moneys issued out of the Consolidated Fund.
  Mr. ACLAND: That is so, and I listened with interest to the point made by the hon. Member as to what is going to happen if and when we come to the stage of getting proceeds by the sale of timber— which will not be for the first ten years or so. Such proceeds would, I think, be put against the estimate on the forestry fund as Appropriations-in-Aid, and questions could be asked about them in exactly the same way as about the moneys proposed to be voted. As is well known, when a public Department receives moneys, those are always brought in in aid of the Estimates by the system of Appropriations-in-Aid, and are just as much under control as the sum which it is proposed to expend.
  Sir F. BANBURY: This is an entirely new system of finance, as far as I remember. There need be no Estimates here of any sort.
  Mr. ACLAND: If there is any doubt, I feel pretty certain that it can be made definite. I have had the opportunity of discussing the matter carefully with the Home Affairs Committee of the Cabinet, and there is no doubt that it is the intention of the Government that, unless Parliament has approved of an annual Estimate, the proceedings of the Forestry Commission will come to an end. It will depend, just as any other Department will depend, upon getting money from Parliament annually by estimate. The point has been made several times in the Debate that in the probable operations of the Forest Commission there will not be sufficient care for small holdings and for settling men on the land. So far as what is proposed follows, as it does follow largely, the Report of the Reconstruction Sub-committee, I think there can be really no foundation for that suggestion. There was no question about it in the Committee. We went very closely into the question of how forestry could contribute to settling men on the land, and nothing that has been said in this Debate is more strong than what was said in that
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  sense in the Report of the Sub-committee. I will quote a few sentences from their Report:
  "The districts which would benefit most are those which are now poorest and most backward, such as the hilly regions of Northern England, Wales and Ireland, the border country and, most of all, the Highlands of Scotland. No ore disputes that large areas in these districts now devoted to sheep or deer ought, if possible, to be put to more productive uses. In these tracts, now almost uninhabited, the cost of reclamation and equipment is such that no agricultural development is economically possible unless some other industry is present to help to bear the preliminary outlay on roads, bridges, etc., and provide occupations to which the small farmer can turn in winter when he would otherwise be idle, and to which his family can look for employment. In certain favoured localities sea fishing, mines or quarries may supply this want, but in many districts sylviculture and the industries based on it arc the only agencies that can do so."
  I remember our getting some very interesting information from the Agricultural Commissioner for Wales, Mr. Bryner Jones, as the result of an inquiry which he made into the economic position of certain families of smallholders in Wales. He showed that over the whole of one large district, allowing for the value of farm produce consumed at home, the total incomes of the families ranged from 13s. 6d. to 21s. 6d. per week only, and in those districts, if anything like the right sort of subsistence is to be provided for the inhabitants, it is essential to provide forestry, so as to give the men steady winter work and bring them in money in the winter to supplement what they make out of their holdings in the summer. I do not think anyone could have been more profoundly impressed than we were with the necessity for running small holdings and forestry together, mutually dependent upon one another, and I can say with certainty that it is the deliberate intention of the colleagues with whom I have been working to co-operate in the most wholehearted way possible with the Board of Agriculture in schemes of settlement of that kind. We believe that in large districts there is at present no chance whatever of making economic holdings, but, when forestry has come, economic holdings can be quite readily and easily established.
  The Mover of the Amendment—I am sorry to see that he has left the House—took exception to the proposals to purchase large areas of land. There is this incidental point, that, if it comes to compulsory purchase, the provisions of the Bill recently passed through this House will be put into operation. In drafting this Bill I

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  merely used the best code that lay in my hands, namely, the code under which the Board of Agriculture proceeds to acquire its land, which, of course, is the Lands Clauses Act, with certain very definite modifications which are shown in the Schedule. But when the Acquisition of Lands Bill passes, the method of assessing compensation there worked out, and assented to by this House, will be substituted for the method suggested in the present Schedule. Apart from that, I believe we shall be able to proceed very largely, not by purchase, but by lease. It is a very complicated thing to work out, but with regard to one or two proposals which owners have made to us we have worked out systems which will be put into operation, if the Bill passes, of leasing the land (so as to avoid the heavy expense of out-and-out purchase) for, say, two seventy-five year rotations of 150 years. I believe that that system will be adopted to a considerable extent. In certain cases it really pays better to purchase out-and-out than to lease. There is some land now in Devonshire, the very finest kind of land for tree production, which has been offered to us for out-and-out purchase at 35s. per acre—not per annum, but the freehold out-and-out. When we get hold of such a possibility of purchasing the very best land at such a rate, it is surely better to purchase it out-and-out than to go on paying 2s. or 3s. per acre per annum.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Is that the present agricultural value?
  Mr. ACLAND: Those are lands which, if used for agriculture, would, I think, carry a rent of 10s. or 12s. per acre per annum, so that to be able to acquire them at 35s. per acre is to get them for very much less than their agricultural value would be if they were used for agriculture. They are not, however, lands under agriculture, and you cannot say what the agricultural rent would have been. They were timbered and have been cleared, and as a matter of fact the Board of Agriculture suggested to us that they were better adapted for forestry than for agriculture, and they expressed the hope that we would acquire them for forestry purposes. With reference to proceeds-sharing, the hon. Member for Ayr fell into the somewhat natural mistake of saying that he cannot find in this Bill any provision under which proceeds-sharing schemes could be worked out with owners. I think that if he had studied the Bill rather more closely
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  he would have seen it. It is contained, of course, in paragraph (e) of Sub-section (3) of Clause 3, which says that the forestry authority may undertake the management and supervision upon such terms as may be agreed upon, or give assistance or advice in relation to the planting or managing of any woods. Proceeds-sharing schemes will be carried out under the provision for giving assistance in the planting or management of any woods. We have already taken the matter of proceeds-sharing very much further than any of the Boards of Agriculture or the Development Commissioners have ever taken it. It is not an easy matter. One has to work out alternative methods, and the actuarial calculations are not simple. I have spent thirty or forty hours in working it out with actuarial tables, to arrive at something which could be put before-owners as a workable scheme. We are now consulting representatives of forestry societies and others as to whether we have got it into the simplest and most workable form. But, undoubtedly, that idea of proceeds-sharing, which was adumbrated and, I believe, actually started in one case by the Development Commissioners in Scotland, is going to be one of the main ways in which we hope to be able to aid afforestation.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Will the new authority take over that particular contract to which the right hon. Gentleman refers? There appears to be nothing in the Bill to say that they will take over current contracts of that nature.
  Mr. ACLAND: The Bill undoubtedly provides that where the Development Commission has made an existing contract with the consent of the Treasury the future financing of that contract shall rest with the Development Commissioners. I have not heard any suggestion from the Development Commissioners that they wish to give up the control of contracts which they have made, although they may involve the expenditure of money in the future. But undoubtedly—and I think I can speak for those with whom I have been in the habit of working in the Commission—that contract will be taken over and financial provision will be made for it. Really it would be a good deal simpler if we took over the definite obligations of the Development Commission than if there were two concurrent authorities, one helping schemes which happened to be put forward by the Development Commission

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  and approved by the Treasury before a certain date, and the other helping schemes put forward by the forestry authority alter a certain date. We did not think it right to suggest to the Development Commissioners in advance that they should give up certain powers which they have undertaken and are willing to continue to finance. Undoubtedly proceeds-sharing has init very considerable possibilities, particularly in the case where the land which you wish to assist in afforesting is considerably mixed up with other land. Land which will not be affected by any scheme has, of course, this advantage, that there will be two authorities, both of which will have a definite interest in the financial success of the scheme, and when the financial interest of both bodies is the same, it ought not to be impossible to devise useful schemes between them.
  I do not think it has been brought up in this Debate that there is a very definite and a very responsible opinion in Scotland in favour of this Bill. The course of the Debate has been rather battledore and shuttlecock between Scottish Members, and there has been about as much opposition to it as there has been support. But we ought not to forget altogether that all the societies interested in forestry have definitely preferred to pin their faith, in order to forward the interests that they have aft heart, to a central authority rather than in the continuance of the impossible expansion of the present position. The Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society, for instance, and all other bodies of that kind, are very strongly in favour of having a central authority to exercise general supervision and control. On the whole, this Bill has been very widely welcomed. The only at all large point about it has been the Scottish point, which is entirely intelligible and natural from the point of view of those who put the case of Scottish Home Rule very much in the foreground, and who, I hope, will not forget this point, which is always present in my mind, that there are parts of Scotland in which agriculture is absolutely impossible on an economic basis until forestry has been established, and this body, although it will exercise central control, is determined more than anything else to afforest in those districts where economic settlement but for forestry is really an impossibility. We have had the great advantages of Scotland brought before us both on the Forestry Sub-
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  committee and the Interim Authority very prominently, and I think it is the general opinion of those who have worked at it that at least a half, and possibly more, of the actual work to be done in future will be undertaken in Scotland, and there is absolute certainty that land settlement will be carried on in the very closest touch with the Scottish Board of Agriculture. If an Amendment is moved to secure more definitely the liaison between the forestry authority and the Scottish Board in all matters of settlement or utilisation of land suitable for agricultural purposes, I hope it will be favourably regarded by the Government.
  Mr. G. MURRAY: I had some sympathy with the views expressed by the hon. Member (Mr. Hogge) with regard to the question of Home Rule, but I had no sympathy whatsoever with the views of the hon. Member who moved the rejection. I do not think the people of Scotland would have thanked him if he had succeeded in getting the Bill rejected, because I know there is a large body of opinion in Scotland which recognises that something must be done for forestry as quickly as possible, and I believe they will accept the Bill as a very good measure towards that end. I did not agree further with the hon. Member (Mr. Hogge) when he said there was no urgency for this Bill. That was the ground upon which he based his reasons for deferring it until such time as we have Devolution in Scotland. I believe there is very great necessity for the Bill. Most hon. Members who have spoken have said it is necessary for forestry to run concurrently with land settlement. If it be the case that land settlement is urgent, forestry is just as urgent as land settlement. I observe that under the Bill there is nothing provided for Parliamentary control. The lion. Gentleman (Sir A. Boscawen) informed us that he was considering arrangements whereby some Member of the House would be made responsible for the Forestry Estimates, but we want something still more than that. We require someone in this House who is not only responsible for the Estimates, but who is continuously responsible to this House for the policy and for the actions of the Forestry Commission which is to be set up. I suggest that one of the unpaid Commissioners—because it would then be unnecessary to set up a further Department—should be appointed to be answerable to this House for

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  the actions, of the Forestry Commission. The Development Commission has continuous representation in this House through the Treasury representatives. I do not believe it would be sufficient to have a Member merely responsible for the Estimates, which only come before the House once a year. I would suggest that when the Estimates do come before the House they should not be brought in lump sums but that we should have placed before us details of the schemes as far as possible, together with the main Estimates.
  The next point I would refer to is with regard to the separation of the Agricultural and the Forestry Departments. The hon. Gentleman (Sir A. Boscawen) regretted the separation in some respects, and thought the Departments should work closely together. My experience of Departments is that unless they have some close contact with each other they are apt to run along in watertight compartment son parallel lines, and they very seldom meet. I think it is very important, from the point of view of the statements which have been made this afternoon, that there should be some close contact between the Agricultural Department and the Forestry Commission established in such a way that the contact is continuous. That might be achieved by the appointment upon the consultative committees, to foe set up in the different countries of individuals nominated by the different Boards of Agriculture to the different consultative committees. I believe the consultative committees, if they are used as they should be used, will form strong advisory bodies to the Forestry Commission, and If nominees of the different Boards of Agriculture are placed upon those committees I believe it may be possible to obtain that close link and contact between the Board and the Forestry Department which is so necessary for the good of both land settlement and of forestry. You cannot regard this Bill from the point of view of the United Kingdom without taking into consideration the strong views held in Scotland with regard to devolution. In order to meet that point of view, would the hon. Gentleman consider the desirability or limiting the period of the Bill to ten years? At the end of ten years it should be possible to reconsider the policy. By that time we may have Devolution in Scotland, England, and Wales, and so on, and then it would be possible to consider whether the time had not arrived when the central authority
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  could be split up and placed under the different Devolution Governments. I merely throw out that suggestion as a way of meeting that body of opinion in Scotland which believes that a separate Ministry ought to have been established there. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having brought forward the Bill. I should have preferred originally to see a Bill with more devolution. But it is necessary to have such a Bill, and we must get on with forestry just as we must get on with land settlement.
  Major COURTHOPE: The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Acland) has informed the House of the support which has been given to the Bill generally by the organised opinion in Scotland represented by the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society. I have been authorised by the two English societies representing organised forestry— the Royal English Arboricultural Society and the English Forestry Association—to give the same support to the Second Reading. These societies, and everybody who has really studied forestry, have been anxious for a long time that there should be a body set up whose one and only concern should be to put forestry on sound lines, and they are very anxious that there should be one, and one authority only, for the United Kingdom. There has been such general unanimity in favour of the Bill that I will not weary the House by developing any of the additional arguments that might be brought forward in support of a central authority and against the suggestion made by several Scottish Members that the Agricultural Department should look after forestry. I want to deal with something which has hardly been referred to in the Debate, which has a bearing on the point made by the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London, when he argued that the present was not the proper time to spend large capital sums on forestry.
  I doubt whether the House realises how serious is the position of the British woodlands at the present time. It is far more serious than can be seen from road or rail as one passes about the country. It is true that some of the Welsh valleys are obviously stripped, but in many districts the damage is not apparent. It was my duty, or misfortune, during the last two years of the war period, to be responsible for buying the standing timber for the Government in England and Wales, and I can assure the House that we have been very nearly at the end of our timber resources

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  so far as conifer timber was concerned. So recently as the spring of last year a flying census of timber was taken throughout the United Kingdom which, although it must contain inaccuracies, and was never intended to be more than an approximation, did give a close idea, as far as it could be tested, of what the timber was then. We know approximately what has gone on since. The House will be surprised to hear that of timber of convertible size, the United Kingdom contained according to that census just about one pre-war year's consumption. If every tree in the United Kingdom of sawing size was taken it would supply our needs at the 1913 rate for one year only. That gives some idea of the urgency of the matter, and it brings me to my last point. The House must recognise, and I hope the Government recognises, that if a forest policy is to be a success it must depend very largely upon the efforts of private enterprise, and upon the encouragement given to private enterprise. We have at the present time, or we had before the War, 3,000,000 acres of woodlands, of which 97½ per cent. were in private hands. The estimate on which the excellent Report of my right hon. Friend's (Mr. Acland's) Committee was based presupposes that in addition to the new planting which would be undertaken, the existing woodlands would be put, I will not say on a proper forestry basis, but on a sounder basis than they had been in pre-war days. The best of these pre-war woodlands have gone. Many of them have been felled altogether, and the best of the rest have been much reduced. The question is how best can these woodlands be restored. The success of our forest policy and the success of the forest authority itself will not depend on its own direct efforts on the land it acquires nearly so much as upon its success or failure in inducing private owners to replant their woodlands and to do it in a proper manner.
  Mr. BARNES (Minister without Portfolio): The subject-matter of this Bill has been under discussion for the last two years. The principle of it emerged from a Sub-committee of the Development Commissioners nearly two years ago, and the matter has been revived more than once. I have no hesitation in saying that the Bill is much belated. I can assure hon. Gentlemen who criticised the Bill this afternoon that most of what they
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  have said has been carefully, and I might almost say sympathetically, considered. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) said that my hon. and gallant Friend (Sir A. Boscawen) had only put up one argument in favour of the Bill, and that was the possibility of another war. May I put forward two other reasons for the Bill, one human and psychological, and the other financial? This Bill proposes a new and healthy occupation and interest for the country. We have been growing lopsided for a good many years. We have been draining the countryside and heaping people into the towns, with dire results from the human point of view. I am not sure that the neurasthenia which is now so prevalent in the country, and which results in the stoppage of work and many other things, has not been due very largely to the increasing extent in which for the last generation people have been living in the unhealthy atmosphere of the towns rather than in the country. This Bill is intended, along with what is now being done in the way of agricultural settlement, to take that human stream back as far as possible into the healthy atmosphere of the country districts.
  The second reason is the money reason. If my hon. Friend the Member for East Edinburgh were present I would remind him that we have been importing timber for, I suppose, generations past, and that import of timber has adversely affected the international exchanges. I am told by those who know the position better than I do—I am told by experts, among whom I may include my hon. Friend (Major Courthope) —that the land of this country is just as capable of growing trees as the land in some of the other countries which have a great deal more woodlands than we have. If that be so, especially at a time when it is more than ever necessary, and will be progressively more than ever necessary, that we should affect the international exchanges in our favour, owing to the difficulty of exporting, why should we not try to make a better use of our land and grow this timber for ourselves? If the reason assigned by my hon. and gallant Friend had been the only reason, is it not a sufficiently cogent reason why we should produce this Bill and pass it? The country simply cannot afford to run the risk of going through the same experience which we have gone through during the last five years. My hon. and gallant Friend has already told the House how during the

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  War we had to import pit-props to keep the mining industry going, and that such was the pressure upon our ships we had to cut out the pit-props and produce them for ourselves. We had not only gone our last length so far as shipping was concerned, but we had got on our last legs so far as timber was concern-id. During the first two years of the War, before the end of 1916, we had expended in buying timber from abroad no less a sum than£37,000,000 over the price at which we could have got it before the War. Besides that, we have used 7,000,000 tons of shipping since then to import timber from abroad. If my hon. and gallant Friend bad given no other reason, that reason would be almost sufficient justification for this Bill.
  This Bill embodies the idea of separating afforestation from agriculture. There are many hon. Members who think, and think strongly, that that is not the course that ought to be followed, out we believe that afforestation is in itself sufficiently important to keep one body busy. Its consideration involves long views. My hon. and gallant Friend said that eighty years is the time required. Pit-props do not take so long, but other wood takes longer. Therefore, having regard to the fact that long years have to be taken, and there is no profit for a very long time, it is imperative to take these steps, which are absolutely necessary for the safety of the country. You cannot expect an individual to plant wood and wait eighty years for his profit. It is time to make this a separate matter and to set about improving the position so far as the country is concerned. Owing to the neglect of afforestation only 4 per cent. of our land is under wood, whereas in some countries not less than 47 per cent. is under wood. The crux of this Bill lies in the centralised authority, with which must be allied the most modern methods of production. Experts have to be employed if we are going into this matter in a scientific way. Research has to be carefully made, staffs have to be employed who know all about the matter, and these experts and scientific gentlemen upon the staff can just as well make all the inquiries in regard to the United Kingdom as a unit as they could in regard to Scotland, Ireland, Wales, or this country as separate units. To separate this question into two, three, or four districts is simply to do the work three or four times over.
  8.0 P.M.
  We have discussed and rediscussed this matter, and it happened to be my lot to be
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  upon a small Committee that had to consider the Report of the Sub-committee presided over by my hon. Friend (Mr. Acland). We were told of the need for centralisation. We were told that the other countries, including France, if my memory serves me right, which had had the best results in the way of afforestation, countries on which we were, to some extent, dependent, were the countries which had followed the course recommended in this Bill. While we have neglected the matter, and have become dependent upon other countries, we have found that those countries which have supplied us with wood up to a very recent date are now consuming most of the wood themselves, and to a progressive extent will not be exporting countries. The objections are sentimental. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh raised a question of Devolution, and reminded us that there was a project on foot to set up a Committee on Devolution on which, Mr. Speaker, you were good enough, I believe, to say you would serve. This matter can not wait until Devolution is established. That is a matter which is in the air. This is a matter which ought to be brought down to the arena of practical affairs. More over, Home Rule has nothing to do with the growing of trees. We are trying to set up under this Bill a central authority as a matter of business. My hon. Friend said that the Commissioners had to buy land in whole estates, but under Sub-section (3) of Clause 3 the Commissioners will have power to purchase or take on lease and hold any land suitable for afforestation, but they need not hold it all; they can sell or lease any land that, in their opinion, is not needed or is not suitable for the purposes for which it is required. Consequently, there is nothing in that argument. Having bought land the Commissioners have power to separate that land and hand over part of it to the previous local bodies or sell it to other people or exchange it whenever they find it convenient, or they can get rid of land not suitable and obtain land that is suitable. Then the hon. Member for Kincardine (Lieut.-Colonel Murray), who supported the Bill, for which we are grateful —
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: I said that I would support the Second Reading.
  Mr. BARNES: The hon. Gentleman promised Amendments in the Committee. He said that the Bill did not provide for supervision on the part of the Scottish

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  people and that there was no distinctive Scottish authority in Edinburgh, but I may remind the hon. Member for Kincardine that the Bill does provide in Clause 5 for Assistant Commissioners in Scotland, and, of course, the common-sense view would be—and I have no doubt that the common-sense view would be taken, and, if, not, I am sure that any Amendment necessary will be sympathetically considered—that the headquarters of those Commissioners would 'be in Edinburgh. Then under Clause 6 the Bill sets up consultative committees for England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. There again the common-sense interpretation is that the consultative committee for Scotland will have its headquarters in Edinburgh. Then the point was raised by an hon. Member that there might be a difficulty in the different bodies never coming together. But there is a provision in Sub-section (2) of Clause 3 that the Department from whom powers and duties are transferred as aforesaid to the Commissioners shall, if arrangements are made for the purpose, continue to exercise and perform on behalf of the Commissioners such of the transferred powers and duties as may from time to time be agreed between the Commissioners and the Departments concerned. That is intended to meet the point which was raised. We agree that there ought to be the closest possible contact between the old Commissioners and the new bodies. I have no hesitation here again in saying that any Amendment thought necessary to give more explicit effect to that idea would be sympathetically considered.
  Mr. G. MURRAY: Does my right hon. Friend think that this gives the necessary contact?
  Mr. BARNES: It is intended to give that contact, and if the Bill is not sufficiently explicit on this point I think that an Amendment to give effect to that idea would be sympathetically considered. The hon. Member for the University of London (Sir P. Magnus) referred to the need for scientific men among the Commissioners. I thoroughly sympathise with him in that view. That is the idea of the Bill that afforestation should be taken out of the region of amateurish effort and put into the hands of those who really know their job. Therefore I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there would be sympathetic consideration of this point. The hon.
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  Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. A. Shaw) made a full-blooded, rhetorical speech, and he talked about some machinations that had been going on in Scotland in regard to this Bill. He could not have made a stronger plea on behalf of the Bill, because we want to take afforestation out of the region of these personal political squabbles that have stood in its way in the past, and we hope that there will now be an end of these things. He was seconded in a characteristic speech by the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), who made a plea for economy. The £3,500,000 to be put into afforestation under this Bill wilt be one of the best investments which we have made for a long time. It has been said that it is arranged in such a way as to prevent proper Parliamentary control. There is no intention of doing anything of the kind, and if it is necessary to recast that particular Clause so as to see that no control is lost by Parliament, I think that that can be done. The only objection to the Bill is a sentimental objection—that is the objection of Home Rule. That is on unreal objection. Afforestation is a matter which has no connection with Home Rule, either for or against. It is a matter of Imperial concern and national safety, of public health and industrial reform, and for these reasons as well as for those already given, I hope that the House will give a Second Reading to the Bill.
  Amendment negatived.

  MINISTRIES AND SECRETARIES BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: Are we to understand that a Bill of this importance is to be read a second time without any explanation on the part of a responsible Member of the Government or without any discussion? This Bill proposes to remove the statutory limitation of the salaries of certain Ministers, to increase the number of Secretaries of State and Under-Secretaries of State capable of sitting in the Commons House of Parliament, and to transfer the powers

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  of the Secretary for Scotland to one of His Majesty's principal Secretaries of State. It is a most important Bill, and I am very glad to see that the Leader of the House has come in now, because had he been here a few moments ago I feel sure that he would not have supported his collague on that bench in trying to get a Second Reading of this Bill without any discussion.
  Mr. BARNES Mr. BARNES dissented.
  Lieut.-Colonel MURRAY: If I am doing the right hon. Gentleman an injustice in that, I withdraw what I have said. I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to give us some explanation of this Bill. So far as Scotland is concerned, I agree whole-heartedly with Clause 3 of the Bill, which proposes to transfer all the powers and duties of the Secretary for Scotland to one of His Majesty's principal Secretaries of State. The day is long overdue when the Secretary for Scotland should cease to occupy that subordinate position in the Government of the United Kingdom which he holds at the present moment. I hope the Leader of the House will deal particularly with Clause 4 of the Bill, which seems to me to contain certain provisions that it is difficult for the layman to understand.
  Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): I can assure the House that there was no intention whatever of attempting to get the Second Reading of this Bill, the importance of which I thoroughly recognise, without some discussion. My hon. Friend has asked for an, explanation, but I do not think it necessary to take up time and explain it, as the object of the Bill is perfectly plain on the face of it. I hope also that it will not be necessary to say very much in justification of it. It has for a long time been recognised, to put it at the lowest, as distinctly inconvenient that officers, which through the lapse of time have come to be of importance equal to that of others, should occupy a different status, and should be accompanied by a different scale of remuneration so far as the heads of these offices are concerned. Perhaps it may Interest the House if I tell them that a good many years ago I attended as one of a small deputation from the Chambers of Commerce to the then Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, urging that the Board of Trade should be put on a level with the
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  other high offices of State. With that frankness which, as everyone who knew him was aware, wag one of the charms of the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, as the deputation was private he told us that he had himself found, in forming his Cabinet, that it was a great inconvenience inasmuch as it was not possible for him in any case to put into office the men best suited for the posts, because the standard made it necessary to put into higher offices the men who seemed to justify those offices. That difficulty has continued. I am inclined to think that there is no way in which I can make it plainer to the House that this change ought to be made than by telling them that within a comparatively short time, certainly within the last two years, two of the gentlemen who now fill two of the offices mentioned in this Bill—I do not think it would be right to mention their names—were selected by the Prime Minister for offices of the higher status, but when he came to look into it more closely the Prime Minister, and I myself, whom he was good enough to consult, came to the conclusion that the work which these men were doing in their Department was so important, and they were doing it so well, that we could not move them.
  I think if must be obvious that a system which keeps men in what are considered the lower offices because they are particularly good at them is a system which the House could not defend and is not in the interests of the State, I am quite sure it anyone looked at these offices he would recognise that they do require men of capacity equal to that possessed by those who fill the higher offices. I am sure, therefore, that on its merits there is no one who will doubt that this change is one which ought to be made. But while that in true, I recognise that the present is a very in opportune time for making proposals of this kind. I recognise that, and if it were not that we think it necessary to make it now, not in the interests of individuals but in the interests of the State, we certainly should not bring it before the House of Commons. It is an inopportune time, for this reason The financial position of this country is a very serious one. I know that it is the fashion for those who criticise the Government to say that we regard expenditure with indifference. As a matter of fact, that is a charge which is very frequently made against the Government of the day whatever it may be; but it is of far greater weight at this moment, because the expenditure is on

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  a scale which is alarming, and it must be reduced. Whether or not we have been as successful or shall be as successful as we wish. I can assure the House that among the many difficult problems—and there are many difficult problems—that we are called upon to face at this moment, there is not one which more preoccupies or as much preoccupies the attention not only of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but of the Prime Minister and the other members of the Government, as the absolute necessity of bringing our expenditure down to a scale which is more in keeping with what is possible for this country. I think, also, that there is no one in this House or out of it who has had any experience of the conduct of big undertakings of any kind who will not say that a particular kind of saving is not only not economical, but is in itself the most wasteful of any expenditure if it takes the form of attempting to underpay the man on whom you have to depend for the efficiency of the work. That is not economy.
  I venture to put this—it is the real reason for our bringing this Bill on now, in present circumstances and at this stage of the Session—the very conditions which called our attention to the expenditure of the country, which make it really vital, I think, that the Government themselves should set a good example in this matter and therefore make it undesirable to bring in such a Bill—it is these conditions which render it absolutely wrong and against the interests of the State to ask the men who are filling those high posts to do so at the small salaries they received before the War. Let the House think what it means. A salary of£2,000 before the War meant, after deduction of Income Tax, £l,925. It means now, after deducting Income Tax, £1,550. I do not need to remind the House that that is not by any means the highest difference. The value of money and what you can get for your money have changed so much that the salary of£2,000, which was certainly too small before the War, is absolutely inadequate for a man who fills these posts under the conditions which prevail at the present time. I wish the House to look at this not from the point of view of justice to individuals, in spite of the story I have told and the fact that some of these Ministers would have occupied higher offices but for the necessity to keep them in their present positions, but I wish the House to realise that this change is not
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  made in the interests of individuals; it is made in the interest of the State itself. Just think what it means. I do not suggest that in paying Ministers the country should be expected to pay them the full amount which it would be possible for them to obtain in other occupations. But think what the present position is. In the past, as the House well knows, it has been a rare thing for Ministers to be dependent upon their salaries. Ministers, I think I may safely say in nine cases out of ten, in the past have had independent means. Everything in our system was founded on that idea, but in this, as in everything else connected with the British Government, though we were never logical, we did get what was necessary according to the times in which we lived. Perhaps some Members have not noticed the very great difference in the salaries paid to Ministers and those paid to the legal officers under the Crown. What was the explanation? As I have said, Ministers belonged to a class which had private means. In the case of lawyers that was not so, and we gave—I must say that I was always inclined to look upon it as rather absurd, and I still do—we gave a salary to the Lord Chancellor twice as great as that of the Prime Minister; we gave him a pension of half his salary, to which he had a right, whereas the Prime Minister, I whatever his services, can obtain a pension of only £2,000, and then only by making a declaration of need
  Why was it? It was because the House of Commons knew that it was essential to get the best lawyers for these legal posts, and that you could not get them unless you paid them a salary in some degree commensurate with what they could obtain in private practice. Are we not come to a time when more and more these high posts are likely to be filled by men who have not private means? I am certain of this, that nothing could be worse for the State, worse for the efficiency of these offices, unless the men who fill them obtain ! a remuneration not, as I say, equal to what they could make outside, but a remuneration which is adequate in comparison with the work they do. It is not necessary to give the full amount which a man of that ability could get in other occupations. I do not think that would be possible. Nor is it necessary. After all, money is not the only thing even from the point of view of selfish interest. Perhaps the House will forgive me saying that I gave up a fairly

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  large income to become a Parliamentary Secretary at£1,200 a. year, and at the time I thought I was a very lucky man to be able to make the exchange. What men prize even more than the money is the position it gives them in the eyes of their fellows, and undoubtedly a Minister of the Crown has a great position which gives him a value far higher than anything in the way of money could do.
  But while that is true, I put it to hon. Members to consider the position now. Take the case of one of those who fills those offices as a man who has not got private means, and look at the sacrifice he makes from the monetary point of view. It is not merely that he gets a smaller income than he could get otherwise: it goes further. A man who is dependent on the salary and who, let us say, accepts some Ministerial office deliberately cuts himself off and diminishes the chance of getting posts of another kind. When people are inclined to say that the salaries we get, even the biggest salary of£5,000, are very large sums, I think the House ought toremember, and so ought the country, that a man who has been making political life his occupation, has got to look forward to being in office only part of the time, and to being out of office part of the time, and that he cannot hope to make, when out of office, anything like the same income, if he does his Parliamentary duties, as he might have if he had not been in office. I do really appeal to the House of Commons to look at this matter on its merits, and if I might appeal to my right hon. Friend (Sir D. Maclean), who has given notice of an Amendment, do not draw into this question other questions as to the extravagance of the Government. I am quite ready to have that debated, and I am quite ready to show that we realise its importance as much as anyone else, but this is not the time. If this is the right thing to do on its merits we ought to do it. I would like to say this in conclusion, we have a right to expect that men who are called upon to serve His Majesty should feel it a great honour and should be ready to make sacrifices in order to do that service to King and country, but the present position and the present value of money mean that a man who has no private means, and who is living on£2,000 a year, is forced either to get into debt or to live on a scale below that on which ho was living before, and on which he could live
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  to-morrow if it were open to him to take an outside position. I do not think that is right. They have the right, in the case of those who have the chance of being Ministers, to look upon their services as a great honour, but we have no right to, and cannot, expect them to fill those offices while they are at the same time hampered by, the carking cares of not having an adequate sum on which to live.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: The House is indebted to my right hon. Friend for the statement he has made, but, notwithstanding the suggestion which he has made to me, I beg to move to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words
  "this House declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which increases the salaries and alters the status of Ministers, until the Government declares its policy with regard to the reduction of Government Departments to a scale conducive to national efficiency and economy."
  One of the main reasons which the Leader of the House gave us for this Bill was that the men who are doing this heavy and responsible work should have, to paraphrase what he said, a living wage. That, of course, is a right and proper thing to do, but the right hon. Gentleman has also expressly pointed out that governing positions are different from the positions which men take with regard to the rewards which come to them in commercial life. He himself, with his usual frankness—a quality all too rare, but which has never been absent from his life—said that it wan inopportune time. It most certainly is. Coming back to the point of the distinction between governing men and the rewards of commercial life, we must not lose sight of the fact that the governing men are very closely watched by the people they are governing. While I was one of those who voted for salaries for Members of Parliament, and I see no reason at all to be ashamed of that fact, I frankly admit that throughout the country there was a great deal of a sense of disappointment that this House had for the first time departed from its hundreds of years of tradition, though Members of Parliament were formerly paid, and given the idea that the services which Members of Parliament rendered were not of the same public standard as they used to be. That might be right or it might be wrong, but undoubtedly that was the case. What is the time which my right hon. Friend has described as inopportune? It is a time when economy and efficiency should be so

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  closely linked that a shining example should be given to the whole community of the only way in which our financial position can commence to approach to a satisfactory basis. I do not hesitate at all to say that throughout the country there will be in many quarters very severe criticism of this measure, and through all classes much disappointment that it is linked up with a campaign for economy all round which has been urged from all parts of the House. I am sure, as far as my right hon. Friend is concerned, and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, who has a special responsibility in these matters, that that campaign for economy has always been urged with their cordial assent, although they may not be able to do from their point of view the necessary acts and deeds to carry that policy into very effective operation. This proposal will have a real lowering effect on any campaign launched by any member of the Government, no matter who he may be, for national economy linked with efficiency. What is the proposal? I intend to examine it in some little detail in so far as one can at the quite unexpectedly short notice that one has had. Looking at the Bill, we see that in Section 1, which is the Financial Clause, it is intended to pay, out of moneys provided by Parliament, to the President of the Board of Agriculture, the President of the Board of Education, the Minister of Labour, and, so long as that office continues to exist, the Minister of Food, such annual amount as Parliament may determine. I suppose that means that it is intended to raise these offices from a status of£2,000 a year to one of£5,000 a year. First of all, what will happen? The increase will by no means cease at that£5,000 a year. That being the status of a Minister and that being his salary, there will follow, I suppose, corresponding increases in the salaries of the Civil servants in his Department.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I think that is not so.
  Sir D. MACLEAN:I do not know whether that is so or not, but, at any rate, I ask the question. My idea is—and I have some foundation for it—that if you raise an office to£5,000 a year the Undersecretary of State for that office will get probably £1,5OO to£1,800 a year.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: £l,500.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: And then the permanent staff—and, so far as I am concerned, I cannot say I have really as much objection to that as to the Minister himself—
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I have not looked into this specially, but I am of the opinion that we have already found it necessary to treat the Civil servants pretty much on the same level, whatever their status.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: I draw a real distinction between what I may call the governing man and the permanent staff in these matters. I do not think it can be fairly said that any of our Civil servants are overpaid. I think it may substantially be said with great justice that they are underpaid. But I make no special complaint of that. I only say that there will be some hundreds a year in each case additional to the£5,000 a year. I want at once to say one thing to make my own position clear with regard to Clauses 3 and 4 of the Bill, referring to Scotland. For a long time Scottish Members have asked that the Secretary for Scotland should be made a Secretary of State, and to that extent my right hon. Friend, so to speak, has me. I have pressed for that, but what I would say is this, that at the present time, until we get out of this morass in which we are, do not let us give this key to the public to say what they will say. My right hon. Friend said, "Let them say," but it is not good policy to do that. These are very dangerous times, and attitudes and positions which might be taken up with great safety in normal times should be carefully avoided in these days. In regard to the salary of the Minister of Food, I would like to ask a question. That is a temporary office, and I think it is barely six months ago since it was announced in this House that it was going to be wound up. Those are the sort of things which give rise to the case which I am trying to put of the unwisdom of doing these things. Circumstances might so alter in the course of the next six months—we cannot tell; we do not know what may happen—that the Ministry of Food might be unnecessary, but really we are raising this salary and treating it on the same basis as the Board of Education and the Ministry of Labour when it might very well have been left alone on its present basis and not brought into the rank, as it is here, of the£5,000 a year offices. Then I would ask, if these have

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  been selected in this way, what about the Ministry of Pensions? There is, at any rate for a generation, unhappily a permanent Department. I suppose it will run for, I should think, another twenty-five or thirty years, if not forty years. Why bring in the Ministry of Food? I am suggesting that the thing has not been thought out.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Yes, it has been.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: Well, it does not look like it. Why exclude a Ministry like that, a very important Ministry which is going to run for twenty-five or thirty or even forty years, and put in the Ministry of Food, which we hope will only be quite a temporary office and which ought to be easily demobilised by the end of the winter or the early spring? Then let me take another example. We have the Postmaster-General, with £2,500 a year. I suggest that the Postmaster-General's office is a very important one, but we select the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Ministry of Labour, and the Ministry of Food, and leave out the Postmaster-General. I am not complaining that he is left out. My point is that this has not been properly thought out, and I want to know the reason. I think, if you are going to have any Ministry raised in this way, the Board of Education clearly is one which is fully entitled to it at any proper time, but not, as my right hon. Friend said, at an inopportune time. One might go through the whole range of the Government offices and deal with them seriatim in this way, and doubtless some of my hon. Friends will draw the attention of the House to them; but I will come now to another point. It is one which is contained in the latter part of my Amendment, where it declares that the House declines to read the Bill a second time until the Government declares its policy with regard to the reduction of Government Departments to a scale conducive to national efficiency and economy. It is not possible for anybody to take up any daily or weekly paper without finding in some of its columns protests against unnecessary Government Departments and extravagance and inefficiency. Of course, I quite admit that this is always more or less inseparable from the end of a great war. You get the ad hoc Departments put up, and they are not quite so easily pulled down. That is the difficulty. But the Armistice was declared in November of last year, and we are now into the first week of August. About nine months have gone by. Everybody knows that the
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  number of unnecessary Government Departments which are strewn about London, and have their branches throughout the country, is shocking the public conscience with regard to national economy. Any business man who has anything like a wide range is constantly coining into touch with it. What ought to have been done was this: Someone should have been charged with the duty of winding-up these unnecessary Departments. Perhaps somebody has been, and this is only another instance of the inefficiency with which these things are done, and the general appalling slackness of the Government with regard to public expenditure, that, whoever that gentleman may be, he has not done his job.
  The moral effect of these things is as bad as the effect on the financial position of the country. Wherever you go, you find that the moral effect of the Government, who should show an example in this way, is eating into the municipalities, into all public bodies, and reacting through them on the individual. I agree that every individual ought to be strong enough to see his and her duly for themselves, but we have got to take human nature as it is, and if you get slackness, extravagance and inefficiency on the top, it gravitates to the bottom, and through all the intervening strata of society. That is one of the main arguments which we have against the Second Reading of this measure. I know my right hon. Friend opposite realises this, but the Government seem to be so helpless. He can make a speech with much better force and eloquence than I can, I know, but there they are, and it is their business to do this. I do not know how much better I should be if I were there, but, at any rate, the country is looking every day for signs of the Government being awake to the disaster which is overtaking us in the early days of this Parliament I was a voice crying in the wilderness. I remember I said on a Friday afternoon, when there were a few Members in the House, that we were heading straight for national bankruptcy. We are, there is no doubt about it at all. There is not a business man of responsibility and power in the City of London or in any of our great centres who is not; affrighted. It is the old story. There is no royal road to reform except through individuals—every man and every woman taking his or her share in it. The sermons which have been preached through the length and breadth of the land by the

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  Chancellor of the Exchequer and by the Leader of the House have had no effect. Turn where we like, it really appals one to go through the streets of London, or even into the smallest town in the Kingdom—there is no sign of the seriousness of the financial position. Things go on as if we had been treading "the primrose path of dalliance" during the last five years, and I often wonder whether it is not all a bad dream from which, somehow or other, we shall awake and realise it is not true. But there it goes on, and we leave this House to night with evidence of it all round. That is why I so much regret that the Government have chosen this time to bring in this Bill. I am quite certain that not one of these Gentlemen—all of whom, I say without hesitation, are men of fine public spirit—has pressed for this. I am quite certain, if the issue is put to them that this is a wrong time to do it, they will say, "Put it on one side. Let us show the right example." Whatever may be said about the merits of this, this is not the time to do it. Put it on one side, and any hardship that might come from it they would gladly put up with. I suppose it is too late to suggest that this might be deferred until the whole matter has been further considered, and the financial position is a little more sound than it is; but I can only say again, that it was with much regret I saw this Bill on the Paper, it was with alarm I saw its contents, and I feel, therefore, compelled to move the Amendment.
  Brigadier-General CROFT: The speech to which we have just listened, I think, will probably find sympathy in the minds of most Members present. There is only one regrettable statement that he made, namely, that with reference to the Secretary for Scotland, which I very much personally deplore that he introduced, because it is inclined to make one think that his argument was a party one, and not really based on those principles which he mentioned towards the end of his speech.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: The argument that T adduced was that, while I should be glad to see the official status of the (Secretary for Scotland raised to that of a Secretary for State, the same argument that I put forward with regard to the financial side applied equally to his case.
  Brigadier-General CROFT: I am very glad to hear what the right hon. Gentle-
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  man has said, because that immediately ranges me on his side. I misunderstood him. I thought he did not apply this argument to the Secretary for Scotland owing to some past promise that had been made. How ever, I am glad he agrees that we ought not at this time to allow any increase to take place. I know that the Leader of the House naturally feels on this question as strongly probably as anyone, from the personal point of view in regard to his colleagues, and thinking of them. We all are perfectly well aware of the fact that times are very hard even for the best-paid Ministers. They have their position to keep up. They have their greater duties. There are many other considerations, all of which we realise. But there are hard cases in every walk of life in this country; and my contention is that if we are going to deal with hard cases at this hour we simply are going straight ahead for bankruptcy. It is the same in every walk in life. One cannot fail possibly to be moved by the position, let us say, of those who are pensioners under pre-war schemes—Civil servants, Post Office servants, old age pensioners, the police, and our old soldiers and sailors who are in receipt of pre-war pensions. All these cases are terrible. Even worse than these cases, in my opinion, is the man or woman with small fixed income who had retired before the War, it might be, and now in their old age find it absolutely impossible to make ends meet. That being the fact, I do hope and pray that we may perhaps do something different to our custom here. I hope the right hon. Gentleman, before this Debate is finished, will indicate that in view of the fact that this measure has been before the House but for a very short time, he will take an unusual course, but one which will meet with the approval of the whole of the country, and say that the question will be delayed for at least a few months until the House meets again, when we can reconsider the question in the light, possibly, of changed circumstances.
  9.0 P.M.
  If we in this House are going to pass legislation of this character at this time it is, I believe, going to have a thoroughly serious effect right throughout the whole of the community. It is difficult enough to try to point out the complex reasons which are making life so difficult. Take the case of the profiteer, the man who is supposed to be guilty of profiteering. There are such people. On the other hand, every man in this House knows that what appears to be profiteering in one instance

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  may, in another, be caused by countless effects in other parts of the world, in raw materials and wages. So it is that we have this feeling going through the country. People, of course, do not understand the real situation. Is this, however, the time for this House to introduce legislation which is going to increase the salaries of any Member of this House, when the whole country is looking to us for guidance? I think it will be a fatal matter to pass this Bill now. It was mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman that he supported the Motion for the payment of Members. But that is a question of a time gone by, when we had different opinions, and when, the House was divided, but anyhow, for better or worse, that was carried, and we have payment of Members. But surely the one thing we want to try to convince our countrymen of is this: That our service in this House is different and in no way comparable to service in the commercial world. We come here, I take it, for the sake of service. The idea of salaries for Members was that they should be to cover those expenses incidental to being a Member of Parliament, not that the work should be made a profession. In the same way, in Ministers of this country in the past, we always believed that the men were making sacrifices, at all events we hoped so, and that they were serving their country in these honourable positions purely and simply for the sake of service. If we do not set an example in regard to this question how we can go. out into the country, as I feel we all ought to do, this autumn, and explain the situation 1 How can we implore the people to exercise economy, to cut down expenses, and try to help us through this terrible state of affairs? The right hon.' Gentleman also was wise to link up with his Motion the question of the reduction of staffs. It is perfectly true what he says. I speak from a different point of view, but I do know that throughout the length and breadth of the country there is the gravest anxiety on all hands in regard to the colossal staffs which are still kept on in all the Government Departments. Are we to raise the salaries of Ministers who have not succeeded in cutting down these surplus staffs. When they really have proved to the country their value by introducing efficiency and economy into their Departments, then it seems to me will be the
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  right time to come to this House, and for us to consider whether we should raise their salaries.
  There is just one other word. No one will agree—although I think it is most unfair in nine cases out of ten—but that this House has lost confidence in the country. I remember the Leader of the House himself made a speech to that effect. Perhaps, as the right hon. Gentleman reminds me, he was then in Opposition; but it does not matter whether the right hon. Gentleman sat on this or that side of the Table. He has always been equally sincere. I do not believe his opinions have changed merely by reason of such a very short march round the Table. So the fact remains that we do not at the present time, unfortunately, hold the confidence of the people as in the past. It is essential from every point of view that we should try to regain that confidence by letting them see that whatever we say we mean, that we are determined to be just, and that the thing we preach we are going to practice. For that reason I hope very much that the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to introduce some new machinery, even at this late hour, by which he can postpone a decision on this question, and not force us to go into the. Lobby against the Government, but carry the matter over for future consideration.
  Mr. J. H. THOMAS: The issue raised in this Debate affects something more than the mere question of the salaries of Ministers. I do not know whether the pool is now in existence.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: was understood to indicate the negative.
  Mr. THOMAS: My right hon. Friend answers at once and says "No." I was going to point out that this simply meant adding to the pool. Seeing that the pool is not in existence, and that each Minister is drawing the salary of his office, it still leaves this point: that the same people— and it is not a question of personalities—and the same offices that it is now proposed to increase the salary of were carrying on during the War even more strenuous work than some of them are doing now. To give one illustration—the Ministry of Food. No one can pretend that their labours to-day are more than during the period of the stress and struggle of the War. Surely, if it was not necessary, and if in the interests of the country, the Government felt that the only fair way

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  to deal with the salaries of Ministers was by a pooling arrangement, thereby sharing emoluments as well as responsibilities—at that time, and certainly the Leader of the House recognised the situation better than anybody—it is a bad time to come to Parliament and say, "Our example to the country is to preach economy, our advice to you is to economise in all things, but do not do as we do, because we think it wise for you, but not necessarily for ourselves. "That is exactly the kind of sentiment that will operate in the mind of the public.
  Let us try to discuss this matter from the standpoint of millions of people who are to-day nominally in the Government service, the men with fixed incomes; because whatever else may have resulted from the War the real people who have been hit probably harder than anybody else are the people with fixed incomes; men who at first had domestic responsibilities, the education of their children, and such like to attend to, they have been hit in that way; also with increased Income Tax, with increased cost of living, and they have had no opportunity to augment their income. I refer to people in the country, and there are hundreds of thousands of them, with fixed incomes. I do not mean the workers or those who have made war-profits, but I mean the large mass of people with fixed incomes. Take, first of all, that type of the community and then take the millions of people in the employment of the Government. Applications have been made for a few shillings increase as the case may be, but this amounts to a very large sum when it applies to a large number. What is the impression in the minds of these people? It is that the Government refuse an application for a couple of shillings a week and they say they do it because the Government have gone to the limit of their resources. Then these people reply, You refuse us a couple of shillings, but when it is a Cabinet Minister his salary can be increased£2,000 a year. "In this way you create a bad impression, and you have no right at this time to create the impression that the Government are indifferent to the need for economy. The only answer in regard to a proposal like this is that it must be an urgent matter, and that can be the only possible excuse. Does any hon. Member pretend that this is an urgent matter?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Yes.
  Mr. THOMAS: Is direct action threatened? Is that the urgency of it?
  Mr. BONARLAW: That really raises so interesting a point that I should like to interrupt the hon. Gentleman now. Is the suggestion that the Government are not actuated by what is fair and just, but that threats of resignation have been made?
  Mr. THOMAS: I might retort, "Is a lockout involved?"
  Sir F. BANBURY: There are plenty of blacklegs about.
  Mr. THOMAS: I hope the right hon. Gentleman did not speak feelingly, but in any case the Government are entitled to say what is fair. That does not answer the question which I put about doing it at this moment, because if it is fair now it was fair five years ago.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I gave the answer in my speech.
  Mr. THOMAS:That is not an answer the people will accept. My right hon. Friend knows there are a number of people who think the whole lot of us are not worth the amount involved in this particular Bill, whether Ministers or Members. The House will rise in the course of a few weeks, and surely this matter is not so urgent that it cannot be delayed until then. In the next few weeks Bills will be dropped wholesale, and some hon. Members will be disappointed to hear that certain of their pet schemes will be dropped because there is no Government time for them between now and the end of the Session. I ask the right hon. Gentleman how can he reconcile the dropping of any Bill whatever in which hon. Members are interested with the bringing of this measure forward which is not so urgent. It is because I believe that it would not be wise, and because I think that no danger can arise and there would be no injustice, and, above all, because I hope we shall be able on the reassembling of Parliament to find not only the House of Commons but the Government and the country in not so disturbed a state as it is to-day. It is because I believe that the authority of this Parliament must be maintained that I want to see nothing done that will shake the confidence of the people. I do not want to be accused of panic legislation, and I do not want the House of Commons to be accused of pushing measures through

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  which merely affect certain people's salaries, because I believe that this Parliament must always be the true reflex of the people of this country, and I do not think you will reflect the wishes of the people by any hasty action such as the measure now before the House.
  Mr. JOHNSTONE: I do not think any lion. Member will think that the sums involved in this Bill are of a serious nature, although one must guard against the vicious principle that because it is a small sum we can afford to spend it, and we shall never have economy until we realise the need for saving in the little as well as the much. I agree with what has been said with regard to the inopportune time for bringing forward this measure. There is a wave of extravagance and spending abroad throughout the whole land, and a great many people are looking to the Government to set an example and there ought to be a self-denying ordnance imposed on all classes in the country, and more especially on the Government itself, instead of bringing forward this proposal just now to increase the salaries of Ministers. What the country expects from the Government is that they should reduce the number of offices and exercise strict economy in every Department, and wherever there is a possibility of cutting down and saving that should be done.
  At no other time has there been such need for the Government of the day setting an example of economy and exercising strictness over the spending Departments than exists at the present moment. I am sure the Government realise that there is a great wave of unrest passing over us, and what has contributed to that state of things I Principally the high cost of living and the tremendous prices that are being charged for everything. There is a feeling that we are not being properly governed and that the Government does not realise its obligations to the country in the present condition of things, more especially in regard to spending and the need for economy. I hope the House and every Member who rises to-night will impress upon the Leader of the House and the members of the Government that no more unfortunate step could be taken than this comparatively small measure as it will be in their eyes, of bringing forward this Motion for increasing the salaries of Minister.
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  Reflect for a moment what effect it will have on the people. The feeling will go abroad throughout the land that instead of the Government being in earnest in supporting a campaign of economy in the Government itself and to set an example, they are proposing to spend money, and they waste the time of the House in bringing forward this measure to give more money to the Front Bench. There could be no more unfortunate impression created in the country than that, and I sincerely trust, before this Debate comes to an end, we shall have an admission by the Leader of the House that, in view of the expression of opinion which has taken place, this Bill should be withdrawn. Then good would come out of evil, and it would be an object lesson to the country if we could say that the Government, after introducing this Bill, had withdrawn it, and that would convince the country that this House is really in earnest and serious about the need for economy and of staving off the day of national bankruptcy, and they will think the Government have taken this matter in hand. For these reasons I hope the Leader of the House will withdraw the Bill in no half-hearted manner.
  Mr. MACQUISTEN: I listened with great interest to what was said by the last speaker, but I would put this question: How are economies effected? In a business concern you do not get economy by cutting down reasonable remuneration for the brains of the business or of any particular department. You reach economy by cutting off superfluous members of the staff. There are numerous Government employès who cannot be very busy now the War is over, and it is in that direction we want to see economy achieved. Would it be wise to economise in the case of the Minister of Education when he is dealing with great schemes of education? Can it be said that the Minister of Labour, who has the hardest and toughest of jobs, ought to be the subject of economy? Again, the Secretary for Scotland has had his burdens added to enormously during the last two or throe years, and no doubt the Gentleman, who occupies that post has had to make enormous sacrifices in taking over the office. Is it not invidious that he should be paid on a lower scale than other Ministers? Where we want economy is in getting rid of that enormous octopus of Government officials, and the best men to reduce the staffs are the Ministers,

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  who should exercise their best powers to diminish expenditure in that direction. If you are going to treat the men in your chief offices in a niggardly fashion, that is not setting a true example of economy to the country. If you are going to have Cabinet Ministers faced with enormous difficulties, you should see that the best men are encouraged to accept those offices. You should not treat them in a shabby and mean fashion. I do not think this big and generous country, which believes in its statesmen, whatever may be said outside, would wish them to be treated in a niggardly fashion, and it certainly would not desire to see this Bill postponed because of a cheap cry on public platforms or at street corners. I trust the Leader of the House will stick to the Bill.
  Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: I am sorry to have heard the speech just delivered. The lion. Member certainly could not have listened to the arguments which were adduced in support of the Amendment, or he would have realised that those arguments were very much in sympathy with the points he put forward. I understand it is intended to raise the salary of the President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries from£2,000 to£5,000 yearly. That is a retrograde step. At the present moment the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries is subject to very much criticism in regard to both branches of its work. I, for one, hope in the near future to see the Government realise that the two functions of the Board are not well performed by one Department, and divide the Board into two. But if you are going to raise the salary of the present head of the Department to£5,000, it will be much more difficult to make the division, because you will not be able to reduce the salary of the President once it has been raised. Reference has been made to the fact that this is a very unfortunate time at which to propose to raise the salaries of great officers of State. If this country is going to be saved it will be saved only by the self-sacrifices of the duty-loving economically-minded band of men who fill our public positions—men who will be willing to give up everything in order to try and save their country. I suggest that the raising of the salary of these four Ministers from£2,000 to£5,000 a year is the worst possible thing we can do at the present moment. It is not the
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  mere£12,000 a year which is involved, it is the principle which is at stake. Much better would it be for Ministers to accept reduced salaries—to put them all on to a level of£2,000. That would set a good example to the country. We shall have to to scrape and save in the future if we are going to win through at all, and therefore if every Minister had his salary reduced on the lines I have suggested he would offer a splendid example to the whole country, and would help to bring the people to their senses.
  As regards the reduction of the salaries of Members, which my hon. and gallant Friend below me suggested, that is a different thing altogether. The reason for those salaries is to enable poor men to enter into political life, and for that reason I should always vote against their being abolished. But here you have the case of Ministers. 1 gathered from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman that they found it very difficult to make both ends meet on £2,000 a year. I suppose that entertainment is expected of them. Well, they must give up entertaining. If a man cannot live in decency on£2,000 a year at the present time, how can you refuse to raise the salaries of all your permanent Civil servants and everyone else How can you refuse the old age- pensioner How can you refuse to raise the salary of the man who has lost his limbs in the War? Of course, they can live on£2,000 a year ! I come of a profession that has always been underpaid, and we have always been told that our reward lay in our service to our country. Many times more does that apply to Ministers of the Crown. I hope that this Amendment will be pressed, and that it will be carried if the Bill is not withdrawn.
  Colonel GRETTON: Many of us greatly regret that the Government should have placed the House in the difficult position of having to decide on this Bill at this time. We wish to support the Government; we do not wish to give them a rebuff; but this Bill is one of those strange examples of how the Ministry, living away in its offices and engaged in business., can misjudge and overlook the obvious feeling in the country in matters of this kind. All the arguments which have been, made about increases of salary are good. We can admit them at once. Bht the only argument that is valid at this moment in support of this Bill is that of urgency. There arc two or three considerations which, I think, have been stated, or partially stated, before, and which I will

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  endeavour to put quite clearly and baldly. Does the Government contend that it is impossible to fill these offices adequately and efficiently for the salaries which are now paid? It is not a question of reducing salaries. The salaries have been fixed in times past, and the holders of those offices accepted them knowing what salaries were able to be paid according to the law. The only other argument of urgency is that the four Ministers holding these offices, or some of them, could not afford to continue in them, and that their services are so valuable that they cannot be dispensed with, and therefore their salaries must be increased. That argument cannot be maintained.
  I wish to support the Government, but, greatly to my regret, I shall have to vote against the Second Reading of this Bill unless the Government can show that it is so urgent that it must be passed on this 1 day in this Session, or the efficiency of the Government will suffer. I do not think that that argument can be put forward. I do not wish to labour the arguments which have been advanced as to the effect on the country of Ministers coming down and asking for" larger salaries for them selves, when the country is plunged into a morass of overwhelming expenditure, and when economy is so necessary. Some of them will have to go to the country—they have been already—and tell the people that, they must cut down expenditure and economise, and this at the very moment when Ministers are asking for higher salaries for some of their number. This is not the time to deal with some old-standing arrangement—come to in time of peace— that the Ministry of Agriculture should be put on the basis of a first-class office, when the expenditure of this country is being drastically curtailed. On these grounds I shall be compelled to resist the Second Reading of this Bill, much as I should wish to support the Government.
  Sir F. BANBURY: This Bill does three things. It increases the salaries of four Ministers; it adds two Under-Secretaries; and it alters the law with regard to Ministers seeking re-election. This law we amended a short time ago, at the beginning of this Session; why we want to alter it again I really do not know. With regard to the first point, it has been said that the increase of the salaries of these four right hon. Gentlemen only means an addition to the expenditure of the country of something like£12,000 or£13,000. That, of course, is the ostensible addition
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  under Clause I of the Bill, but it really means a great deal more, because, as soon as those right hon. Gentlemen become Secretaries of State in receipt of£5,000 a year, everyone in their Department has a corresponding increase. I am informed, on what appears to me to be good authority, that, the moment the status of the Department is increased, all the Undersecretaries and secretaries and officials consider that their own status and salaries will tie increased.
  But even supposing that that is not so, on what grounds do we raise the salaries of these right hon. Gentlemen? It seems to me that there can be only two grounds upon which that increase can be justified. The first is that you cannot get anybody to do the work unless the salary is raised. I venture, however, to say that there is not a single Member in the House who would not agree with me that that argument is absurd. If the salaries are not raised, those right hon. Gentlemen will continue in their office, and will be very glad so to do. If by any unfortunte circumstances they should be compelled to relinquish their office, it is not the fact that the Prime Minister will be unable to replace them. The benches are full, and I doubt if there would be three men who would not be prepared to say they would come and do it for less. Under those circumstances, what is the justification for raising these right hon. Gentlemen's salaries? Let me point out that in the old days, which 1 hope are not gone never to return, it was always considered an honour to be a Member of this House, and it was considered to be a still greater honour to sit upon that Front Bench. The question of salary did not enter into the matter at all. It was that we were doing our duty to our country, and we were proud to be allowed to sit on that bench and to be allowed to do what we could in order to serve the interests of our country. Now all that is to be swept away, and it is to be resolved into a question of how much we can pay in order to get somebody to serve their country upon that bench. I venture to say that if that idea were to gain ground it would be a very serious matter for the House of Commons. It would lower the House in the estimation of the country. I am sorry to say that the estimation in which this House is held is not what it used to be. That is one of the arguments, and I think it is a very great argument, against this Bill. But there is another argument, which has

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  been advanced by practically every speaker, and i hope the House will excuse me If I venture to repeat it. It is that this is the worst possible moment for bringing forward such a-suggestion. I thing the Leader of the House will remember a meeting at the Guildhall about three years ago, at which I was present, when Mr. Asquith and the present Leader of the House made speeches, and 1 was asked tore turn a vote of thanks to the Lord Mayor. I listened, as I ought to have done, with very great interest and very great appreciation to the speeches of Mr. Asquith and the Leader of the House. They were very eloquent speeches, expressed in very weighty words, and they recommended the whole nation to practice economy. I was asked to move a vote of thanks to the Lord Mayor, which I did, and I followed it up with this remark, as Member for the City of London, that if the Government would set the example in economy we would follow. That remark was received with great cheering by all my Constituents who were present, and who would have been delighted to have followed that example if it had been set them by the Government, but which, I venture to say, has never been set them from that day to this. Now that matters are worse than they have ever been before, this opportunity is taken of asking right lion. Gentlemen, who would have been quite content to remain on in their offices at£2,500 a year, to receive double pay. I was reading an account in the paper, a day or two ago, of an interview between the Prime Minister and certain hon. Members of this House who represent agriculture. The Prime Minister is reported to have said; "I have attacked in my day the landowning class, but I wish to render a tribute to them. They have not doubled their rents." Can the right hon. Gentleman render the same tribute to his own colleagues, and say, "They have not double their salaries"? The next Clause, I think I am correct in saying, is one of those Clauses which deals with the subject by reference. I have been endeavouring to look this up in the ninety-seven Clauses in the War Emergencies Laws (Continuance) Bill, but I have not had the time to do so. I gather, however, that the Clause increases the number of Undersecretaries by two. I have a very great admiration for all the Under-Secretaries. We generally see them on the Front Bench more often than their superior officers. But why do you want any more? There is no
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  room for them on that Front Bench as it is at the present time. Why add any more, specially as we have already attempted to add another, and have come into conflict with another place when, to use a slang phrase, we had "the knock"? We had to withdraw that one Under-Secretary and now, apparently, by a side-wind, we are going to get two instead of one— that is, if the other place does not interfere. I come to the question of re-election, which is the last Clause. This is a very curious sort of muddled Bill, because it deals with Under-Secretaries and salaries and winds up by saying that if a certain person holds an office under the Crown he is not to stand the risk of re-election. I do not know if that is because the by-elections have not been very successful. It may be so; I do not say it is for a moment; but as it was only so short a time ago, I think, as February or March, that a Bill was introduced to deal with this very question you ought in common decency, at any rate, to let a few years go by before you begin again.
  I have endeavoured to deal with the different points which appear to me to tell against this Bill. I would conclude by saying that I was much struck with the speech of an hon. Member just now, who concluded by asking the Government to withdraw the Bill and acknowledge that they had made a mistake. After all, they are human, or we hope so. 1 am glad the Leader of the House has gone out. I presume he has done so, in order that some of the Under-Secretaries, or the Attorney-General, may rescue him from a false position, and announce to the House that, on further consideration, he intends to withdraw the Bill.
  Captain W. BENN: We have had many Debates in this House on the question of economy. Whenever any private Member rises and urges economy on the Government, the Government has a stereotyped reply, which is that it is the private Members who always urge expenditure. On this occasion I hope the Government will observe that the private Members and the unofficial Members are absolutely united, and think that this is not the time to promote this Bill, however excellent its object. What the right hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) said seems to me very much to the point. In the matter of expenditure I think the hon. and gallant Member for Hull (Lieutenant-Commander Kenworthy) was mistaken. This Bill does not only involve an additional expenditure of£12,000

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  a year. I have looked at the salaries of three of the Ministries concerned. In the Ministry of Food the salaries are£900,00 a year; in the Ministry of Labour the salaries are£250,000 a year; in the Ministry of Education the salaries are£500,000 a year. I understood the right lion. Baronet to say, and I believe it is absolutely right, that if you raise the status of an office, although you do not multiply everybody's salary by the fraction by which you raise the Minister's salary, yet you give them a reasonable presumption that their salaries will be raised as has been the salary of their chief.
  Mr. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury): I cannot let that go unchallenged, as my right hon. Friend has been called away from the House. That is not a statement of fact. It does not at all follow that the salaries of all the officials of a Department arc raised because the Minister's salary is raised. When the salary of the President of the Board of Trade was raised to£5,000, there was no corresponding increase in the salaries of the officials.
  Captain BENN: If the hon. Gentleman says so, I take his word for it, but it seems to me very unfair, if an office is considered big enough to increase the salary of the chief, that those who are at work in that office, and are carrying out the public service, should not have, an increase as well, and I shall be greatly surprised if they do not consider that they are entitled to it, whatever the intentions, of the Government may be. In the old days Thursdays used to be the Supply day, but now every day is a Supply day. No Bill is introduced which does not involve an enormous sum of money. This very day a Bill has been introduced involving, no doubt with very good reasons, an expenditure of£ 3,500,000 on forestry. This Bill also will involve a very great expenditure. Whatever the Government may think, the people outside this House only desire one thing, and that is a ruthless cutting down of expenditure. Here is a very peculiar thing: We set up to-day a Forestry Commission. It is to take over the duties of forestry from this very Board of Agriculture the salary of whose Minister we are raising. But do we observe any reduction in the money voted to the Board of Agriculture for carrying out its duties? On the contrary, we are voting an increase. Surely, if you are going to take away work from a Department, that is generally a
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  primàa facie reason for reducing the Estimate? This Bill seems to me a very unnecessary and badly-drawn measure, but I do not want to speak of that because it obscures the real point at issue. For example it says no more than six Secretaries shall sit in this House. It is quite unnecessary to insert that provision, which was put in to safeguard the other place, because there are only five Secretaries of State, there not being one for air. There are other things one might mention in connection with it, but I do not want to obscure what is really the main issue, which is this. Is this the moment for the Government to sot an example of personal increase of salary to its Members? We voted in this House£2,C00 a year for the Minister of National Service and£3,000 a year for the Minister of Reconstruction. What is going to become of the money?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The sums are not being paid.
  Captain BENN: Then we have voted£4,000 a year, which is a substantial part of what is asked for to-day, and the salaries are not being paid, and the taxpayer is being asked to pay£4,000 which is not required at all.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The War has ended since; perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman forgets.
  Captain BENN: I remember that the War has ended, but the Estimates were presented long after the War had ended, and it is an example of the slipshod reckless manner in which the Government produce their Estimates. Two Minister's salaries voted and not being drawn and here now we are asked to double the salary of five other Ministers. This Bill will create the very worst impression in the country. I wish to re-enforce all that my right hon. Friend and leader has said in reference to what should really be the reward of service. We are far too apt to make it a money reward. The real reward should be public esteem. I do not see why we should not go back to the practice of more Ministers without salary. If a man can live on the salary given to Members of the House he could be a Minister on the same salary. I am not aware that he is put to any additional expense at all.
  Sir F. BANBURY: And he gets a motor car.
  Captain BENN: The Government would do much to raise the status of Ministers of the Crown if they relied not so much on money taken from the Treasury, which is already empty, but more upon the public esteem which their public service merits.
  Mr. WALLACE: I am extremely reluctant to vote against the Government, but I cannot help saying that in my judgment the Government has been extremely ill-advised in introducing this Bill at the present juncture. The right hon. Gentleman who introduced it is a business man, and I take it that in transacting his own business affairs, if any expenditure comes about he always asks himself the question, "Can I afford it?" think the Government ought to ask that question themselves for this proposed expenditure. In times of financial stringency a business firm always looks round to see in what direction it can retrench, but that evidently is not the policy of His Majesty's Ministers. I consider that the present expenditure in which the Government is indulging is of a most appalling character, and I cannot look forward to the future with anything but the greatest possible concern. There is a distinct want of coordination in the spending Departments of the Government. Each one seems to go along the same line, and if the Government does not bring down this reckless expenditure the expenditure itself will bring the Government down. I wonder if Ministers know the feeling in the country about these matters. I go round occasionally to various business centres both in Scotland and in England, and if they knew the deep seated resentment, not only amongst the working classes but amongst business men, at the reckless extravagance that is going on, they would mend their ways. I suggest that the comparative failure of the Victory Loan was largely accounted for by the methods of extravagance which are shown in many Government Departments, and it is no use our having a propaganda of economy if the Government itself is not to set the example. I support every word which has been said by the right hon. Baronet (Sir F, Banbury), and I press on the Government that this is an inopportune time for the introduction of this measure, and 1 hope they will reconsider their idea of pressing it forward.
  I want to ask for information in regard to Clause 2. It says that the number of
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  principal Secretaries of State and Undersecretaries of State capable of sitting and voting and so on shall be increased to six. I want to ask if there is any intention of appointing an Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. The Clause says:
  "Provided nothing in this Section shall affect the status of any Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health appointed under the Scottish Board of Health Act, 1919."
  I regard that paragraph as being of a wholly gratuitous character, and I am quite at a loss to understand it. The duties of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary are concerned with the Ministry of Health in Scotland, and it seems to me, if I am reading the Clause aright, that the idea is possibly to appoint an Undersecretary of State for Scotland exclusive of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary. We were very strong in Scotland regarding the appointment of a separate Minister for Health, and we gave way on the point because the Committee agreed to the appointment of a Parliamentary Under-Secretary. We regarded the duties of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary as so important that we should resent very strongly, whoever holds the position, that he should be relegated in any sense to the position of a junior. In other words I should like to know whether the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health is to be the junior of the Secretary of State for Scotland and also the junior possibly of anyone who may be appointed to be Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. I think it is very necessary that that point should be cleared up.
  Mr. SEDDON: I am sure it will pass the wit of the ordinary man when he tries to find out what madness has led the Government to the action proposed in this Bill. It is not often that I have the privilege of supporting the right hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury), but I endorse every word he has said. I remember some years ago when the right hon. John Burns was President of the Local Government Board, a proposal was brought forward to raise his salary from£2,000 to£5,000 a year. Although he had made himself famous by a remark in his pre-Parliamentary days that no man was worth more than£500 a year, he was informed by the spokesman of the Government of that day that the difference between£2,000 and£5,000 was an invidious distinction between one Department and another, and I believe on that score the

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  salary was raised for the Local Government Board. But to-day we are facing a situation unparalleled in the financial history of this country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has asked every Member of the House to utilise his time and" what ability he has in inducing people to economise. It has gone forth as the policy of the Government that unless we economise as a people we are not only bankrupt but we shall be doomed in the race of nations for a first-class position. At this moment we are asked to increase the salaries of right hon. Gentlemen. Surely it cannot be because they are unable to live on£2,000 a year. As was well said by an hon. Member on the Front Opposition Bench there are a number of Members of this House who are compelled to live on£100 a year. Let me take the case of the right hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas). I hope he will excuse my reference to him. He has a position of responsibility compared with which a Cabinet Minister has a Sunday school picnic. The right hon. Gentleman has not only to be the financial guide, philosopher, and friend of his organisation and the guardian of its funds, but he has to be the statesman and almost the legislator. At least he has to interpret legislation for them. What is the position so far as he is concerned? He has a salary of considerably less than£1,000 a year. I hope the news that comes to me that his salary has been increased is true. If it is true, I know that his salary is considerably less than£1,000 a year. Here we have the position that in one of the greatest trade unions of this country, with enormous responsibility, the workers feel justified in giving less than£1,000 a year to their general secretary; and here we have the Government coming forward, after asking everybody else to economise, and saying that right hon. Gentlesmen cannot live on less than£5,000 a year. I hope that the answer given in former days in reference to the right hon. John Burns will be reversed on this occasion, and instead of the Cabinet coming down to the House and asking for increases of salary to the tune of £12,000 a year, representing individually increases of£3,000 a year to certain gentlemen, they would in fulfilment of their own theory, and to give a lead to the nation, say, "We£5,000a year men are coming down to£2,000 a year, so that we may give an exhibition to the country of what we mean by economy."
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  The Government during its short career has never done anything so impossible as that which is proposed in this Bill. They have never done anything so unwise, and much as I would hate to vote against them, I believe that in putting forward this proposal for increases of£3,000 a year to certain right hon. Gentlemen they are doing much to fan the unrest in the country; they are playing into the hands of the revolutionaries, and are giving point and substance to the oft-repeated statement that the Government are dishonest in making their statements to the country. If they want the country to believe that economy is the first and last word for this country, then in heaven's name let them give a lead to the country, and not come forward and ask for these extravagant increases.
  10.0 P.M.
  Sir A. WARREN: As representing a large industrial area, it appears to me that the matter which is before this House this evening is of the greatest and the gravest importance. There is a feeling throughout the industrial population of this country that the Government are the most spendthrift of all the authorities with which they have to do. We had it constantly before us throughout the Election. Men and women were having to live on less than£2 a week, and we were conscious of the burden that was being imposed upon them, and they were restless under the burden. I believe that a large amount of the unpopularity that the Government are suffering from throughout the. country, as shown in the by-elections we have had recently, is because the people in the main do not believe that the Government are in earnest on this question of economy. We know full well that it had a very considerable influence in respect of the Victory Loan. We were called upon to assist in places to work up enthusiasm amongst the people, but on the other side we were met with the taunt that we as representing the people were prodigal, indifferent, and spendthrift in the money that we were pouring out.
  If this country is ever to recover itself, and if ever we are to re-establish ourselves in the position we have a right to occupy, we have every reason for the strictest economy and the strictest retrenchment. As the representative of a vast number of people who hardly know how to make two ends meet, I would like hon. Members to look into the statistics of the constituency

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  I have the honour of representing, and they would readily conceive how indignant and how rebellious the people would feel in their hardship and in their poverty to know that this House is voting such large sums of money as are indicated in this Bill. I join in an earnest appeal to the Government that they will withdraw the Bill. Many of us have come here pledged to support them in all that is reasonable, and in all that is for the best in the country. But I say, very deliberately, that if they persist in this Bill to-night they are putting us to a very hard test, a test that we never anticipated we should have to experience. It would be a wise and reasonable action, and it would help to re-establish them in the eyes of the people if they withdrew the Bill. I beg them sincerely and earnestly as one who is pledged to do all I can to support them to withdraw the Bill, and let the matter stand where it is, at any rate until some better and more propitious time arrives.
  Captain WATSON: I rise to dissociate myself entirely from the bulk of those who have spoken on this question. What do those who have spoken against this Bill say? They have pointed out that it is unwise and unpopular, but not a single one of them has ventured to state that any particular Minister whose salary is to be increased is unworthy of it or that the responsibility which he has to bear is unworthy of the proposed increase. What is the next argument against it? Every hon. Member, without exception, who has spoken against the proposal has said that this is an inopportune time to make such an increase I Why is it inopportune I If it is good on its merits, how could there be a more opportune time than the present to give the increase? One right hon. Gentleman on the Front Opposition Bench referred to the £400 a year salaries of Members of Parliament. He is not in his place at the moment. Does he propose to revoke those salaries I If £400 was adequate in 1911 it is grossly and hopelessly inadequate now, and I, and I believe most hon. Members, would have the courage to vote for a proper increase being given. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] That is my view. Wages have risen throughout the whole community. Is it said that it would be an unwise and an unpopular thing to do when the question is raised in this House to raise the wages of the wage earners. I appeal to hon.
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  Members to think clearly on this subject, I have the honour to represent what is an entirely industrial constituency, and if this matter goes to a Division I am going to vote for the Bill, because, in my conviction, it is a good Bill, and because those for whom the increase is proposed are entitled to it not merely because of themselves personally and their worth to this House and to the country, but because of the very great responsibilities which they have to bear. If this Bill goes to a Division, I trust sincerely that it will carry the great weight of this House with it.
  Mr. HOGGE: The first office dealt with here is that of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. To-day it has attached to it a salary of£2,000. The Secretary for Scotland, who represents the same Board in Scotland, has also a salary of£2,000 attached to that office. Those two offices together make up£4,000. This Bill proposes to raise the salary of those two combined offices to £10,000, or£6,000 more. The House will recollect that before nine o'clock to-night we passed the Second Reading of a Forestry Bill which took away from the English Board of Agriculture and from the Office of Secretary for Scotland, that was controlling the Scottish Board of Agriculture, their functions in reference to forestry and approved of the appointment of three new-Government officials, each of whom will have salary of£1,500 a year. So if the House agrees to this measure with regard to the first item of the Bill, the Boards of Agriculture, instead of a combined payment of£4,000, will have a payment of£14,500. When the Government attempt, as in other circumstances they might reasonably attempt, to make the salaries of Ministers equal, we must bear in mind what other measures are going through the House, what other officials are being created, and what their salaries will be. In addition to the £4,500 which you will agree Co if you pass the Forestry Bill, there will be attached an attendant salary list, as was admitted by the Minister in charge of the Bill, of between£45,000 and£50,000 a year. That is what the House is committing itself if it agrees to this proposal. I, therefore, will go with my right hon. Friend into the Lobby against this Bill. I hope that the position of Scottish Members will not be misunderstood with regard to the Secretary for Scotland. Those of us who are Scottish Members support the elevation

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  of the Secretary for Scotland to the position of a Secretary of State, but we do not ask in this instance the accompanying salary of£5,000. We are quite content that the Secretary for Scotland should draw the salary of£2,000 which he draws at present. The Secretary for Scotland presides over no fewer than fourteen separate Departments of Government in Scotland, and in asking that his status should be raised to that of Secretary of State we are making a fair offer when we say we are content with the salary which is paid now in order to fit in with the spirit of economy in all those matters which we want to encourage.
  Colonel GREIG: A vicarious sacrifice.
  Mr. HOGGE: I will take that challenge. After all, are not the members of the Opposition, who are out of office and who have no emoluments, as necessary a part of Government in this House and in the State as Ministers?
  Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: It depends on the Opposition.
  Mr. HOGGE: My hon. Friend who makes that interruption has taken care on many occasions to protest publicly for himself that he has not got promotion because of certain views which he held. Government cannot be conducted without opposition. It is true of the whole House of Commons that every man who comes here makes very great sacrifices in many other ways. Every Member of this House knows that, and the Government of the State could not be carried on unless this were so. My hon. and gallant Friend who talks about vicarious sacrifice must remember the long line of Secretaries for Scotland, public men in Scotland, who have given their services to Scotland without any reward. I am quite sure that the present occupant of the position is the last man in the world to urge on his own behalf that his salary should be increased. But as Scottish Members, when we put that point of economy from the point of view of the Government and the Opposition, we desire only that the provision of this Bill shall be adopted so far as the status of the Secretary for Scotland is concerned.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: The experience which we have had to-night is not an unusual one. It is a very common thing to find in this House that when a subject is raised which gives room, as this undoubtedly does, for the kind of speech to
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  which we have listened, we hear nothing but condemnation, but we sometimes find that speeches do not altogether represent the considered judgment of the House of Commons as a whole. I am going, if possible, to put the case exactly as the Government see it. First of all, I wish to put aside an issue which has formed a large part of the speeches and which, in my opinion, is quite irrelevant to the subject which we are now discussing. That issue is the general question of economy. I say at once that there has been hardly a speech made on that subject with which I am not largely in agreement. As the House knows, I was until comparatively recently Chancellor of the Exchequer. While the War was going on, though, no doubt, I could have done, and though I believe the House thought I did, less than was actually the case, I was alarmed at the way in which expenditure was going on. Since the War has ended the whole country, and not less the Government, is absolutely alarmed at the extent to which expenditure is still being incurred. I am sure the House realises exactly what Parliamentary government means. At any rate—for I have had my share of Opposition—the question of extravagance is one of the easiest weapons which anyone who wishes to attack the Government can use, but the present time makes it a weapon which is exceptionally easy to use. First of all, I am not going to defend the existing position. To do that would seem to suggest that we did not realise the seriousness of making changes, and drastic changes. But I do wish the House to realise that they cannot have a great convulsion like the War without finding that, though the storm has ceased, the waves are still rolling, and that the effect is felt in every Department of State. I am sure the House will realise that. We look, for instance, at the amount of money still being voted for the Army, or for the Navy, or for other Departments. It seems monstrous in a time of peace. But if you consider that the demobilisation of the Army is a task, so far as the civil side is concerned, which takes, as much time and requires as many men as during the War, it will be realised that it is not an easy task to get it all put right at once.
  Let me say this: My successor, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, has been as alarmed as any Member of the House on this subject. I should like to take this opportunity of saying that, knowing, as I do, how great a part the

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  psychological moment plays in a loan, knowing the pressure and the need for it, I do not think the loan was a failure. I am perfectly certain that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and those who helped him deserve to be congratulated on the efforts which they made to make it a success. We did realise that this question of extravagance was one of the things that militated against it. I cannot in this connection—it really is not relevant—pretend to tell the House everything we tried to do to cut down expenditure, for we realised that it is not a question of trying, but that it must be cut down. We are agreed about that. One of my right hon. Friends said that we ought to wind up Departments which are no longer needed. Some of them arc being wound up, and the winding up is nearly completed. We are now winding up branch departments of these others and putting an end to them. But what we have done is not enough. We have had Cabinet after Cabinet discussing this problem, and nobody realises more strongly than the Chancellor of the Exchequer that no Chancellor in circumstances like these is powerful enough to meet this difficulty by himself. He must have support in his efforts to cut down, the help not only of his colleagues taken generally, but he must, above all, have the whole weight of the Prime Minister thrown into the balance to put an end to expenditure which ought not to continue. And that we mean to do. Leaving that aside, for it is really not relevant to this discussion, let us consider this question on its merits. I wish, first of all, to ask the House to realise that many of us in the Government have been a long time in political life, and even the dullest of us understands the psychology of the country to some extent, and that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister may be considered to understand it almost as well as any of the Members who have spoken. If you take that as the preface, you will realise that we expected that what we are doing would be unpopular. That we knew, and yet we are doing it in spite of that knowledge and in spite of the time at which we are making this proposal; and remember that what was said about the inopportuneness of that time was made by me in my introductory speech. I said myself that you could not get a more inopportune time, and obviously we are not justified in doing it
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  unless there is urgent reason for it. I wish the House to consider what are the arguments which have been brought against it. What are they? Take, for instance, my hon. Friend who sits on the second bench below the Gangway opposite. He said that any business man, if he found that things were not going very well, would at once practice retrenchment. Like himself, I was in business for a considerable time, and I met a very large number of the most capable business men in this country, and I will tell him what my observation is as to what really a big business man would do. There are, of course, successful business men, who make money, and who would cut down everything, and who would cut down wages, but there is not a big business man, in the real sense of the words, who will not tell you that the real way to make business a success is to pay well the me non whom he depends to work his business.
  Mr. WALLACE: What I said was could we afford it?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: It is not a case of affording it. I say it pays to give proper rewards to the men who are doing the work, and that is the point. Let me look at it from another point of view. I say there is urgency in this matter, and the urgency is not, as hon. Members seem to think, that we should treat fairly the particular men in particular positions. I do not put it on that ground. I put it on this ground, that if you are going to get efficient work, you must give the men who are doing that work, not equivalent salaries to what they could make in commerce—for I am going to repeat now what I said in my opening remarks—but you must give them salaries which are in some degree commensurate with their ability and the importance of the work they are doing, and you must free them from any sense of anxiety in regard to monetary affairs. If you do not do that, then instead of really helping economy and helping the State there is no form of saving which, in my view, is so wasteful as to cut down below a reasonable figure the salaries of the men on whom you depend for the work of the country. Let us look at what is reasonable. Take, first of all, the speech of my right hon. Friend opposite (Sir D. Maclean). I listened to it, and, as usual he put the matter quite moderately, but what did it amount to? He did not say

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  to us what you are proposing to do, which is to put offices of similar standing with the others on the same position and to give them the same salaries is wrong. What he said was, it is unpopular, it is going to have a bad effect on the country, and if you go to those men and say, Do you insist on this? They will reply at once, No, we are ready to make the sacrifice. Is that right, for the House of Commons, representing a great nation? [An HON. MEMBER: "Certainly!"] I do not think so. I think it is right for us to make sacrifices for ourselves, but I think it is mean to ask the men who are serving you to make sacrifices. That is my view. Look at it from another point of view.
  An HON. MEMBER: Why has not this come forward before, then?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: If the hon. Member had taken the trouble to be here when the Bill was introduced he would have heard there a son. Let me put to the House another aspect of the case. My right hon. Friend behind me (Sir F. Banbury), in the course of an interruption, said there would be plenty of blacklegs, and in the course of his own speech he said the time was when the men who sat on this bench did not want a salary at all, and he would like to see us doing the work without a salary.
  Sir F. BANBURY: No. I said that the salary was a secondary object, and that they went there in order to get the honour.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Oh, yes; but I think he said more than that, and I must say I was not surprised to hear it from him. I have no doubt he would like to see us back again in the position to which I referred when I introduced the Bill, when it was the rarest thing to have a Minister who had not private means, but I was surprised to see the same view expressed by my lion, and gallant Friend opposite (Captain W. Benn). I did not think it was one of the Liberal principles, even under the new conditions, that what you want is men who will do the work, not according to their merits but according to their private means.
  Captain BENN: I think the right hon. Gentleman should understand that the Liberal principle is to have men who will do the work, with self-sacrifice, for public honour.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: That is a very noble sentiment, but bring it down to practice. Does it mean that the work is to be done
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  by men who are without private means, and who depend on their salaries for what they live upon? If it does, will my hon. Friend say that they are not entitled to a salary which in some degree is commensurate with their responsibilities? It is said that no man can claim more if he gets£2,000 a year. Is not that really a question of what the value of his services is and what his responsibilities are? Is not that the test? I remember, when I was a candidate in Scotland in 1906, the question was put to me by a Scotch elector whether I would be in favour of putting an Income Tax of 100 per cent. upon all incomes above£500. It is the fact, and we have got to face it, that it is one of the weaknesses of democratic Government that there is a prejudice against paying men value for their services. Is it really worthy of a great country to say that we are not going to give salaries which, if any of our salaries are deserved, are deserved by the men who fill these offices, because public opinion will say it is against our interests? I quite agree that you cannot expect to give men who fill the rank of Ministers of the Crown a remuneration equal to what they could get in other walks of life, and, as I said before, even if you look at it from the point of view of selfishness, it is not reasonable that we should do that People always estimate money or anything else in proportion to the esteem to the position, which we hold in the eyes of our fellows. No one will doubt that it is a great honour to be a Minister of the Crown. Ho one will doubt that a man in that position does hold in the eyes of his fellows a position which no amount of money would give him, and that has to be taken into account as one of the inducements to get the best men to serve. But while that is true, is it really reasonable to ask them to serve as Ministers of the Crown—I am speaking of those who depend on their own exertions for their livelihood—when everyone knows that if they are to continue to do it they have got either to incur debt— that is the actual fact—or at once to live on a different scale from that on which they were living before they were asked to become a Minister of the Crown? Supposing they were willing to do it—and I do not deny that probably that is true, because, of course, it is not these Ministers who have made us bring in this Bill—is this House of Commons really going to say this: Because these Gentlemen do not.

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  press for this, because we know that we will get their services even at this remuneration and under these conditions, the sacrifice which is made by them is to be accepted by the House of Commons as if It were our sacrifice, and that a great nation like this is not at least prepared to free its Ministers from the carking care that is induced by such a position as this? It is all very well to say that£2,000 is plenty to live on. We know that there are many men—I might say millions of men—who have to live on harder conditions. We all know, as my right hon. Friend says, that people with fixed incomes are those who are suffering worst under present conditions. That is perfectly true, but you have to consider fairness to those whom you ask to perform its service, and I do not think it would be out of place to tell the House again what I said to begin with, that in the case of two of these Ministers they were actually selected by the Prime Minister for offices on the higher scale, but when we began to look into it we came to the conclusion that the work of their own Departments was so important that they could not be spared from those Departments. Is it reasonable because a man is doing 'his work so well that you should keep him, owing to this arrangement, out of an office open to him?
  It is not reasonable. £2,000 a year now— and this is the urgency of it—is nothing like the equivalent of the same salary before the War. Of course, I quite agree that that is true of other people also, but it is nothing like the equivalent of the same amount before the War. The Income Tax alone reduces it from£1,925 to£l,550. The point is not whether other people are suffering the same hardship, but whether the State can hope to continue to get the best men to serve it unless it gives them remuneration in some degree commensurate with the responsibilities of the posts which they occupy. Some of my hon. Friends have pointed out, quite erroneously, that the raising of the salaries of the heads of these offices means that the salaries of all the Civil Service are raised also. That is not the case. We realise the necessity of being reasonable with our Civil servants, but even now they are paid far less than men doing the same work in commercial pursuits. And let me say here, again, that I think the same applies to them as to Ministers. They do occupy a position which commands greater
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  respect than the ordinary mercantile man, and for that reason I have no doubt we shall get plenty of applicants. But the Government, in the interests of the State, has had to raise their salaries. We have done that not merely out of sympathy for them—though I think we have that sympathy—but for the reason that we cannot possibly hope to see the State well served unless we give something like a reasonable reward. Everyone knows that, if we are to get men without private means who are the best fitted to serve the State, we must give them something which is at all events comparable to the remuneration which they would receive else-where.
  I confess I feel strongly on this matter. It certainly does not concern we, as the House knows, but I feel strongly on it, and I will tell the House why. My right hon. Friend below the Gangway said that there had been three applicants for every one of these posts. Although the House may be inclined to question it, and it is one of the things which have been very much criticised, I say, quite sincerely, that we have honestly tried to get the most efficient men we could. And I will say, in addition, that, strange as it may seem, it is not easy to find men who are fit for these great posts. It is however, one of the curious facts of human nature that none of us are able to judge our own relative positions, and that applies to members of the Government as much as to other Members of the House of Commons. I have had some experience of the views of different hon. Members as to the suitability of people for particular offices, and I can assure the House that there is a very large number of Members of this House who have not the smallest doubt that they are quite capable of taking the place of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. It really is difficult to get good enough men for these posts. I am sure the House could not make a, greater mistake than to treat as unimportant the question of what particular man fills a particular post, and I am sure also—although personally I do not regret it—thatmore and more of these offices are being filled by men who have no private means. But I do say that under the conditions of democracy which now prevails, unless we make arrangements, whatever they are, which give a remuneration in some degree adequate to the responsibility, we shall, for the sake of meeting a little popular disapproval, for the sake of bowing to what is

  321
  undoubtedly one of the weaknesses of democracy—their unwillingness to pay adequate salaries to those who serve them—we shall for that purpose be doing a great disservice to the real interests of the community.
  Let me put one other point. I was very interested in the speeches of certain Scottish Members condemning this. They condemned it root and branch, but a memorial was presented to the Prime Minister this year urging that what has been done for the others should be done for the Secretary of Scotland, and two of them who condemn root and branch this proposal signed that memorial. [HON. MEMBERS: "Name!'] My hon. and gallant Friend opposite (Captain Benn) was one of them.
  Captain BENN: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman wishes to do me justice. Certainly I signed the memorial, but it did not suggest an increase of salary, but that the Secretary for Scotland should be a member of the Government.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I am surprised at that. I know my hon. and gallant Friend is as straightforward as any Member of the House, but does he really mean to suggest that he meant in signing that memorial that he did not mean the salary of the Secretary for Scotland to be increased?
  Captain BENN: My object was to secure an increase in the status of the office, but no question of salary arose.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I can assure my hon. Friend that when the Prime Minister got that memorial he had no doubt on the point, and I am surprised that any of those who signed it had any doubt. This point I am going to put. Does anyone doubt that these offices are relatively of smaller importance to those in the higher service? IE so, is it not quite unreasonable not to treat them in the same way? I cannot understand how anyone can pretend that if we seek for efficiency in our administration and realise that it depends upon these Ministers, I cannot see why we should not give to one man doing the same work the same scale of remuneration as we give to another.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby and my hon. Friend behind me said that the life of a Cabinet Minister was a picnic compared with the life of the Member for Derby. If that is true, then I am
  322
  sorry for the Member for Derby. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that we might set the matter right by "pooling" salaries. I will tell him why that was not done. The House has forgotten apparently that when the "pool" was announced it led to great criticism, although I think it was fairer than the present arrangement. It was criticised, and we stated that it was only a war arrangement. When the Government was reconstituted after the Armistice the Prime Minister did not think that he was justified in continuing that arrangement, and I agreed with him, for this reason. I think the House of Commons ought not to be afraid to pay openly whatever reward it thinks is reasonable to the men who serve it. That is my opinion. I have said all 1 am going to say. I agree with my right hon. Friend opposite what we have to do is to be just. This is just, and whatever is said about the outcry in the country, believe me, if the Government is going to be discredited, if there is one thing that will discredit it more than any other it is waiting for a gust of public opinion, and not being prepared to do what the Government or the House of Commons thinks is right, whatever may be popular opinion. That is the view of the Government. I quite admit that for one reason or another there is a larger amount of hostility—[HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"]—I am not going to give it up—a larger amount of hostility than I had expected. If those who are opposed choose to fight the Bill at every stage it is quite evident they can compel us either to keep the House sitting an indefinite time or to postpone it till the autumn. I do not think it would be reasonable for the Government to keep the House sitting indefinitely for this purpose. We will not abandon the Bill, but, as some hon. Members suggest we are rushing the Bill, we are prepared to show that we are not. We will insist on the Second Reading being taken now, but, in view of the hostility, I will not say we will press it until we come back in the autumn.
  Colonel WEDGWOOD: The Leader of the House in an unfortunate moment said this Bill was being opposed because it was unpopular. He will admit that I would not be likely to object to the Government bringing in a Bill which is unpopular. The more unpopular it was the better I should be pleased. I would not be likely either to oppose a Bill because it was unpopular if I thought it was just.

  323
  But this Bill has not even the merit of being just. The real reason why it is inopportune at the present moment is not because it is unpopular, but because it will create a wrong impression throughout the country. It will also increase the Labour unrest which everyone knows is now so much on the surface, and so very anxious to pick up little things of this sort with which to beat not only the Government, but all civilisation. It will not only increase Labour unrest, but it will make subordinate members of the Government think that they have a good claim to get their salaries increased.
  The right hon. Gentleman was very eloquent about paying men according to their worth, but he admitted that people were willing to serve the State for a less sum than they were prepared to work for in private business. That is perfectly true, and we get many Cabinet Ministers for less than they would get in private employment. But we also get Permanent Secretaries of State for far less than they would get if they were in private employment. We realise, in paying the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury—perhaps the most important official in England—or the Secretary to the Post Office, a salary of from perhaps£1,000 to£3,000 a year, that we are getting them far below their real worth in the market, and we continue to pay them salaries which are below their worth in the market. Is it not then wrong that we should go to the Cabinet Ministers concerned, and say, "We have been paying you below your worth in the market. It is true you were willing to come at the price, just as the Permanent Secretary, but now we will pay you more in future"?
  If you are going at once to say that anybody who serves the public is to be paid his full market value, you ought to begin with the permanent officials, who have no vote in this House. [An HON. MEMBER: "They have!"] They have not. The permanent officials at the Treasury, at the
  Post Office, and at the Board of Trade, are all paid far below their worth in the market to-day, as can be seen when they leave, and get bank directorships, and so on. If any increase is made in the payment for the public service, to bring the remuneration up to what is their worth in private employment, let it begin with the permanent officials, and not with the members of the Government, who have votes here and Private Secretaries to back them up. About ten years ago we had a Bill introduced to raise the salaries of the Presidents of the Board of Trade and Local Government Board to£5,000. It was introduced in collusion between the two Front Benches; the Government had the support of the Front Bench opposite. I think it is to the honour of the Opposition Front Bench that they oppose this, in spite of the probability of their reversion to the office. [An HON.MEMBER: "It is remote!"] It is not a bit remote the way the Government is going on. The fact is that ex-Ministers realise that they must oppose this not only in the interest of party politics, but in the interest of national politics. This example will run throughout the country, and everybody will know tomorrow that we have raised the salaries of Cabinet Ministers. Everybody, from the manager of the factory down to the unskilled labourer there, will urge that, as Cabinet Ministers have raised their salaries, they have a perfect right to press for a rise in their own salaries also. This thing is like a cancer which spreads indefinitely. Once you start it, with the Cabinet at the top, squandering the public money on themselves, you will find that the country will immediately follow in their footsteps, and try in the same way, not to make both ends meet, but to make hay while the sun shines, and to get what they can out of a country which is rapidly going towards bankruptcy.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 176; Noes, 83.

  Division No. 84.]

  AYES.

  [10.55 P.M.

  Adair, Rear-Admiral

  Barnes, Rt. Hon. G. N. (Gorbals)

  Buchanan, Lieut.-Col. A. L. H.

  Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher

  Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)

  Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James

  Agg-Gardner, sir James Tynte

  Barnett, Captain Richard W.

  Burn, Colonel C. R. (Torquay)

  Ainsworth, Captain C.

  Barnston, Major Harry

  Campion, Colonel W. R.

  Amery, Lieut.-Colonel U. C. M. S.

  Benn, Sir Arthur S. (Plymouth)

  Carew, Charles R. S. (Tiverton)

  Archer-Shee, Lieut.-Colonel Martin

  Benn, Com. Ian Hamilton (Greenwich)

  Carr, W. T.

  Astor, Major Hon. Waldorf

  Birchall, Major J. D.

  Casey, T. W.

  Baird, John Lawrence

  Bridgeman, William dive

  Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)

  Baldwin, Stanley

  Broad, Thomas Tucker

  Child, Brig.-General Sir Hill

  Barlow, Sir Montague (Salford, S.)

  Brown, J. (Ayr and Bute)

  Clay, Captain H. H. Spender

  Coates, Major Sir Edward F.

  Hope, Harry (Stirling)

  Pratt, John William

  Coats, Sir Stuart

  Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)

  Prescott, Major W. H.

  Cobb, Sir Cyril

  Horne, Edgar (Guildford)

  Pulley, Charles Thornton

  Conway, Sir W. Martin

  Howard, Major S. G.

  Purchase, H. G.

  Cope, Major W. (Glamorgan)

  Hudson, R. M.

  Raper, A. Baldwin

  Courthope, Major George Loyd

  Hughes, Spencer Leigh

  Raw, Lieut.-Colonel Dr. N.

  Cowan, Sir H. (Aberdeen and Kinc.)

  Hunter, Gen. Sir A. (Lancaster)

  Rees Sir J. O. (Nottingham, E.)

  Craig, Col. Sir James (Down, Mid.)

  Illingworth, Rt. Hon. Albert H.

  Ried, D. D.

  Craig, Lt.-Com. N. (Isle of Thanet)

  Jameson, Major J. G.

  Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)

  Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Johnson, L. S.

  Robinson, T. (Stretford, Lanes.)

  Dalziel, Sir Davison (Brixton)

  Jones, Sir Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Rodger, A. K.

  Davies, Alfred (Clitheroe)

  Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)

  Royds, Lt.-Col. Edmund

  Davies, T. (Cirencester)

  Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen)

  Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)

  Dennis, J. W.

  Kidd, James

  Samuel, S. (Wandsworth, Putney)

  Doyle, N. Grattan

  Knights, Captain H.

  Sanders, Colonel Robert Arthur

  Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)

  Law, Right Hon. A. Bonar (Glasgow)

  Seager, Sir William

  Edwards, J. H. (Glam., Neath)

  Lindsay, William Arthur

  Seely, Maj.-Gen. Rt. Hon. John

  Elliot, Capt. W. E. (Lanark)

  Lort-Williams, J.

  Shaw, Hon. A. (Kilmarnock)

  Elliott, Lt.-Col. Sir G. (Islington, W.)

  Loseby, Captain C. E.

  Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)

  Eyres-Monsell, Commander

  M'Laren, R. (Lanark, N.)

  Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T., W.)

  Falcon, Captain M.

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander

  Farquharson, Major A. C.

  Maddocks, Henry

  Stanley, Colonel Hon. G. F. (Preston)

  FitzRoy, Capt. Hon. Edward A.

  Malone, Major P. (Tottenham, S.)

  Stephenson, Colonel H. K.

  Foreman, H.

  Manville, Edward

  Stewart, Gershom

  Forestier-Walker, L.

  Mason, Robert

  Strauss, Edward Anthony

  Fraser, Major Sir Keith

  Matthews, David

  Sugden, W. H.

  Ganzoni, Captain F. C.

  Middlebrook, Sir William

  Sutherland, Sir William

  Geddes, Rt. Hen. Sir A. C. (Basingstoke)

  Mitchell, William Lane-

  Talbot, G. A. (Hemel Hempstead)

  Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Cambridge)

  Moles, Thomas

  Taylor, J. (Dumbarton)

  George, Rt. Hon. David Lloyd

  Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz

  Terrell, G. (Chippenham, Wilts)

  Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham

  Montagu, Rt. Hon. E. S.

  Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, S.)

  Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel John.

  Moore-Brabazon, Lt.-Col. J. T. C.

  Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (M'yhl)

  Graham, D. M. (Hamilton)

  Morden, Col. H. Grant

  Vickers, D.

  Gray, Major E.

  Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.

  Walters, Sir John Tudor

  Green, J. F. (Leicester)

  Mosley, Oswald

  Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)

  Greene, Lt.-Col. W. (Hackney, N.)

  Mount, William Arthur

  Waring, Major Walter

  Greenwood, Col. Sir Hamar

  Murchison, C. K.

  Watson, Captain John Bertrand

  Gregory, Holman

  Murray, Major C. D. (Edinburgh, s.)

  Weston, Colonel John W.

  Greig, Colonel James William

  Murray, Hon. G. (St. Rollox)

  Wigan, Brig.-General John Tyson

  Gritten, W. G. Howard

  Murray, William (Dumfries)

  Wild, Sir Ernest Edward

  Guinness, Lt.-Col. Hon. W. E. (B. St. E.)

  Neal, Arthur

  Williams, Lt.-Col. Sir R. (Banbury)

  Hall, Capt. D. B. (Isle of Wight)

  Nelson, R. F. W. R.

  Williams, Col. Sir R. (Dorset, W.)

  Hamilton, Major C. G. C. (Altrincham)

  Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. (Exeter)

  Wilson, Colonel Leslie (Reading)

  Harris, Sir H. P. (Paddington, S.)

  Nicholson, W. (Petersfield)

  Worsfold, T. Cato

  Henderson, Major V. L.

  O'Neill, Captain Hon. Robert W. H,

  Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.

  Henry, Denis S. (Londonderry, S.)

  Parker, James

  Younger, Sir George

  Herbert, Denniss (Hertford)

  Parry, Major Thomas Henry

  Hewart, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

  Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Lord E.

  Hilder, Lieut.-Col. F.

  Pollock, Sir Ernest Murray

  Talbot and Captain F. Guest.

  Hood, Joseph

  Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton

  NOES.

  Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis Dyke

  Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)

  Richardson, R. (Houghton)

  Atkey, A. R.

  Hartshorn, V.

  Robinson, S. (Houghton and Radnor)

  Balfour, George (Hampstead)

  Hennessy, Major G.

  Royce, William Stapleton

  Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir F. G.

  Hills, Major J. W. (Durham)

  Seddon, J. A.

  Barker, Major R.

  Hopkinson, Austin (Mossley)

  Sexton, James

  Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)

  In skip, T. W. H.

  Sitch, C. H.

  Benn, Capt. W. (Leith)

  Johnstone, J,

  Smith, W. (Wellingborough)

  Blake, Sir Francis Douglas

  Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)

  Spencer, George A.

  Borwick, Major G. O.

  Jones, J. (Silvertown)

  Spoor, B. G.

  Bowerman, Right Hon. C. W.

  Kenworthy, Lieut.-Commander

  Surtees, Brig.-General H. C.

  Brace, Rt. Hon. William

  Kenyon, Barnet

  Swan, J. E. C.

  Briant, F.

  King, Commander Douglas

  Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby)

  Buckley, Lt.-Col. A.

  Lane-Fox, Major G. R.

  Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, W.)

  Cairns, John

  Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)

  Tootill, Robert

  Cape, Tom

  Lunn, William

  Wallace, J.

  Carter, W. (Mansfield)

  Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)

  Ward, Colonel L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)

  Clough, R.

  Maclean, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (Midlothian)

  Waterson, A. E.

  Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.

  Mallalieu, Frederick William

  Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.

  Colfox, Major W. P.

  Morrison, H. (Salisbury)

  White, Col. G. D. (Southport)

  Croft, Brig.-General Henry Page

  Murray, Dr. D. (Western Isles)

  Williams, A. (Conset, Durham)

  Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, SO

  Nail, Major Joseph

  Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough)

  Entwistle, Major C. F.

  Newbould, A. E.

  Willoughby, Lt.-Col. Hon. Claud

  Finney, Samuel

  Oman, C. W. C.

  Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)

  Foxcroft, Captain C.

  Palmer, Brig-Gen. G. (Westbury)

  Winterton, Major Earl

  Gretton, Colonel John

  Parkinson, John' Allen (Wigan)

  Wood, Major Mackenzie (Aberdeen, C.)

  Griffiths, T. (Pontypool)

  Perring, William George

  Griggs, Sir Peter

  Rae, H. Norman

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr.

  Grundy, T. W.

  Rattan, Peter Wilson

  Hogge and Mr. G. Thorne.

  Guest, J. (Hemsworth, York)

  Rom or, J. B.

  Question put, and agreed to.

  Bill read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

  FORESTRY [EXPENSES].
  Committee to consider of authorising the payment, out of moneys provided by Parliament, of a sum not exceeding£3,500,000 into a Forestry Fund established by any Act of the present Session for establishing a Forestry Commission for the United Kingdom, and promoting afforestation, and the production and supply of timber therein—(King's Recommendation signified)—To-morrow.—[Lord Edmund Talbot.]
  The remaining Orders were read, and. postponed.
  ADJOURNMENT,—"That this House do now adjourn."—[Lord E. Talbot.]
  Adjourned accordingly at Seven minutes after Eleven o'clock.