Commons Sitting of 31 July 1919

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Nuneaton Corporation Bill [Lords],
Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Huddersfield Corporation Gas Bill [Lords],
As amended, considered; an Amendment made; Bill to be read the third time.
Stockton-on-Tees Corporation Bill [Lords]
As amended, considered; to be read the third time.

EXPERIMENTS ON LIVING ANIMALS.
Address for "Return showing the number of Experiments on Living Animals during the year 1918 under licences granted under the Act 39 and 40 Vic, c. 77, distinguishing the nature of the Experiments (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 109, of Session 1918)."— [Major Baird.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  IRELAND.

    DISTURBANCES, BALLYCARNEY.
    Sir JOHN BUTCHERasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether his attention has been called to the boycotting of a farmer, Thomas Haslam, of Ballycarney, Maryborough; whether his gates and fences and the windows of his house have been broken, and his cattle turned into the standing crops; whether he himself has been boycotted; whether he has been compelled, owing to this persecution, to sell his farm and leave the district in which he has lived all his life; whether the persecution to which he has been subjected is due to the fact that a Catholic girl in
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    his employ recently married a Protestant; and whether he will cause inquiries to be made?
    The ATTORNEY-GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Denis Henry): The facts are substantially as stated in the question. There was, however, no actual boycotting, but Mr. Haslam was subjected to persecution from relatives.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: Are we to understand that this persecution is due to the fact that a girl in the employment of Mr. Haslam married a Protestant?
    Mr. HENRY:I understand that the difficulty arises largely through a family quarrel between Mr. Haslam and some of his relatives.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: And is that family quarrel due to the fact that this Catholic girl married a Protestant?
    Mr. HENRY: I really could not say, but I will inquire.

    NATIONAL BOARD OF EDUCATION.
    Mr. DONNELLYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland how many clerical members there are on the National Board of Education in Ireland; whether any of these clerical members of the Board are school managers; and will he give their names?
    Mr. HENRY: There are six clerical members on the Board of National Education, and one of those, the Rev. James Bingham, M.A., D.D., is a manager of national schools.
    Mr. M'GUFFINasked The Chief Secretary for Ireland how many Commissioners were present when the Board of National Education terminated the services of the first director and inspector of drawing and hand-and-eye. training for the offence of being a member of the South American Missionary Society; who moved his dismissal; how many voted for and how many against it; and have Protestant inspectors been instructed not to serve on the committees of missionary and other religious societies; and if he will say if Roman Catholic inspectors have been similarly inhibited from becoming members of the sodalities of the Roman Catholic Church?
    Mr. HENRY: I would refer the hon. Member to replies given to questions on this subject on the 7th December, 1911,

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    and 4th July, 1912. No inspector was dismissed for the reason stated in the question.

    SENIOR INSPECTORS (NATIONAL SCHOOLS).
    Mr. M'GUFFINasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he is aware that meetings of senior inspectors of Irish national schools are convened from time to time by the resident Commissioner or chief inspector; if at these meetings the senior inspectors are instructed to lower the reports of the teachers, with the view of depriving them of the increments and promotion to which they might be entitled; if at a meeting of senior inspectors in Belfast the inspectors were told that the reports must be reduced; and if he will say if this system of influencing inspectors in their judgments upon the work of teachers has the sanction of His Majesty's Government?
    Mr. HENRY: The divisional inspectors arrange conferences from time to time with the inspectors, but these meetings are not convened by the resident Commissioner or the chief inspectors. The Commissioners of National Education are satisfied that there is no truth whatever in the allegations contained in the second and third parts of the question.

    HOME OF INDUSTRY HOSPITALS.
    Sir EDWARD CARSONasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether his attention has been called to the proposal to close the Home of Industry hospitals In Dublin owing to the want of funds to carry on the same; whether these hospitals are under the control of the Government and have hitherto been supported by Grants from the Treasury, but that, in consequence of the increase of prices, it has been found impossible to carry on the work of the hospitals without increased financial assistance; whether the closing of the hospitals will cause great distress to the poorer classes in Dublin; and what course the Government propose to take to prevent: the closing of the hospitals?
    Mr. HENRY: I would refer my right hon. and learned Friend to the replies given to previous questions on this subject asked by the hon. Member for East Douegal on the 9th and 24th instants.
    Sir E. CARSON: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether these hospitals have been closed?
    Mr. HENRY: I am not aware that they are closed, but I am aware that the threat has been made to close them.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: That would be direct action!

    RESIDENT MAGISTRATES (SALARIES).
    Major O'NEILLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he can give any further information as to the negotiations with the Treasury in connection with the proposed increase of the salaries of resident magistrates?
    Mr. HENRY: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply given to the question on this subject asked by the hon. Member for North Fermanagh on the 24th instant, and to which there is nothing to add at present.
    Major O'NEILL:Is it not the case that so long ago as April last the Chief Secretary met a deputation of resident magistrates, and agreed to grant them an increased salary of £150? If that is so, how is it the matter has been so long delayed?
    Mr. HENRY: My right hon. Friend did meet a deputation on the subject, but it was not exactly in his power to agree to an increase. He is doing his best to secure an increase, and hopes that lie will be successful.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: Do the Government propose to increase the Dog Tax in order to give this increase?
    Mr. HENRY: No, Sir. They are outside the ambit of the Dog Tax.

  CYPRUS.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign. Affairs if the Order in Council annexing Cyprus to His Majesty's Dominions is still in force; and, if so, whether he is aware that there is an urgent demand among the inhabitants of this island to be accorded the right of self-determination?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Lieut.-Colonel Amery): The answer to the first part of the question is, Yes. I am, of course, aware of the views expressed by different sections of the community.

  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

    DISABILITY PENSIONS.
    Mr. ALFRED DAVIESasked the Pensions Minister how many disability pensions are at present being paid to disabled soldiers and sailors; how many widows of deceased soldiers and sailors are in receipt of pensions; how many applications by disabled men for alternative pensions have been made and how many granted; and the number of widows of deceased sailors and soldiers who have applied for alternative pensions and how many granted?
    The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): The number of men in receipt of pensions (excluding gratuities) on 30th June, 1919, was 799,180, and of widows of deceased men 216,890. At that date 9,722 applications for alternative pensions had been received from disabled men. Of the men so applying, 3,883 were awarded pensions and 4,637 were refused, and 1,202 cases were then under inquiry; 37,245 widows applied for alternative pensions, and 21,687 obtained them. There were 10,273 rejections, and 5,465 cases were then under inquiry. I should add that a large number of alternative pensions granted to men are temporary awards which lapse as the man's earning capacity increases. The number of alternative pensions to men now being paid is, approximately, 1,000.

    ACTING PAYMASTERS (GRATUITY).
    Major NEWMANasked the Secretary of State for War whether, under Articles 496 and 497 of the Royal Pay Warrant, acting paymasters are entitled to the gratuity therein laid down; whether he is aware that in the Courts on 19th June last, Rex v. Holdsworth, it was decided that acting paymasters were entitled to the same Income Tax relief as a commissioned officer; and whether the Treasury will reconsider the debarring the payment of gratuity to acting paymasters?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): This question is under consideration.

    COMPENSATION FOR INJURY (FORAOE CORPS).
    Mr. NEVILLE CHAMBERLAINasked the Secretary of State for War
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    whether his attention has been called to the case of Miss D. Bogue, No. W/360, W area, baking hand in Forage Corps, who sustained an inquiry to her back whilst on service and was sent back on 15th November, 1918, for treatment by her panel doctor; whether he is aware that Miss Bogue was discharged on the 4th April, 1919, while still unfit for work, having received half wages, for six months but no compensation; and whether he will take steps to remove this differentiation between the treatment of women and men under similar circumstances?
    Mr. FORSTER: The question whether anything more can be done for Miss Bogue is under consideration.

  CONSULAR APPOINTMENTS (LORD HARDINGE'S COMMITTEE).
  Brigadier-General CROFTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state the names of the members of Lord Hardinge's Committee to inquire into Consular appointments; how many appointments have been made by this Committee; and how many of those appointed have been personally interviewed?
  Sir HAMAR GREENWOOD(Department of Oversea Trade): Lord Hardinge's Committee deals exclusively with promotions and transfers within the existing service. The Selections Committee for the Consular Service consists of representatives of the Foreign Office, the Department of Overseas Trade, the Civil Service Commission, the Federation of British Industries, the Associated Chambers of Commerce, and a former member of the Board of Trade. The Committee does not appoint candidates, but recommends them to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for appointment. Seventy-two have been so recommended, and they have all been interviewed personally by the Committee.
  Sir R. THOMAS: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman realise that Germany's commercial success was due in large measure to her efficient Consular service, and will he give instructions to the Committee that all appointments in future shall be to those people who possess a commercial experience?
  Sir H. GREENWOOD: In answer to that question, I agree with the spirit of

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  it, but it is the greatest difficulty to get men of successful commercial experience having regard to the comparatively low salary and prospects in the Consular Service.
  Sir R. THOMAS: Will the hon. Baronet see that the salary is made adequate, because the commercial prosperity of this country in the future will be due very largely to the efficiency of our Consular Service?
  Sir H. GREENWOOD: I agree it will be due very largely to the efficiency of our Consular Service. In reference to the increased financial consideration, I hope the hon. Gentleman will address his question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

  EASTEEN GALICIA.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any decision has yet been arrived at as to the future of Eastern Galicia; whether the predominantly Ukrainian character of the population will be taken into account in arriving at a decision; whether the policy of creating a bulwark against Soviet Russia will result in this region being handed over to the Poles; and whether he is aware that this course of action is calculated to drive the Ukrainians into the Soviet system?
  The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): The reply to the first, second, and third parts of the question of the hon. and gallant Member is that the Council of Foreign Ministers in Paris decided on June 25th that Poland should occupy the whole of the province of Eastern Galicia. In the meantime a treaty is to be negotiated between the principal Allied and Associated Powers and Poland, providing for the establishment of a temporary civil Government in the country, until such time as a plebiscite can be taken to regulate its ultimate status. As regards the last part of the question, I see no reason to anticipate the result suggested by the hon. and gallant Member.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Are the Ukrainian authorities in Paris being consulted as regards the way their country is being disposed of?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: The hon. and gallant Gentleman should give notice of that question.

  FINLAND.

    RED PRISONERS (DEATHS FROM STARVATION).
    Mr. W. R. SMITHasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he received any Report from any British Special Mission sent to Finland in the early part of this year; whether any such Report mentioned that it was admitted officially by the Finnish authorities that 11,000 persons had died from starvation when interned as Red prisoners, and that such victims had not been allowed to receive in camp food sent by their friends; and whether any assurances have been given that such events have not been, and will not be, repeated?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: I am unaware to what Special British Mission the hon. Member is alluding. Numerous Reports have, however, been received from His Majesty's representatives in Finland, but they contain no confirmation of any such proceedings as those referred to by the hon. Member.
    Sir J. D. REES: Can the British Government prevent eases of starvation in foreign countries?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH: The lion. Gentleman can form his own opinion.
    Mr. RAPER: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware of the horrible atrocities alleged to have been committed in the early part of last year?
    Mr. HARMSWORTH:Perhaps the hon. Member will give me notice of that question.

  PASSPORTS.
  Sir HENRY HARRISasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the Government of the United States of America are refusing to allow the passports of British subjects to be viséd in England in order that they may proceed to America Jo take possession of land which they have purchased there and propose to cultivate;

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  and, if so, whether he will make representations to the United States Government on the subject?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: Further representations have recently been made to the United States Government with a view to the relaxation of the restrictions at present imposed on the grant of the United States visé to persons desirous of proceeding from this country to the United States of America.
  Sir HARRY BRITTAINasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is intended to continue the passport system between this and foreign countries; and, if so, whether he will consider some simplification of the present system, together with the elimination, as far as possible, of the troublesome visé for each and every journey?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: I understand that it is proposed for the present to continue in force the requirement that persons entering the United Kingdom shall be in possession of valid passports. This matter is, however, rather within the province of the Home Office than of the Department which I have the honour to represent. In the case of persons proceeding abroad the necessity for a passport depends chiefly on the regulations of the country to be visited.
  With respect to the second part of the question, the visé system has already been considerably simplified. British visés, and also those of certain foreign countries, are now made valid, without need for renewal for prolonged periods of time in the case of persons desiring this facility.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: Will the hon. Gentleman take care that in the interval before the coming into operation of the Aliens Restriction Bill passports for Germans entering this country should not be viséd abroad by our representatives?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: As I said, that is rather a question for the Home Office than for the Foreign Office
  Mr. ATKEY: Is it necessary that British subjects desiring to visit Belgium should have to attend personally to have their passports viséd in London? I have received a message from a gentleman at Nottingham who desires to go to Belgium. He has got his passport viséd by the Foreign Office and now he is told he must attend personally at the Belgian Office to have it viséd.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I am going to Belgium to-morrow and have my passport viséd without doing that?

  EGYPT (LORD MILNER'S COMMISSION).
  Major HURSTasked the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Lord Milner's Commission to Egypt will be empowered to deal with the reform of law and legal procedure?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: The answer is in the affirmative.
  Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: Will the sanction of this House be required to an alteration in the Constitution of Egypt?
  Mr. HARMSWORTH: I will inquire.

  METROPOLITAN AND PROVINCIAL POLICE (PAY).
  Mr. IRVINGasked the Secretary for the Home Department whether he is aware that policemen holding the rank of acting-sergeants are dissatisfied because they have been omitted from any increase of pay other than that granted to them as police constables; and whether, in view of the fact that acting-sergeants take the same responsibilities and carry out the same duties as full sergeants, he is prepared to increase their pay to that of full sergeants whilst acting in the capacity of acting-sergeants?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): I presume the question refers to acting-sergeants in the Metropolitan Police: there are few of this rank in any other force. The question will be considered whether any increase should be given to these men beyond the considerable increase which they share with all other constables. It is proposed to abolish the rank as the existing holders cease to hold it.
  Mr. A. DAVIES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is not confined to the Metropolitan Police, but applies also to borough and county police?
  Mr. SHORTT:I said it was not entirely confined to the Metropolitan Police, but there are very few in other districts.
  Mr. DAVIES: Will they come under the decision?
  Mr. SHORTT: They will all be treated alike.

  ENEMY ALIENS.
  Sir J. BUTCHERasked the Home Secretary how many uninterned Germans still remain in this country, and whether he intends to deport any of these persons; and how many interned Germans are still in this country, and whether he intends to deport all these persons unless they obtain exemption from the Advisory Committee presided over by Mr. Justice Younger?
  Mr. SHORTT: The figures asked for in the first paragraph of the question are, according to the latest Returns, 5,785 males and 5,965 females. These persons have all been exempted from repatriation on the advice of the Advisory Committees from 1915 onwards Until the Aliens Bill which is at present before the House has become law, I cannot say what my duty in the matter will be. There are 3,256 Germans still interned m this country. I propose to deport those who are not recommended for exemption by Mr. Justice Younger's Committee.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of those Germans who are uninterned now never came up for reconsideration in 1918 when the list was revised, and a largo number of those previously exempted were deported?
  Mr. SHORTT: I said these cases had been considered from 1915 onwards.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEY: Is it the policy of the Government to deport every German who was naturalised and whose naturalisation has since been cancelled?
  Mr. SHORTT: Yes, generally speaking, that is so; but there may be special circumstances in some cases. I cannot bind myself in every case, but generally speaking that is the policy.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEY: If reasons exist for cancelling the naturalisation of a German, surely primâ facie that is ground for deporting?
  Mr. SHORTT: I have said so.
  Mr. BOTTOMLEY: Does that apply in the case of Catherine Hebnemann, of Downing Street?
  Mr. SHORTT: No, Sir.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether an interned German, married to a British-born woman, will be released, and, if so, will they be released while the Aliens Restriction Bill is going through? [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] In order that they can see their families.
  Mr. SHORTT: When Mr. Justice Younger's Committee have considered their cases, and they decide that they should not be repatriated, then their case will be considered.
  Mr. J. JONES: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to deport all people in this country who are of German blood?
  Mr. SHORTT: Certainly not.
  Sir J. BUTCHERasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that the Advisory Committee presided over by Mr. Justice Sankey for advising the Home Secretary what enemy aliens should be exempted from internment adopted certain general rules on which exemption from internment should primâ facie be granted, and that such rules were published in the public Press; whether the Advisory Committee presided over by Mr. Justice Younger for advising the Home Secretary what former enemy aliens should be exempted from deportation have adopted the like, or any similar, rules for their guidance; if not, whether they act according to their uncontrolled discretion in each particular case: whether the Home Secretary accepts the decisions without investigation or whether he personally considers them; and, if so, in what cases he has overruled them?
  Mr. SHORTT: As regards the first throe paragraphs of this question, I have nothing to add to the answer I gave the hon. and learned Baronet last Thursday. As regards the last two questions, the responsibility for the final decision rests, with me, but unless very strong reasons appear to the contrary, I propose to be guided by the advice of the Committee which has been examining every case with the greatest care.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the first part of the question, whether the is aware that the Advisory Committee presided over by

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  Mr. Justice Sankey for advising the Home Secretary what enemy aliens should be exempted from internment adopted certain general rules on which exemption from internment should primâ facie be granted?
  Mr. SHORTT: I have answered that. That was so, but I have not been asked what they were.
  Sir J. BUTCHER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what they were?
  Mr. SHORTT: I cannot do so without notice.

  GAMBIA (DISTURBANCES).
  Mr. J. W. WILSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Commission of Inquiry appointed by the Governor of the Gambia Colony in January last to investigate certain disturbances and complaints affecting the administration of the Upper Saloum district of the Protectorate has completed its investigation; and whether its Report has yet been issued?
  Lieut.-Colonel AMERY: The Secretary of State has received the Report referred to, and has taken such action upon it as appeared necessary.

  PEACE DAY HOLIDAY (WAGES OF WORKMEN).
  Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the First Commissioner of Works whether all workmen, established or not established, employed in Government Departments under his control were paid their wages for the compulsory holiday they had on the 19th instant; and, if not, will he give instructions that all these workmen be treated alike?
  The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Sir Alfred Mond): Workmen in the direct employment of my Department were paid for the 19th instant. Those engaged through contractors were paid or not paid in accordance with the practice in the particular trade concerned.
  Mr. WILSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that where men have been employed by contractors but are to all intents
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  and purposes in the employment of the Government, and that if the Government changes the contractors the men are retained whoever the contractor may be?
  Sir A. MOND: I am aware of all the circumstances. These men are employed by the contractors, and it is very difficult to treat them as if they wore directly employed by the Government. They are not I have considered this case, and it is under my consideration again now. The question does not only affect my Department, but other Departments.
  Mr. WILSON: These men are paid their wages by the Government?
  Sir A. MOND:They are paid by the contractors. The hon. Member is mistaken. The wages are not paid by the Government.
  Captain W. BENN: Will the right hon. Gentleman endeavour to see that all men who are employed by the Government, directly or indirectly, shall receive a day's wage for the Peace celebrations?
  Sir A. MOND: It is not a question for my Department to settle. I am bringing the matter forward again.
  Mr. HOLMES: Is it not a fact that the contractors have received the full cost of the work, including wages and raw material, with commission, and, therefore, in effect the Government are paying the wages?
  Sir A. MOND: The Government do not pay the wages. The wages are paid by the contractors.

  POST OFFICE.

    RECOMMENDATIONS FOR VACANCIES.
    Mr. NEWBOULDasked the Postmaster-General if he is aware of the injustice being done to the men who volunteered for service in the War from his Department in consequence of the age limit of thirty-five years placed upon recommendations for vacancies in the administrative, supervisory, financial, and inspectorial sections of the Post Office; and whether he can take into account the time spent in the service by men who have now attained the age of thirty-five years?
    The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Illingworth): The appointments referred to are not in the Post Office, but in other

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    Government Departments, and are understood to be in subordinate grades. I think the younger members of the staff are more likely to adapt themselves satisfactorily to new conditions; and I am moreover bound to take into account the length of service which a candidate is likely to render in a new Department. I do not think it expedient to raise the age limit.

    TELEGRAPHIC SERVICE (LIVERPOOL AND THE CONTINENT).
    Mr. PENNEFATHERasked the Postmaster-General whether he will consider the possibility of restoring direct telegraph working between Liverpool and the Continent; whether Press messages to the Continent are given priority over commercial work; and whether, in view of the delay to all Continental traffic, he will consider the possibility of restoring direct working between Liverpool and France and Liverpool and Belgium, and cancel the instructions which give priority to any Press work?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: Arrangements are being made with the French telegraph administration for the restoration of direct telegraph working between Liverpool and France. Pending the repair of the Anglo-Belgian cables it is impracticable to arrange for direct working between Liverpool and Belgium, but this question will be pursued as soon as the cables can be restored. Press traffic for the Continent has, to a certain extent, been given priority during the War over ordinary traffic for reasons of national importance, but now that the censorship has been withdrawn I have arranged with the Government Departments concerned that, this practice shall be discontinued.

    PROMOTION.
    Mr. GRAHAMasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that Staff Rule No. 86 lays it down that ability to perform not only the duties of the operative class but the superintending and clerical duties of the higher classes is an essential factor in the selection of officers for promotion; whether he is aware that an officer attached to the Edinburgh Sorting Office was recently promoted over eighty-four of his seniors, although he had no experience on these higher duties; whether he will state in what way the provisions of Rule 86 were made to apply in this case; whether it is possible for a man to prove his ability to perform
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    work without the opportunity being afforded him; and whether, in view of the unrest which this type of promotion creates, he will urge upon the Whitley Committee which is about to be set up the pressing necessity to find an early solution of this problem?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The rule referred to is substantially as quoted by the hon. Member. I assume the individual case mentioned is that to which the hon. Member called attention in his question of the 14th May last, and I would refer him to the answer then given. The question of the principles governing promotion can be raised by the staff representatives on the Whitley Committees as soon as these committees are set up.

    BETCHWORTH, SURREY (DELIVERIES).
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. NORTON GRIFFITHSasked the Postmaster- General if he is aware that letters posted in London in the early afternoon are not delivered in the Betchworth, Surrey, area until the evening post the following day; and if, in view of the fact that Betchworth is only twenty-four miles from London, lie will take the necessary steps to see, that letters posted in London by the ordinary country post fire delivered the next morning?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: I will have inquiry made and will write to the hon. Member.

    CANADIAN SOLDIERR (EMPLOYMENT).
    Mr. T. WILSONasked the Post master-General whether men who joined the Canadian Army in Canada, but whose homes are in this country, are, when discharged from the Army, ineligible for employment in the Post Office: and, if so, will he state the reason why they are excluded from being so employed?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: The number of ex-soldiers applying for established postman ships is so greatly in excess of the number of vacancies available that I have felt obliged to confine eligibility to men who have served in the British forces.
    Mr. WILSON: Does that apply to postmen?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: I am anxious to give those who served with the British forces the preference.
    Colonel YATE: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider specially the case of the men of the Regular Army who put down their names for employment in the Post Office before the War, but hitherto have been prevented from getting it?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: They are being considered.

    TELEPHONE LINES (LONDON AND PAEIS).
    Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESSasked how many telephone lines are in existence between London and Paris, and how many of these are reserved for the use of the Peace Conference?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: There are ten telephone circuits between London and Paris. Six are used for the work of the Peace Conference and four for other Government work. But owing to the damaged condition of the French land lines, all these circuits are seldom available for simultaneous use. I am pressing the French Government to restore the land-lines so that the public service can be reopened.
    Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Have facilities been allowed to the public to use the telephone line from Paris to London which have not been offered to the public in London?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: Not that I am aware of.

    TELEPHONE SUBSCRIBERS (COMMERCIAL DIRECTORY).
    Sir H. BRITTAINasked the Post- master-General whether the General Post Office has been considering the publication of a classified commercial directory for telephone subscribers since 1911; whether within the last few days a private concern has filled this commercial want after first offering the production, with a guaranteed profit, to the General Post Office; and whether such profit, which might have accrued to the Department, will now and in the future be lost?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: A classified commercial list has been published in connection with the telephone directory of certain districts and an extension and development of the arrangement is probable. Several private persons have submitted scheme for such lists, which, however, I have been unable to accept pending the settlement of a new contract
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    for advertising in the Post Office Telephone Directory which will shortly be thrown open to public tender.
    Sir H. BRITTAIN: Is it not a fact that the. Government list comprises only ten pages after all this number of years working, while the first commercial list issued by a business firm already comprises 200 pages?
    Mr. ILLINGWORTH: I am afraid that I cannot add anything to what 1 have already said.

  FOOD SUPPLIES.

    DEFENCE OF THE REALM REGULATIONS.
    Mr. BOTTOMLEYasked the Food Controller whether be can see his way to amend the Orders under the Defence of the Realm Regulations as to maintenance of food supply, so as to place it within the power of a private individual to set the law in motion against profiteers or other infringers of the food Regulations?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Mr. Roberts): The proposal seems to be one that might be brought to the notice of the Select Committee of this House which has recently been appointed to consider the question of profiteering.
    Sir H. DALZIEL:Are we to understand that we have to await the result of the inquiry of this Committee before any strong action is taken?
    Mr. ROBERTS: My right hon. Friend must not understand that. Strong action is constantly being taken.
    Sir H. DALZIEL: Stronger action?
    Mr. ROBERTS: It does not altogether rest with me. I realise that the strongest possible action ought to be taken, and I have been making representations to that effect.

    MEAT AND MILK.
    Mr. McNEILLasked the Food Controller if he is aware that the view prevails among farmers that owing to the in crease in the price of feeding-stuffs it will not be possible to continue the production of meat and milk except at a considerable increase of price; and if he will say what steps he proposes to take to minimise the shortage of these necessaries?
    Mr. ROBERTS:While I share the anxiety of the farmers as to the increase in the price of feeding-stuffs, there is no reason to anticipate that supplies will be below the normal amount, although the demand will undoubtedly be increased as the result of the recent drought. Crushers have made heavy forward purchases of oilseeds, and the Shipping Controller has promised that adequate tonnage shall be forthcoming.
    Mr. McNEILL: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the price of oil cake has increased by £10 a ton during the last four months, and does he think that the measures referred to will be sufficient to counteract that?
    Mr. ROBERTS:I have the matter under the closest consideration. Negotiations are proceeding and arrangements are entered into which I hope will have the effect of checking the upward tendency and securing the feeding-stuffs at reasonable prices.
    Mr. G. MURRAY: Will the tonnage be available at once?
    Mr. ROBERTS:Yes; I have formed an understanding with the Shipping Controller that such tonnage as we require for food or feeding-stuffs shall be placed at our disposal.

    FISH (LONDON MARKET FACILITIES).
    Mr. BRIANTasked the Prime Minister whether his attention had been called to the Report of the Public Control Committee of the London County Council referring to the inadequacy of the market facilities for the distribution of fish; and if, in view of the importance of the supply of this article of food to the Metropolis, he would appoint a Committee to consider the subject?
    Mr. ROBERTS: I have been asked to reply. I understand that the Billingsgate and Leadenhall Markets' Committee have prominently before them schemes for improved facilities of a permanent nature at the market, and that, in order to meet immediate requirements, they have formed a committee, consisting of representatives of the corporation, of tenants of the market, and of the railway companies principally concerned, with a view to facilitate deliveries of fish. I am assured that every effort will be made to relieve the difficulty that exists under the present-exceptional conditions as regards transport generally.

    BREAD SUBSIDY.
    Mr. MARRIOTTasked the Prime Minister whether the provisional trading account of the Ministry of Food for the year ended 31st March, 1919, would be published and made available for Members of the House before the Vote for the Bread Subsidy was taken?
    Mr. ROBERTS: I have been asked to reply. The provisional trading account which gives the estimated financial results of the working of the various Departments of the Food Ministry is in the printers' hands, but, owing to the holidays, its publication cannot be promised before next Wednesday. I may point out, however, that the accounts in respect of cereals and sugar will not be included in this return, as the trading accounts of the Royal Commissions on the Wheat and Sugar Supplies have always been kept separately.
    Mr. MARRIOTT: May I ask whether it is proposed to take the Vote for the bread subsidy to-night before these accounts are published?
    Mr. ROBERTS: That is not a matter under my control. I have not yet been requested to regulate the business of the House.
    Mr. MARRIOTT: I put this question to the Prime Minister and not to the Food Controller.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he is going to ask the House to pass this Vote without the necessary information being at its disposal?
    Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): I think there is some misunderstanding. The Government agreed to give a certain number of allotted days. It was left to those who were interested to select the subjects. In any case there will be an opportunity on the Consolidated Fund Bill to discuss this.
    Major COURTHOPE: May I remind the Leader of the House that repeated demands have been made from all quarters to get some of this information, and that all those demands have been unanswered?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not think we could do more as regards the time of the House. That is all I am competent to deal with now. I understand that this subject could be discussed on the Consolidated Fund Bill.

  MUNITIONS.

    SLOUGH DEPOT (WAGES).
    Lieut.-Colonel DALRYMPLE WHITEasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions if his attention has been drawn to the case of a youth of eighteen years of age, employed as a storekeeper at the motor transport depot, Slough, who was charged last week at Slough with non-payment of Income Tax; whether this lad's earnings were £4 15s. per week, as stated; whether this is the average of wages of unskilled youths at this depot; and whether this post could be more appropriately filled by a disabled or discharged soldier?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Mr. James Hope): The charge in question was made against the youth in respect of wages paid him previous to his being employed in connection with the Slough Motor Transport Repair Depot. Since 1st June he has been in the service of a sub-contractor engaged on constructional work. He is not now and has not been at any time in the employ of the Government.

    GRETNA GREEK FACTORY.
    Mr. ROSEasked the cost of building, equipment, and working of the Gretna Green factory, including the expenditure upon State-salaried officials and workmen; what was, approximately, the value of the total production of the factory; and what are the intentions of the Government in respect to its continuance or disposal?
    Mr. HOPE: I shall be obliged if the hon. Member will repeat this question in a week's time, as I am not yet in a position to give all the information asked for.

  LONG-TERM CREDIT FACILITIES (EUROPEAN COUNTRIES).
  Mr. G. MURRAYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is now in the position to give the full particulars of the scheme for providing the long-term credit facilities in European countries which are not in the position at present to pay by means of exports for essential imports?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Bridge-man): No, Sir; my right hon. Friend
  2268
  regrets that he is not yet in a position to add anything to the statement which he made on Monday on this subject.
  Mr. MURRAY: When will the hon. Gentleman be in a position to add anything?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am afraid that I cannot say.
  Mr. MURRAY: I will repeat the question next week.

  THAMES BARGES (CONGESTION).
  Lieut.-Colonel WILLEYasked the President of the Board of Trade if he Is aware of the serious congestion at Tilbury Docks; if it is a fact that 300 barges from the Thames formerly largely employed in the transportation of wool from the lower docks to the wool warehouses, London Docks, were sent to France to assist in disembarkation of troops; if it is a fact that a very small number of these barges have yet been returned; and if he could state when it is expected that these barges will be returned for the continuance of the work they were formerly employed upon?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of SHIPPING (Colonel Wilson): I have been asked to reply. I am fully aware of the state of congestion in London, and every practicable step is being taken to meet the situation. Out of sixty-two Thames barges requisitioned and sent by the Ministry of Shipping to France, three have been lost, forty-seven have been or are being released to their owners, and twelve still remain in France. I am informed by the War Office that no Thames barges under their control have been sent to France to assist in disembarkation. Some twenty barges were purchased in 1917, of which fourteen have been returned. I am also informed by the Admiralty that they expect to return shortly a portion of the seventy barges which they have 'been using for naval purposes.
  Lieut.-Colonel WILLEY: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman give any definite indication as to when those barges will be returned, and also when an adjustment of coastal lines and railway rates may be expected?
  Colonel WILSON: In reference to the Admiralty barges, perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will put down a question to the Admiralty. The latter part of the

  2269
  question is under the consideration of the Government, My right hon. Friend is receiving a deputation on this question this afternoon, and hopes that an announcement will be made on the subject at an early date.
  Mr. WATERSON: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman make representations to the Secretary of State for War as to the necessity for liberating the men to work these barges as soon as they get back to the country so as to relieve the congestion on the railways as well?
  Colonel WILSON: That is not a question for me but for the "Secretary of State for War.
  Mr. WATERSON: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman make the necessary representations to the Department on that point?
  Colonel WILSON: I am making every representation in order to relieve the congestion which is very serious.
  Mr. WATERSON: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware of the fact that many railwaymen and boatmen are held up in the forces, and cannot get liberated simply because they did not join the forces until after 1st January, 1916?

  PETROL (PRICES).
  Lieut.-Colonel SPENDER-CLAYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention had been called to the comparative price of petrol in London and New York; whether the wholesale price in London is 2s. 8d. and 2s. 6d. per gallon for No. 1 and No. 3, as compared to a price of 1s. 4d. per gallon in New York; whether his attention had been drawn to the recent rise in value of oil shares; whether there is evidence of profiteering in an essential commodity; and what action he proposes to take in the matter?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: In comparing the prices of petrol in London and New York it must be borne in mind that the London price includes 6d. Import Duty, freight, and costs of handling in this country. On the information before me I am not prepared to say that the margin of profit is excessive.
  Lieut-Colonel SPENDER-CLAY: Has the hon. Gentleman noticed the large rise
  2270
  in these shares? Can he refer this question to the Committee on Profiteering for consideration?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN:I will convey to my right hon. Friend the hon. Member's suggestion.

  RAILWAY ADMINISTRATION.

    GOODS IN TRANSIT (DAMAGE).
    Sir N. GRIFFITHSasked the President of the Board of Trade if his attention had been drawn to the refusal of the railway companies to pay compensation for damages caused to goods in transit even when such damages can be proved to be due to negligence or carelessness on the part of their employés; and what action he was prepared to take in the matter?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am not sure what cases my hon. and gallant Friend has in mind, but as regards the statutory liability of railway companies for injury to goods in transit I would refer him to Section 7 of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1854 as showing the legal position of railway companies in the matter.

    SELECT COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORT (METROPOLITAN AREA).
    Major HAYWARDasked the Prime Minister whether the Government had considered the Report of the Select Committee on Transport (Metropolitan Area and, if so, what steps they proposed to take?
    Mr. BRIANTasked the Prime Minister what steps he proposed to take to-carry out the recommendations of the Select Committee on Transport (Metropolitan Area).
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSONasked the Prime Minister whether his attention had been called to the recent Report of the Select Committee on London Transport; and whether he was in a position to announce the decision of the Government with regard to setting up a traffic authority for Greater London as the Committee recommended?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The Report is now being examined by the Government, but I am not yet in a position to make any statement in regard to it.
    Mr. HOUSTON: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that unless the Government act promptly the persons concerned and authorities are not likely to order fresh materials or do anything at all to ameliorate the position, owing to the uncertainty?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The Government perfectly realise the urgency of this problem. Surely we must have at least a few days to consider it!

    RAILWAY WORKING (DEFICIT).
    Mr. MARRIOTTasked the Prime Minister whether the estimated deficit of £60,000,000 on the working of the railways for the current year was arrived at without crediting the railways with the cost of the services rendered by the railways to the Government; and whether the estimated value of these services for the year 1918 amounted to over £30,000,000?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: In arriving at the estimated deficit referred to, allowance was made for the cost of services rendered by the railways to the Government so far as this could be estimated, in view of the changed conditions brought about by the conclusion of hostilities. It is the case that the estimated value of Government traffic in 1918 exceeded £40,000,000, and the figures will be found in the statement on railway working during the War already presented to Parliament (Cmd. 147), but I understand that it is not likely that these figures will be reached during the present year.
    Mr. MARRIOTT: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that the confusion which already existed on this subject has been worse confounded by two speeches in diametrically opposite senses delivered in another place on Tuesday last?
    Mr. MacVEAGH: Nothing surprising in that!
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I was not aware of that.

    WAGON SUPPLY.
    Mr. LEONARD LYLEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the serious effect on manufacturers in East London owing to the railway companies' inability to supply wagons; and what is the reason for the inability of the Great Western Railway Company to handle goods traffic at the present time?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am fully aware of the effect on manufacturers of the shortage of railway wagons, and can assure my hon. Friend that such steps as are possible are being taken to meet the present difficult situation. I am afraid I do not quite understand the last sentence of the question. The Great Western Railway Company are suffering from the same disability as other companies, but they are not directly concerned with East London traffic.
    Mr. WATERSON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the fact that a good percentage of those men from the railway service are being retained in the Army, and will he make representations to the Secretary of State for War so that they may be released, and thus remove the congestion by getting the necessary material?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: This is a question of wagons.
    Mr. WATERSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that railway men make the wagons in their own shops, and they are now in the Army?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am quite aware of that.
    Sir P. MAGNUS: What steps are being taken to remedy this state of affairs?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I think it would be better if the hon. Gentleman would allow me to explain to him in conversation.

    CYCLE CARRIAGE (MIDLAND RAILWAY)
    Captain HACKINGasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can take steps to prevent the District Railway Company (Midland) carrying cycles until the necessary and proper arrangements are provided for their conveyance, as great inconvenience is caused to passengers by way of soiling of clothing and also of blocking up the doors?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am making inquiries into this matter, and will let my hon. and gallant Friend know the result.

  OIL DISCOVERY, DERBYSHIRE.
  Mr. HOLMESasked the Prime Minister whether the Government had come to a decision concerning the payment of royalties on the oil discovered in Derbyshire?
  Mr. HOPE: I am sorry I am not yet able to make an announcement on this matter.
  Captain W. BENN: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the surface owner has any property under the surface?
  Mr. HOPE: Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman will address that question to the Law Officers of the Crown?

  RENT INCREASES ACT.
  Major NEWMANasked the Prime Minister whether he was aware that, contrary to the spirit of the Rent Increases Act, the expression standard rent, whether of a house or flat, had been held to include rates and taxes where the same were paid by the landlord; and was it his intention to introduce legislation to give effect to the intention of Parliament that in calculating a standard rent the pro portion due to rates and taxes must be deducted?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Major Astor): I have been asked to reply to the question of the hon. and gallant Member. I am aware that a decision has been given by the Court to the effect stated in the question, but I understand that the Government cannot undertake to introduce legislation at the present time to amend the Increase of Rent, etc., Acts.

  WOMEN'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS.
  Mr. N. CHAMBERLAINasked the Prime Minister whether he was aware that members of Queen Mary's Women's Army Auxiliary Corps who might have contracted tuberculosis during service could not be granted any gratuity or compensation because this disease could not be certified as specifically attributable to the nature; of the work performed, although in the case of a discharged soldier the attribute ability of tuberculosis was admitted without question; and whether he would cause steps to be taken to remove this distinction between the treatment of men and women?
  Mr. FORSTER:I have been asked to reply. I can only refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave to him on the 1st April last on the same subject.
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the existing state of affairs is consistent with the promise of the Government that there should be equality in legislation between the sexes?
  Mr. FORSTER: I think there is. If my hon. Friend will refer to the answer I gave him, he will see that the provisions for the treatment of these ladies are the same as those governing males employed by the Government in a civilian capacity.

  PENSIONS (DESTITUTE WIDOWS).
  Mr. RAPERasked the Prime Minister whether he would consider the desirability of destitute widows with more than one child being granted the same pensions as were paid to soldiers' widows and of their being included in the same category for pension administration by the Ministry of Pensions?
  Major ASTOR: I have been asked to-reply to this question, but I fear I can add nothing to the replies given by the Leader of the House to similiar questions on the 26th February last and on the 29th of this month.

  FAMILY TRADE BREWERS.
  Major NEWMANasked the Prime Minister whether he was aware that Orders and Regulations issued by the Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic) had had the effect of bringing to a stand still the trade done by family trade brewers, and had caused great inconvenience to persons requiring beer for consumption at meals in their own homes; whether such Regulations were imposed as a war-time measure; and could ho say that they shall not be continued without the direct sanction of the House?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I have nothing to add to the previous replies on this subject.

  AIR SERVICES.

    ARREST OF OFFICER.
    Mr. ATKEYasked the Undersecretary of State to the Air Ministry whether he is aware that Captain Kenrick Edward Clayton, who served in the South

    2275
    African. War and who rejoined in 1914, and is now an officer of the Royal Air Force serving at No. 15 Training Squadron, Hucknall, Notts, was placed under close arrest on the 24th April last for an alleged offence, and that, although application was made by his legal advisers for speedy trial, the hearing of the court-martial did not take place till the 17th June last, and that since then no promulgation of the finding has yet been made, and that Captain Clayton throughout such period has been, and still is, tinder close arrest; and whether, having regard to the desirability of the popularity of the Army and the Air Force as a profession, some more just and speedy method can be devised of dealing with an officer charged with an offence?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Major-General Seely): The inquiries into this case are not yet complete, and I will communicate the result to my hon. Friend at an early date.

    AIRSHIPS.
    Captain W. BENNasked whether the Civil Aviation Department has under its control any airships; and, if not, what steps they take to carry out experiments, in view of the commercial development of this type of aircraft?
    Major-General SEELY: The Air Ministry has not at present any airships under its control. Valuable experience was gained by the Ministry from the flights of the R 33 and R 34, but these vessels have now been returned to the Admiralty.

    UNIFIED CONTROL.
    Captain W. BENNasked the Prime Minister (1) whether, in view of the proved value of airships for commercial purposes, the control of the airships could be transferred to the Civil Aviation Department of the Air Ministry; (2) whether the policy of the Government was that there should be unified control over the production of all material and the training of personnel for all aircraft whether lighter or heavier than air?
    Lieut.-Colonel MALONEasked the Prime Minister (1) when the construction of airships will be transferred from the Admiralty to the Air Ministry; (2) whether it is intended to divide the Air Service between the Admiralty and the Air Ministry?
    Mr. RAPERasked the Prime Minister whether he could make an announcement in reference to the transfer of the construction of airships to the Air Ministry?
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether it was the intention of the Admiralty to transfer the manufacture of airships to the Air Ministry; and, if so, when?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: It has been decided that the lighter-than-airships shall be transferred to the Air Ministry, and arrangements to carry this into effect are now being made.
    Mr. RAPER: Will they be transferred immediately or only on completion?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: The principle has been decided upon; the details are being arranged between the two Departments.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will they be available for experiments in commercial work, or are they only for naval and military purposes?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I could not be expected to answer that question. That will be for examination. One of the questions says, "Value for commercial purposes," but I was not aware of that.
    Lieut.-Colonel MALONE: Will they be transferred for operational purposes?
    Major-General SEELY: I could not answer that offhand. When these ships are employed for military purposes they will be under the command of appropriate military authorities, whether of the Navy or Army.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: When arrangements are made will a statement be published here?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: We shall certainly make any announcement that we can. Whether it will be necessary to make it when the House is not sitting we will consider.

    AIR. DIVISION (NAVAL STAFF).
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether an Air Department is in existence at the Admiralty; and, if so, for what purpose?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Long): There is no Air Department at the Admiralty. There is an Air Division of the Naval Staff, which advises as

    2277
    to air operations affecting Royal Air Force units working with the Fleet. This division is manned by Royal Air Force officers lent by the Air Ministry.
    Lieut.-Colonel MALONEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will state for what reasons aircraft, manned by Royal Air Force personnel, are continued under the control of the Admiralty?
    Mr. LONG: All aircraft which work in conjunction with the Navy are under the control of the Admiralty for operations.
    Lieut.-Colonel MALONEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the airships allotted for work with specific fleets are under the direct control of the Admiralty Air Department?
    Mr. LONG: No, Sir. Any airships allotted for work with the Fleet are under the direct control of the commander-in-chief.

  IMPERIAL WAR CABINET.
  Mr. MARRIOTTasked the Prime Minister whether there was in being a Cabinet other than the Imperial War Cabinet; and, if so, whether he would state the names of those who composed it?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Yeovil on Monday, 14th July.
  Mr. MARRIOTT: I have referred to that answer, but I am asking now whether there is in being any Cabinet other than the Imperial War Cabinet, and, if so, whether we may have the names of that other Cabinet?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: There is no other Cabinet except the one whose names I gave in the answer to which I have referred my hon. Friend.
  Mr. MARRIOTT: May I ask whether there are any Cabinet Ministers who are not members of the Cabinet?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: That is a question I would expect to come from a member of another nationality.
  Mr. MARRIOTT: May I have an answer to it, to whatever nationality I belong?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: It is obvious that if there is a Cabinet and there are Ministers who are members of it, they are the only Cabinet Ministers for the time being.

  DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR SERVICES.
  Sir ARTHUR STEEL-MAITLANDasked the Prime Minister at what date the Report of Lord Cave's Committee will be in the hands of Members; and whether an opportunity will be given for discussing it before the Recess?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: It is in the hands of the printers, but, owing to the holidays and to the amount of work in hand, I regret that I am not in a position to give a definite date. I fear that it will not be possible to arrange for a discussion of this Report before the Recess.
  Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is definitely decided when we shall rise for the Recess?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: No.
  Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of this question.

  FLOATING DEBT.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can make a statement as to the policy which he proposes to follow with regard to the remainder of the floating debt?
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): I do not think I can usefully make any statement on this subject at the moment.
  Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will it be available for the House before the Recess, and will some statement be made on this urgent matter of public importance?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Certainly not. I do not think it is a matter which I could be expected to decide in the course of the next few days.

  NATIONAL EXPENDITURE (DAILY AVERAGE).
  Mr. ARNOLDasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the amount of the average daily national expenditure from the beginning of the current financial year, 1st April last, down to Saturday last, 26th July?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The average daily expenditure (including advances from the Civil Contingencies Fund in respect of services to be met from moneys provided by Parliament) for the period from 1st April to 26th July, is £4,442,000. I need hardly remind the hon. Member that expenditure in the early part of this financial year is no safe guide to the total for the year.
  Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Does that average include the loss on railways, and, if so, how much is allowed per day for that?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: As my hon. Friend will understand, that is not a question I could be expected to answer without notice. It is the average of all expenditure.
  Mr. HOUSTON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what the revenue was for the same period?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No. I have a bad memory, and I am unable to carry all those figures in my head. I must have notice.

  BONUS SHARES.
  Mr. ROSEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the decision of Mr. Justice Rowlatt in the cases of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue v. John Blott, and the Commissioners of Inland Revenue v. Benjamin Isaac Greenwood, by which bonus shares issued out of profits are exempt from Super-tax; and whether the Treasury propose to accept this decision without appeal?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My attention has been called to this decision, against which the Commissioners of Inland Revenue propose to appeal.
  Mr. ROSE: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman has considered, or will consider, consulting his legal advisers as to the propriety or possibility of introducing a short measure to legalise the issue of bonus shares?
  Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I certainly could not introduce legislation in order to decide in a particular way an issue which is now before the Courts.

  WATER CHARGES (RURAL DISTRICTS).
  Mr. RENDALLasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the petition of water-users in the rural districts of Thornbury, Kingswood, and Warmley, Gloucester, and Keynsham, Somerset, complaining of an Order made by the Board authorising an increase in charges of 75 per sent upon houses not exceeding £10 annual value and of 50 per cent. where they do, but reserving power to vary such Order; whether the petition points out that such increases will give the company, a return far in excess of any extra expenses incurred by them post-war; whether all the rural district councils and parish councils concerned have passed resolutions of protest; and will he now consent to receive a deputation of the rural councils to put their strong and carefully prepared case before him?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I have received the petition to which my hon. Friend refers, and I observe that the case of the petitioners, purports to be based upon the accounts of the company for the year 1917. As the accounts for 1918 are now available I have asked the company to furnish the West Gloucestershire Water Ratepayers' Association with a copy, and I shall be happy to consider very carefully any representations which the association may wish to make after they have received the most recent accounts.

  ENEMY FIRMS (BRITISH CLAIMS).
  Mr. ATKEYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of. the inconvenience caused to business firms by the fact that the Government has not yet arrived at a decision regarding the settlement of the claims of British subjects against enemy persons or firms; and that this lack of knowledge is handicapping business firms who require the money owing to them by enemy firms for their business; and will he cause an immediate announcement to be made by the Public Trustee as to the policy of the Government in this matter?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: It has been decided to adopt the Clearing Office scheme for the settlement of German debts contained in Article 296 of the Treaty of Peace with Germany.
  Mr. ATKEY: Will the hon. Gentleman say when a decision will be available so that business people can know what the position really is?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: It has been decided to adopt the Clearing Office scheme for the settlement of German debts contained in Article 293 of the Treaty of Peace with Germany.

  COAL SUPPLIES.

    SEA-BORNE COAL.
    Lieut.-Colonel THORNEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is a wave that a notice has been sent to the electricity engineer of the West Ham Corporation stating that his Department can no longer be supplied with rail borne coal and they must make arrangements to obtain a supply of sea-borne coal; if he is aware that this will cause a considerable increase in the price of coal in addition to the 6s. which is further proposed by the Government; that the additional cost of sea-borne coal and the 6s. rise take effect immediately; that it will be impossible to immediately recover the cost from the consumers; and if he intends taking action in I he matter?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: My right hon. Friend explained in his statement in the House on the 4th June that the reduction of output, in the Midland districts made it necessary to replace rail-borne coal from those districts with sea-borne coal from exporting districts, and that the transport charges on the sea-borne coal were higher than on the rail-borne coal. I understand that the question of freights is at present receiving the attention of the Shipping Controller.
    Mr. JOHN JONES: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a number of men in the West Ham district are receiving notices because the employers say they cannot afford the extra charges?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I was not aware of that.

  INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE COMMITTEE.
  Mr. GRUNDYasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the importance of the Inquiry in which the Committee on Industrial Insurance is engaged and of the fact that the public
  2282
  generally are unaware of the Inquiry, further measures can be taken to give it publicity, so that persons able to submit valuable evidence will have their attention drawn to The matter?
  Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The composition of the Industrial Assurance Committee and the terms of reference, as announced by my right hon. Friend on the 5th May, wore widely reported in the Press, and a Departmental notice of the first meeting of the Committee was also issued on the 13th June. The public sittings for taking evidence will not be held till October, as some preliminary Returns are being called for from each of the companies and societies concerned in the Inquiry, and a reasonable time must be allowed fur their preparation, but it is proposed to make a further public announcement as to the probable course of the Inquiry at an early date. The Committee will welcome any information or suggestions from persons interested, and all communications and applications to be allowed to give evidence should be addressed to the Secretary to the Committee, Companies Department, 55, Whitehall, S.W.I.

  HOUSING.

    BUILDING COST.
    Mr. J. JONESasked the Minister of Health whether he has received a resolution from the Operative Bricklayers' Society repudiating the allegation that the present high cost of building is due entirely to the restrictive methods of the operatives, and demanding that an Inquiry be set up, with terms of reference sufficiently wide to make a full investigation into the real cause; and whether he will consider the advisability of setting up such an Inquiry?
    Major ASTOR: My right hon. Friend has received the resolution to which the hon. Member refers. I do not think that the high cost of building can be ascribed to any single cause, and I am doubtful whether the object desired could be attained by the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry.

    NEW ROMNEY, KENT.
    Mr. J. JONESasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that there is a great shortage of houses for the working and middle classes in New Romney,

    2283
    Kent, and that, though at Little stone-on-Sea there are a number of large houses and shops vacant, their rent is beyond the means of the working and middle classes; whether, owing to the cost of building houses, the New Romney Corporation and the Romney Marsh Rural District Council have refused at present to consider a scheme for the building of new cottages; and whether he can take any action for the conversion of the large houses and shops into flats, or the huts and cottages at the St. Mary's Aerodrome, which is vacated by the Royal Air Force, into temporary homes for workmen and smallholders and to restore the existing cottages in Romney Marsh, which are in a state of advanced decay and are over crowded?
    Major ASTOR: On the information at present before mo, I do not gather that the position is accurately represented by the statements in the hon. Member's question. The Housing Commissioner for the area is being instructed to make further inquiries in the matter, and I can assure the hon. Member that all possible action will be explored to meet such deficiency as is found to exist.

    BRICKWORKS.
    Mr. RONALD McNEILLasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that, owing to the prohibition of building during the War, some of the owners of brickworks were obliged to close down their business and dismiss their employés, and are now unable to reopen their works through lack of capital and difficulty in obtaining advances; and whether, with a view to increasing the supply of materials for housing schemes, the Government are prepared to make Grants to such owners of brickworks to enable them to reopen business?
    Mr. HOPE: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by me on the 26th of May to the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth:
    "The Government have given assistance to the trade by placing orders with makers at prices ensuring a reasonable profit, and by making liberal payments on account so soon as the bricks were out of the kiln, and before actual delivery. These arrangements have produced satisfactory results, and it is hoped will have the effect of putting the trade on a sound footing."
    2284
    The Government is not prepared to make direct Grants to the owners of disused brickworks to enable thorn to reopen business.

  WIDOWS AND ORPHAN CHILDREN.
  Mr. RAPERasked the Ministry of Health how many children are in industrial schools; how many in orphan homes, such as Dr. Barnardo's, Waifs and Strays, etc.; the number of children and widows in Poor Law institutions; the number of widows, with dependent children, on out relief; and the total cost of Poor Law relief per week at present being given to widows and their children?
  Major ASTOR: As the answer is somewhat lengthy I will have it circulated in the Official Report.
  The following is the statement referred to:
  I am informed by the Secretary of State that the number of children in certified industrial schools in England and Wales on the 31st March, 1919, was 13,209. Information is not available as to the total number of children in orphan homes. As was stated in reply to a question by the hon. Member for Newport on 29th May last, the number of children in England and Wales in receipt of indoor relief on 28th December, 1918, was 59,761, and the number in receipt of outdoor relief was 124,801. The return for 1st January, 1914, is the latest in which separate particulars are given as to widows with children in receipt of relief, as detailed returns were suspended during the War. On the date named there were 47,774 widows relieved with their children, nearly all being cases of out-relief. The returns in my possession do not show the cost of relief to widows with children as distinct from relief given to other classes.

  LONDON PLAYING FIELDS.
  Sir H. BRITTAINasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the importance of the healthy recreation of the people, every effort will be made to avoid the curtailing of the playing fields of London when carrying out the necessary housing schemes?
  Major ASTOR: As indicated in the reply given to the Member for North

  2285
  Lambeth on the 10th of March last, the consideration which the hon. Member mentions will receive careful attention in connection, with proposals submitted to the Ministry of Health for the provision of housing accommodation.

  OUT-OF-WORK DONATION.
  Mr. T. WILSONasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that a largo number of women have been discharged from aircraft factories, and that these women are not receiving unemployment donation; and if he will state the reason why they are not receiving out-of-work donation?
  The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Wardle): Women discharged from aircraft factories would, as a general rule, be entitled to out-of-work donation while unemployed, subject to their satisfying all the conditions of the donation scheme. If the hon. Member will furnish me with particulars of the cases which he has in mind I will have inquiries made.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    APPLICATlON FOR RELEASE.
    Mr. CAIRNSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he is aware that, since Seaman A. B. Waterston, No. 33225, serving on His Majesty's torpedo-boat destroyer "Trident," joined up, his father has died and his mother is a widow with four young children to look after; and, as this is a case of commission, will he grant this man's release from the Navy?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr Macnamara): In order to allow of the demobilisation of all men who joined for hostilities only, it has been necessary to restrict discharge of long-service men to really urgent compassionate cases. This man's commanding officer is being directed to inquire into the circumstances and report whether he recommends release.

    JERRAM COMMITTEE.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he can say
    2286
    when he will be in a position to make a further announcement with regard to the finding of the Jerram Committee that men invalided are to be awarded pensions in respect of length of service apart from any award in respect of disability?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Considerable progress has been made in this matter, and it is anticipated that definite proposals will be put forward in a few days for the consideration of the Board.

    CIVILIAN EMPLOYES, PORTSMOUTH BARRACKS.
    Mr. T. WILSONasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether any decision has yet been arrived at regarding the petition presented on the 21st October, 1918, by the civilian employés employed at the Royal Naval Barracks, Portsmouth, and other naval establishments, in which they ask for similar treatment to that of other Government employés in the district?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The employés referred to in my hon. Friend's question are naval pensioners employed as civilians, and their conditions and terms of service arc not identical with those of workmen employed in the Royal Dockyards and industrial establishments. It has, however, been decided to grant extra pay to some of these employés, and the Admiralty are now in communication with the Commanders-in-Chief at the various ports in connection with the allocation of the extra pay.

  GOVERNMENT SLAUGHTERHOUSES, KENT.
  Mr. R. McNEILLasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture if he is aware that the closing of the Government slaughterhouses throughout the county of Kent is causing much dissatisfaction amongst the farmers: if he will say for what reason this step has been taken; and whether, in order to obviate the loss and inconvenience so occasioned to farmers, he will take steps to have the slaughterhouses reopened during the continuance of meat control, or, alternatively, to give authority to market chairmen to allocate cattle and sheep on the application of owners to butchers on the deadweight basis.?
  Mr. ROBERTS: I have been asked to reply. These slaughterhouses were closed because the stock consigned to them by the farmers was not sufficient to justify their continuance, and at present I do not propose to reopen them. I regret that, owing to administrative difficulties, it is not possible to adopt the alternative proposal made in the last part of the question.

  EX-ARMY HORSES AND MULES.
  Mr. BRIANTasked the Secretary of State for War if he has any official in formation showing that horses and mules formerly employed in the British Army and now sold in Persia are treated with wanton cruelty by their present owners; and if he will take steps to see that in future they are disposed of in India or other British Possessions where they will be treated with humanity?
  Captain GUEST (Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury): On the 3rd May last the General Officer Commanding in-Chief in Mesopotamia cabled that he had found it desirable to discontinue the sale of draught horses to local inhabitants, owing to their unsuitability for the work they are called upon to do. Beyond this, no information has been received which would suggest that the animals are cruelly treated. I think the General Commanding and the civil authorities may be trusted to deal with any instances of cruelty should occasion arise.
  Mr. BRIANT: Will my hon. Friend read a letter from an officer in Mesopotamia now in my possession giving evidence of cruelty to horses, if I send him a copy?
  Captain GUEST: I shall be very glad if my hon. Friend will send me a copy.

  DEMOBILISATION.

    APPLICATIONS FOR RELEASE.
    Mr. CAIRNSasked the Secretary of State for War is he aware that Sapper A. Howard, No. 457596, 451st Field Company, Royal Engineers, at No. 5 Camp, Deolali, India, joined up in 1915; is he aware that this man's father has had a stroke and the sapper son is his only sup port: and, on that ground, will he grant his release from the Army?
    Captain GUEST: If Sapper Howard joined the Colours for immediate service prior to 1st January, 1916, he will be demobilised in his turn when demobilisation recommences in India. I regret that I cannot authorise his immediate release.
    Mr. FREDERICK ROBERTS: Can the hon. Gentleman state when demobilisation is likely to reopen?
    Captain GUEST: That depends on the difficulties of transport in the Red Sea during the hot weather.
    Mr. CAIRNSasked the Secretary of State for War whether 1 e is aware that Sapper A. Smith, No. 62645, of the No. 2 Wireless Observation Group, Egypt, enlisted in November, 1914; that he has served at the Dardanelles, in Palestine, and Egypt, without home leave; that he has suffered from sand fly fever and malaria, and that his commanding officer has certified him as available for demobilisation without substitution; whether the average task of the three operators at this station is one message per day between them; whether he stated on 30th June that if Sapper Smith's length of service was as stated he was eligible for demobilisation; and whether he will state what steps have been taken to release this man?
    Captain GUEST: A cablegram has been sent to Egypt inquiring into this man's position as regards demobilisation.

  BAKING TRADE DISPUTE.
  Mr. HAILWOOD(by private Notice) asked the Leader of the House if he recognises the serious state the country will be in on Monday next in consequence of the bakers' strike, which is to commence on Saturday next, and is he aware that the deadlock is duo to the policy being pursued by the Ministry of Food, and what steps he proposes to take to avoid the calamity?
  Mr. WARDLE: I have been asked to reply to this question. The Ministry of Labour has been in contact with all the parties to the dispute, and to-day at a meeting in the Ministry the representative of the Ministry of Food made a communication to the employers' secretary which appears likely to remove the difficulty. Further meetings with the parties to the dispute arc being arranged.

  THAMES RIVER PAGEANT.

    WOUNDED SAILORS AND SOLDIERS.
    Mr. RAPER(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he is aware that there is a strong feeling of disappointment that no accommodation is being provided for wounded sailors and soldiers to view the River Pageant; and why such accommodation cannot be provided?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I can well believe that disappointment is felt, and, of course, we share it.
    As regards wounded sailors, I am afraid it is not possible to bring those men from the naval ports to London this week-end.
    As regards wounded soldiers, and such few wounded sailors as may be in and about London, the problem of providing accommodation along the river side is by no means so simple as that of providing accommodation in the parks, as was done on the 10th. But I have been in communication with the Secretary of State for War and the First Commissioner of Works about the matter, and if anything can be done in the direction indicated by my hon. and gallant Friend, it shall be done.
    Sir F. FLANNERY: Is it possible for the Admiralty to obtain barges, which could be moored in the river, for the accommodation of these men?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: That suggestion has already been made to me.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Will he not consider the possibility of approaching some of the great trades people who occupy wharves on the route as to whether they will give the accommodation?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The matter is under our consideration in its many aspects.
    Mr. BRIANT: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the whole of Lambeth Bridge is being reserved for the use of wounded soldiers on Monday?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: By the London County Council?
    Mr. BRIANT: Yes.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I am very glad to hear it.
    An HON. MEMBER: Is he aware that there are plenty of wharves in the borough of Stepney which would be available?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: That shall be considered.

  PROCESSION OF INDIAN TROOPS.
  Colonel YATE: Can he say what accommodation is being provided for wounded soldiers and sailors to view the march of the Indian troops?
  Dr. MACNAMARA: I cannot say about that. Questions about wounded soldiers are really a matter for the Secretary of State for War to deal with.
  Colonel YATE: May I ask the representative of the War Office what is being done?
  Mr. FORSTER: I really cannot say without notice.
  Colonel YATE: Will he bring it to the notice of the Department that they are taking down all the stands along the Mall, and might they not remain up for the wounded soldiers?
  Mr. FORSTER: I will have that considered at once.

  RHODESIA.

    LORD CAVE'S COMMISSION.
    Captain R. TERRELL(by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether a Government Commission comprising Sir William Peat is proceeding very shortly to Rhodesia to decide the Chartered Company's claim; whether He is aware that Sir W. Peat is Chairman of the new Royal Commission on Agriculture; and how Sir W. Peat will be able to carry on the duties of both Commissions, particularly in view of the urgency of the home investigation?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: I am informed that Sir W. Peat will not proceed to South Africa, and that his work as Chairman of the Royal Commission on Agriculture will be in no way interfered with.
    Captain ORMSBY-GORE: Are we then to understand that only Lord Chalmers and Lord Cave will go to South Africa?
    Mr. BONAR LAW: Yes. Sir W. Peat was going, from the point of view of the accounts, but I understand that he is sending a member of his firm to act for him in South Africa.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. T. WILSON: May I ask the Leader of the House what the business for next week will be, and will he also state when the House will adjourn for the Autumn Recess?
Mr. BONAR LAW: I can give the business for next week, as follows:
Monday, Supply (Scottish Estimates).
Tuesday, Forestry Bill and other Orders.
Wednesday, Votes of thanks will be moved to the fighting Services, and at the same time the House will be asked to approve of the recognition of special services.
On Thursday the Consolidated Fund Bill, Second Reading.
I cannot say anything definite as to the time the House will rise, but we have been aiming at about the middle of next month
Mr. HOUSTON: Does the right hon. Gentleman intend the House to sit on Friday?
Mr. BONAR LAW: Oh, certainly!
Sir P. MAGNUS: Will the House meet at twelve or two-forty-five on Monday?
Mr. BONAR LAW: At the usual time on Monday
Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Debate on the nationalisation of coal mines will be taken?
Mr. BONAR LAW: I said yesterday that I could not give an exact date, but we anticipated it would be discussed before the Recess.
Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Did not the right hon. Gentleman say that he would give sufficient notice, so that Members who wanted to go away could make arrangements?
Mr. BONAR LAW: I did not say anything of the kind. I said we would take it as soon as we could, and that I relied on hon. Members not going away.
Sir H. DALZIEL: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the recognition of special military services implies that there will be a Vote of money proposed on Wednesday; and how soon can he give us the figures?
Mr. BONAR LAW: Yes; that is in. tended. I shall give the particulars as soon as we can, certainly before the discussion.
Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: Will the right hon. Gentleman inform the Prime Minister that the House will give him a hearty welcome next week if he comes here to answer questions?
Mr. BONAR LAW: I hope it is not necessary to assume that. If my hon. Friend means to press the question put yesterday, I have spoken to the Prime Minister about it. The Government are quite decided that so long as the pressure upon his time, which is as great as it was during the War, continues, there shall be no change of procedure.
Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Will the right hon. Gentleman inform the Prime Minister that the general feeling of the House is one of satisfaction as regards existing arrangements having regard to all the circumstances?
Mr. MacVEAGH: Especially among the knights and baronets!

HIGH PRICES AND PROFITS
Ordered, That Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland be discharged from the Committee.
Ordered,
"That Major-General Sir John Davidson be added to the Committee."—[Colonel Gibbs.]

CORN PRODUCTION ACTS (REPEAL) BILL.
Adjourned Debate on Second Reading [4th June] to be resumed upon Thursday, 14th August.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—
Amendment to—
Falmouth Docks Bill [Lords], without Amendment.
Housing, Town Planning, etc., Bill,—That they do not insist on their Amendment to the Housing, Town Planning, etc, Bill to which this House has disagreed, and agree to the Amendment proposed by this House in lieu thereof.

AGRICULTURAL LAND SALES (RESTRICTION OF NOTICES TO QUIT) BILL.
Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee E.
Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 154.]
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed. [No. 154.].
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration Tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 160.]

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Tramways Provisional Orders Bill [Lords],
Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered Tomorrow.
Ammanford Gas Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table.
Shoreham-by-Sea Urban District Council Bill [Lords],
Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
East Ham Corporation Bill [Lords],
London Electric Railway Bill [Lords],
Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table.
Blackpool Improvement Bill [Lords],
Leeds Corporation Bill [Lords],
Birmingham Corporation Tramways Bill [Lords],
Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Clowes Settled Estates Bill [Lords],
Reported, without Amendment; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Bill to be read the third time.
Pembroke Gas Bill [Lords],
West Hartlepool Corporation Bill [Lords],
Reported, with Amendments; Reports to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

NEW MEMBER SWORN.
William Morgan Jellett, esquire, K.C., for the University of Dublin.
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the Navy Excess Vote, 1917–18, and all outstanding Votes in the Civil Services and Revenue Departments Estimates and Supplementary Estimates, 1919–20, except Class 2, Votes 17 and 33, and Class 7, Votes 3, 4, 5, and 10, be considered in Committee of Supply; that on this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Older No.15, the Navy Excess Vote, 1917–18, and Supplementary Estimates for New Services may be considered in Committee of Supply; that no Question be put upon Navy Estimates, 1919–20, Vote 1; that the Question necessary to dispose of any outstanding unclassified Votes in the Civil Services Estimates and Supplementary Estimates be put as if those Votes constituted together a class of those Estimates; and that Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Eleven of the clock."— [Mr. Bonar Law.]
  Sir DONALD MACLEAN: I wish to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, who, I understand, is going to reply, one or two questions as regards this Motion. It may save time if I put them now rather than afterwards. I understand that at ten o'clock to-night the Chairman will, under Standing Order 15, put the Question, so that after that hour we shall have no opportunity of raising any questions in regard to these Votes in Supply. Would my hon. Friend tell the House what Votes are included in Class 2, Votes 17 and 33? I understand that Vote 33 is Scottish Estimates," which are to stand over till Monday. Vote 17 is for the English Local Government Board. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will explain why it is brought in here. That also applies to Class 7, Votes 3, 4, and 5, which are also for the English Local Government Board, National Health Insurance, and matters of that kind. Will he also tell me whether I am right in assuming that it is the intention that no Question is to be put upon Navy Estimates, 1919–20, Vote 1, and that that is in order to give the opportunity for these Estimates to be submitted in the autumn, so that they can be fully considered, as was arranged, I think, the other day? I notice also a reference to Supplementary Estimates for New Services. I do not know what is covered exactly by that. Probably this is the only opportunity one will have of asking any questions upon that. Do those Estimates
  2322
  cover the Vote which was the subject of considerable discussion upstairs in regard to the alterations in the House of Lords to the residence of the Lord Chancellor? I am not quite clear on that point.
  4.0 P.M.
  Mr. BALDWIN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury): I am vary glad to have the opportunity of replying to my right hon. Friend, because, although this Motion is in common form at this time of the year, it is in common form with a few variations that make it specially applicable to the circumstances in which we are doing our work. The reason for the exemption of the Votes to which my right hon. Friend alluded is this: Ho will recognise, if he looks them up, that they are all Votes which are closely connected with the services of the old Local Government Board. The Local Government Board Estimate has not been passed. It was debated, but Progress was reported, and the Vote was not taken, because it was understood—and I think a statement to that effect was made—that the Ministry of Health would supersede it, and that the Estimates would be merged to this extent, that the Vote on Account was expected to carry on the Local Government Board for its existing lifetime. There are some surrenders, full details of which are given in the Appendix to the Ministry of Health Vote, which is included in the Supplementary Estimates. Each of those Estimates is connected with the Ministry of Health, either of England or Scotland, and such Votes as the National Health Insurance Commission, which are practically Ministry of Health Votes, are included. That sums up the whole of those Votes. With regard to the point the right hon. Gentleman put about the Navy Estimates, he has put the correct reading upon it. If the question were put on Vote 1, when the total Estimates are. to be introduced in the autumn, it would be impossible to have a discussion on that Vote, which is the most important one, and therefore we do not take any account of that to-night. I may say as regards the grouping together of unclassified services in one Vote, I do not press that. That is put in simply for the convenience of the House, because, under the guillotine, if the House think fit, they will divide against one class, which will take very much less time than if they divide against every individual Vote in the class. If the House feels strongly on

  2323
  that point, we will not press it. With regard to the Lord Chancellor's bath, my right hon. Friend will remember the position that in Standing Committee C, on one of the first days of the Session, the Vote was reduced by £4,800, if my memory serves me, which represents the total sum allocated for the improvement of the residence. When that Estimate was thrown out by the Committee upstairs they were warned that a certain amount of this money had already been spent, because it is obvious to the House that, in a case like that, where there was no expectation of a Vote being rejected, the Office of Works, under the sanction of the Treasury, followed the usual course of proceeding with the work in full expectation of receiving later that sanction. Therefore, we have to come to the House to sanction the actual expenditure before that date under those circumstances. The amount is included in these Estimates. It is a little over £2,000—again I speak from memory. My right hon. Friend alluded to there being some new services. The new services under the Supplementary Estimates are marked. It is always regrettable when these Votes have to be brought under the guillotine, but we have done it before, and I remember very well, I think it was in 1912, several new services were brought in in this way, and Lord Crawford, who was then Chief Whip, objected and we divided; but there the matter ended. The House will remember in the statement I made accompanying the introduction of the Civil Service Estimates this year, I pointed out that in the circumstances this year, from the nature of things, there was bound to be a much larger number of Supplementary Estimates than usual, and it is equally owing to the circumstances of the case that a number of these Supplementary Estimates have been obliged to be brought in at the last moment.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: What are the new services?
  Mr. BALDWIN: I have not got them in my head, but they are all marked "New Services" where they are in the Estimates. There is nothing of any importance except one Vote, on which I want to say a few words. When reviewing these Estimates. I told the Committee that the House would probably desire a discussion on the last Vote of the Estimates—"Unclassified Services Miscellaneous War
  2324
  Services (Foreign Office)"—and I saw my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for State, whose sanction I obtained for postponing this Vote until the autumn, so that it might be discussed in this House. With a view to achieving that result, I have had that one particular Vote put down immediately before the Ministry of Pensions Vote, and I propose, with the leave of the House when it is called, to move that it be withdrawn.
  Colonel ASHLEY: Do I understand from my hon. Friend's statement that, if this procedure be carried out, the House will have no opportunity of discussing the £2,000 which has already been spent on the residence?
  Mr. BALDWIN:The House will have no opportunity of rejecting the Vote unless they are able to defeat it by challenging a Division when it comes up under the guillotine. If my hon. and gallant Friend wishes to discuss the matter, I always understood you could discuss anything on the Consolidated Fund Bill.
  Sir D. MACLEAN: It is possible that this is the only opportunity that is likely to arise, to-day at any rate. Would it be in order to have the particulars with regard to this question of the alteration of the Lord Chancellor's residence now on this Motion before the House so that Members could make any comments they wished in regard to it?
  Mr. SPEAKER: This Motion is only as to the order of business. When the business conies on will be the opportunity.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: With reference to the statement as to the reduced expenditure regarding the Lord Chancellor's residence, I should like to ask, for the information of the House, whether it is not the case that the Lord Chancellor has intimated, in view of the decision of the Committee, that he has no intention of occupying the apartments?
  Mr. BALDWIN: Yes, Sir, that is the case. The whole scheme is at an end. The whole work was immediately stopped when the decision of the Committee was taken, and the amount in the Estimate is the amount that was spent up to that date.
  Mr. MARRIOTT: I am not very clear about what my hon. Friend said as to the Unclassified Services. Are we to under-

  2325
  stand that any one of these services may be taken by itself by a vote of the House? For example, among the Unclassified Services is a Vote of a very considerable sum—I think £40,000,000—for the bread subsidy, and I want to know whether it would be competent for the House to take a vote on that, apart from the other unclassified Votes?
  Mr. BALDWIN: As the Motion stands now—no; but I said to the House a few minutes ago that if it be the wish of the House to take the Votes separately, it is for them to decide. We are simply putting these Votes for Unclassified Services together to save time and trouble to the House; but I might remind my hon. Friend that the Vote on the bread subsidy was sent up by request more than once to the Committee upstairs, and it was not proceeded with.
  An HON. MEMBER: The proceedings there were a farce.
  Mr. MARRIOTT: In reference to the remark which has just fallen from my hon. Friend and the reproach which he apparently levelled at some Members of the House, may I remind him that not all the Members of the House were members of the Committee to which he referred? The House as a whole has had no opportunity whatever of considering or discussing that Vote. That is one of the inconveniences attaching to the system which has been set up this Session. Those of us who are not members of the Committee can have no responsibility for not forming a quorum at that Committee.
  Mr. SPEAKER: That is not a matter for discussion now. Does the hon. Gentleman wish to move an Amendment now?
  Mr. MARRIOTT: Not if I understand these Votes are to be put separately from the Chair.
  Mr. SPEAKER: If the hon. Gentleman will look at the Motion on the Paper, he will see that the proposal is that they shall be put together. If he objects to that being done, the simple way is to move to leave out the words which provide for that.
  Mr. HOGGE: It is preferable to have each Vote put from the Chair?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I am not sure that, it is practicable, but would it not be possible, by general agreement, if only this Vote is to be taken separately, to have it put separately?
  Sir D. MACLEAN: I beg to move to leave out the words
  "that the Question necessary to dispose of any outstanding unclassified Votes in the Civil Services Estimates and Supplementary Estimates be put as if those Votes constituted together a class of those Estimates."
  Captain W. BENN: We are discussing a Motion relating to the business of the House, and it appears from my hon. Friend opposite that here is a bread subsidy, which could not be discussed in the Standing Committee, and is now going to be put under the guillotine of the House of Commons. Does the Leader of the House think the Standing Committee system is a success?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not think it follows in the least from this that it is not a success. I have never seen a system of Parliament where the same sort of complaint was not made of things equally important passing without discussion.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Question proposed, "That the Resolution, as amended, be the Resolution of the House."
  Sir D. MACLEAN: I should like to ask one question. The Navy Vote is going to be taken in the autumn. Will the Leader of the House give us a promise that the Army Estimates will be resubmitted in the autumn?
  Mr. BONAR LAW: I think I can give that assurance, for it is quite obvious that must be taken some time.
  Question put, and agreed to.

  WEST INDIAN COURT OF APPEAL BILL.
  Order [30th July] committing the West Indian Court of Appeal Bill to a Standing Committee, read, and discharged.
  Ordered,
  That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House for this day."—[Mr. Bonar Law.]

  SUPPLY.— [19TH ALLOTTED DAY.]

    CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS AND OTHER ESTIMATES.
    Considered in Committee.
    [MR. BOWERMAN in the chair.]

    CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS AND OTHER ESTIMATES.

      BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, SCOTLAND
      Resolved,
      "29. That a sum, not exceeding £245,711, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Board of Agriculture for Scotland, including certain Grants in Aid and certain Special Services arising out of the War." [NOTE.—£100,000 has been voted on account.]

      PUBLIC EDUCATION, SCOTLAND.
      Resolved,
      "11. That a sum, not exceeding £2,927,220, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for Public Education in Scotland, and for Science and Art in Scotland." [Note.— £1,750,000 has been voted on account.]

      FISHERY BOARD, SCOTLAND.
      Resolved,
      "30. That a sum, not exceeding £1,152,177 (including a Supplementary sum of £l,131,000), be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Fishery Board for Scotland, including Grants in Aid of Piers or Quays, and certain Special Expenditure in connection with the Purchase and Storing of Pickled Herrings."

      SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND'S OFFICE.
      Resolved,
      "28. That a sum, not exceeding £23,010 be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of His Majesty's Secretary for Scotland and Subordinate Offices, Expenses under the Inebriates Acts, 1879 to 1900, Expenses under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, and Expenses under the National Registration Acts, 1915 and 1918."[Note.— £14 000 has been voted on account.]

      UNCLASSIFIED SERVICES.
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £4,488,500, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the cost of certain Miscellaneous War Services."
      Mr. BALDWIN: I ask leave to withdraw this Vote.
      Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  MINISTRY OF PENSIONS.

    STATEMENT BY SIR LAMING WORTHINGTON- EVANS.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "3. That a sum, not exceeding £45,856,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Pensions, and for sundry Contributions in respect of the Administration of the Ministry of Pensions Act, 1916." [NOTE.— £27,000,000 has been voted on account,]
    The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): This is the first occasion upon which the Pensions Estimates have been presented in detail. During the War the expenditure on pensions was made out of the Vote of Credit, but now the Committee has the opportunity of considering Estimates in the usual way. As I desire to put before the Committee a review of the administration and policy of the Ministry, which must necessarily take some time, I shall not deal with the various items of expenditure unless questions are raised in the course of the Debate. I must, however, warn the Committee that the Estimate, which amounts to nearly £73,000,000, is already out of date. Since that Estimate was presented, additional expenditure has been authorised, as I have from time to time announced. For example, there has been added a 20 per cent. bonus to officers' retired pay and to alternative pensions for officers and men and their widows, and certain pre-war disability pensions have been raised to the present rates. These and other alterations will cost this year over £2,000,000. I shall presently inform the Committee of the decisions of the Government upon the recommendations made in the interim Report of the Select Committee on Pensions.
    These decisions will call for an extra expenditure for the remainder of this year of about £11,000,000, so that the Estimates we are considering should be treated as £86,000,000, and not, as presented, at just under £73,000,000. The increased expenditure, however, covers only a portion of this year, and the Committee may like

    2329
    to know that for a full year—at least, as long as the number of pensioners remains at or about the maximum—the rate will be about £96,000,000. This is more than double the estimated expenditure for the previous year ending April, 1919, which was £47,500,000, and more than four times the actual expenditure of the year before—the year ending April, 1918—which was just aver £23,000,000. Perhaps before I proceed with my review I should also give the Committee information as to the numbers of pensions, gratuities, and final allowances in actual payment at the 30th June. I think I had better give round figures. Officers and nurses drawing retired pay numbered just under 20,000; officers' widows numbered just under 9,500; officers dependants, just under 5,000; officers children, just over 9,000—a total of 43,500.
    Sir D. MACLEAN: You say 9,500widows and only 9,200 children?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: That is quite right. It does not follow that there are only 9,200 children belonging to officers. It is only in certain circumstances that the children's allowances are payable.
    An HON. MEMBER: All under sixteen.
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The corresponding figures for other ranks at the 30th June were: Men, 875,000; widows, 216,000; dependants, 279,000; children, 968,000; total, allowing for the odd numbers, of 2,340,000. It is never easy to recognise what figures mean. Perhaps the number of pensioners will be realised when I say that they are almost exactly three times as great as the population of Liverpool.
    If the Committee will allow me, I will first deal with administration, indicating the steps I am taking to bring about improvement. Soon after I took office in January last, I entered into a detailed examination of the organisation of the Ministry. My attention was forcibly called to the almost universal complaints of delay which poured in upon me from every quarter. Members of Parliament wrote forwarding letters from constituents, and, worse still, the constituents wrote also. The local war pensions committees complained that their letters to the Department were not answered, and often that when their letters were answered they got contradictory instructions. I set to
    2330
    work to put my house in order, and I can, truthfully say that the last six months has not been an easy time for me, nor. I think, for the staff of my Department.
    I found that the headquarters staff was organised in ten divisions each reporting to the Secretary, and through him, to myself as Minister. There was an accumulation of detail at the top which could and should have been dealt with lower down in the machine, but the intermediate staff did not exist. I rearranged the work into five divisions each under a responsible head, and I strengthened the intermediate staff, bringing in many experienced administrative officers. I found that there were no proper statistics and no sufficient progress reports, so as to enable the output to be properly measured and checked. I appointed a statistical officer, and an officer in charge of office organisation. Delays can now be traced to their causes, and steps have been taken to remove the causes by simplifying the procedure. In order to cope with the additional work due to demobilisation of the Army, the staff had to be largely increased, and the difficulties were accentuated by lack of suitable accommodation. The staff at the 30th June numbered 14,829, of whom 11,549 are women, and 3,280 are men. Of the 3,280 men 81 per cent., or 2,670, are discharged officers or men. The staff is housed in thirty-three separate buildings or groups of buildings, and this separation makes control extremely difficult, and leads to great extravagance in staff.
    At the same that the work at headquarters was being co-ordinated, Regulations had to be issued under the War Pensions Act, passed last year, governing, the procedure of local war pensions committees and defining the duties of the secretary, treasurer and chief officer of the local war pensions committees. The Committee is aware of the very valuable local work done by the local war pensions committees which act as the Ministry's local agents in direct touch with the claimants for pensions and allowances. The change, however, from war to peace affected these committees—many voluntary workers with great experience felt that the work they had done during the War should now be taken over by full-time paid workers. The appointment of principal officers of these local war pensions committees and the necessary rearrangements of areas so as to secure economic units for administration had to

    2331
    be referred to headquarters. There are 3,200 of these local committees and sub-committees, and the constitution of each of them has had to be reviewed. Congestion and delays at the centre were, therefore, not surprising.
    I felt that no re-organisation of head-quarters would be sufficient, so I appointed a Committee under the Parliamentary Secretary consisting of Members of this House and representatives of local war pensions committees to consider how far it would be advisable to decentralise the organisation. The question was very care-fully considered by that Committee, to which I am most grateful. They reported unanimously in favour of decentralisation, and they drew up a scheme which I have adopted. The scheme provides for setting up a number of regions, either thirteen or eleven, each as a complete self-contained administrative unit under a Regional Director advised by a Regional Advisory Committee. While I shall retain the direction of policy all matters of administration arising within the region will be finally settled at the regional office. The local war pensions committees within the region will communicate direct with the region and all medical boards, and arrangements for medical treatment will be dealt with by the regional medical officer. Awards will also be made by the regional awarding officer, at first the renewals only, but afterwards all the cases which arise locally will be settled locally. I am satisfied that only by a wide delegation of powers to the Regional Director is it possible to remove delays and ensure speedy decisions on the many local questions which arise, in the awarding of pensions and in the administration through the local committees.
    The Scottish, Irish and Welsh regions have already been established in Edinburgh, Dublin, Belfast, and Cardiff, respectively, and the South-East of England region has started in London. It is still for consideration whether two other regions shall not be joined with this region or whether the original proposal of thirteen regions shall be carried out. I hope the North-West region will be inaugurated next week at Manchester, and I shall proceed with the other regions as rapidly as possible. As I have said, the reorganisation of the headquarters and the recasting of the local organisation had
    2332
    to be carried out at a time of great pressure due to demobilisation of the Army, and if the Committee will allow me I will give them some idea of what this pressure was and of the steps taken to meet it.
    Let me first deal with the awards of pensions to men. Before demobilisation commenced, men were discharged from military hospitals, and their discharge documents were sent direct to Chelsea and were awarded upon the fairly complete records then furnished. At Chelsea there was in existence a very laborious system, costly in staff, slow but fairly sure in action. During the last six months about 150,000 first awards have been made in cases of men discharged from hospital, in addition to 274,000 renewals of previous pensions This was the normal work of the division. But with demobilisation two other classes of claimants appeared, namely the Z men and the Article 9 cases.
    As the Committee is aware, nearly 3,000,000 men were demobilised in the first six months of this year. Before being demobilised, all men other than those in hospital passed through dispersal stations and were given an opportunity of making a claim. Those who made a claim were examined either by the medical officer of their unit or by some other Army doctor. About 385,000 men made claims. The claim was made on a Z.22, and this, with the man's papers from the Record Offices were sent to the Ministry, so that pension might be granted. These are the men we call Z claimants, but in addition there were others who for some reason or another, some because they feared that claiming would delay their demobilisation and others because they were then well, did not make claims. They are not debarred from claiming; they can still claim under Article 9. These we call Article 9 cases. In January last I found that sufficient provision had not been made to deal with the claims of the Z men, so I established the Z branch as an emergency branch to deal with these cases only.
    It was organised and directed by Mr. Demetriadi, a business man of great ability, and but for his untiring efforts and for the excellent work of the staff under his direction, there would have been very serious delay in dealing with the 385,000 claims received. All through February and March the arrears increased, but by April the branch was dealing with more claims than it received, and arrears were reduced; by the middle

    2333
    of June arrears had disappeared. The greatest number of awards made in any one week was 35,800, a really remarkable performance, when it is remembered that each claim requires separate and detailed investigation and a decision on the merits.
    Of the 385,000, 303,000 claims were admitted and awards made of pensions, allowances, and gratuities, and 81,403 were rejected. With regard to the Article 9 cases, I am not satisfied with the position, and the local war pensions committees have been authorised, upon the report of the local medical referee, to make full advances pending the decision whether the claim is admitted to pension or not. There is still considerable delay in these Article 9 cases, and a special inquiry is now being conducted to simplify and hasten the procedure. I may add that the experience gained in dealing with the Z cases has convinced me that much greater simplicity can be introduced into the Chelsea procedure, and I am having the matter thoroughly examined, so that an improved system may be introduced when the awarding is done in the region.
    I ought to say a few words about the widows' and dependants' pensions and allowances, about which I have had most complaints. In November last the flat rate pension of 5s. for parents of unmarried sons who enlisted before the age of twenty-six, necessitated a review of all then existing parents' pensions of under that amount. In December last public notices were issued broadcast calling attention to the three classes of pensions to any one of which parents might be entitled. The result was a great flood of applications and a mountain of correspondence. The arrangements to deal with the inflow were hopelessly inadequate. Large arrears soon piled up and there were, very naturally, many complaints. The matter has been taken in hand vigorously; there are capable men now in charge and within a few months I hope that the causes of delay will be removed.
    I do not wish to offer excuses, but I think the Committee should realise that in addition to a continuous process of reorganisation the Ministry has had to deal with the very heavy work thrown upon it by demobilisation and that the task has been one of some magnitude. I can summarise the work of the awards branches for the last six months by saying that during that
    2334
    period 920,000 awards have been made and 94,000 claims for pensions have been rejected or have run out by effluxion of time. The Committee should remember that each case has to be investigated separately and decided on its merits. Men's cases alone amount to about 6,500 awards each working day
    I shall have more to say presently about the policy of appeals against refusals of pension, but I had better perhaps tell the Committee something about the present Appeal Tribunals. In the early part of the year, I found that the complaints of delay in settling appeals against refusals to grant pension were in fact justified. There were cases pending since 1917, and many more which had been unsettled for a year. The two officials in charge of the section dealing with these appeals have both left the Ministry, and the section has been completely reorganised—its output has increased and will, I hope, still further improve, but until decentralisation is completed, the ideal will not be reached.
    In January last there were two Appeal Tribunals hearing appeals. Now fifteen have been constituted and arrears are being overtaken, but even yet I am not satisfied that many more tribunals will not be required.
    Mr. HOGGE: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us who these officers were, and if they have gone to any other Department?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I believe not, so far as I know.
    Mr. HOGGE: What position were they in at the Ministry
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: One at least was temporary, but I am not sure about the other. I would like to answer the hon. Member's question candidly, but I do not know. One of them was engaged temporarily and his engagement terminated. Before I went to the Ministry I had heard many complaints that officers were not getting their pensions, so as soon as I became Minister I asked the Parliamentary Secretary to take the chair of a small Interdepartmental Committee with representatives of the War Office and the Pensions Ministry to consider the position. This is only one of the many instances of the great assistance I have had from the Parliamentary Secretary.
    The whole position was reviewed and much useful work was done. The Committee recommended that the officer should

    2335
    be kept by the War Office on pay until his papers were transferred to the Ministry of Pensions to enable his pension claim to be awarded. I observe that the Select Committee have made the same recommendation. The War Office, however, were not able to accept this suggestion, so I adopted the next best plan. I obtained authority from the Treasury to make advances to officers in necessitous cases pending adjudication of pension, and some 7,400 advances have been made to cover the time necessary to obtain the officers' papers or to have a medical board. The Committee reported, also, that, in view of the large number of officers to be demobilised, the staff of the Officers' Branch was inadequate. It then consisted of eighty-five; it has been increased, and now numbers 430, and is capable of dealing with the present inflow of cases; indeed, pension is now awarded within twenty-one days of the receipt of the officer's papers. In the last six months nearly 42,000 cases have been dealt with, including the advances I have mentioned.
    Colonel ASHLEY: Does the right hon. Gentleman get the papers from the War Office? It is not his fault, but does the War Office send him the papers?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I have said that I have instituted a system of advances in cases where it is necessary, pending the receipt of papers, and advances have been made in 7,400 cases. I appointed also a distinguished soldier to act as "officers' friend." He and his staff of twelve officers have had interviews and correspondence with over 10,000 officers and their relatives, and he calls attention every week to any cases of delay which come to his knowledge. He is applied to, not merely in pension cases, but on every conceivable question, and he knows the rules and regulations of other Government Departments, and he gives information accordingly. In addition, I have published a small booklet, giving clearly what officers are entitled to, and there really is no excuse for an officer not getting his full due. In the early part of the year I also set up a small Committee under my Parliamentary Private Secretary, the Member for Altrincham (Major Hamilton), to whom I am much indebted for his strenuous work during the last six months. This Committee considered the "Officers' Warrant." as the officers had been omitted from many of the concessions
    2336
    made to men. For example, no bonus was payable on officers' pensions, and there was no provision for a separation allowance for his wife when the officer was in hospital. These and many other anomalies have now been removed. A bonus of 20 per cent, is payable on that part of the retired pay which is granted for service disability. Thus the minimum retired pay is now £210, instead of £175. A separation allowance is also payable of £50 to a wife, or £40 to a dependant if the officer is in hospital. Children's allowances were formerly only granted if the officer's disablement amounted to 50 per cent, or more. This limit has been removed. Medical treatment can now be given to an officer pending settlement of his claim to pension. Artificial limbs and repairs are now supplied by the State. Pre-war disability retired pay is brought up to the-current rate. Widows' pensions granted in respect of previous wars have been increased to the rates of this war. These are very substantial advantages, and together they remove many grievances. They do not seem to be known, and although, I have already announced these alterations, I think it right to again give them publicity. There is, however, a new concession, and a very valuable one, to which I wish to refer briefly. As the-Committee knows, there is a temporary bonus of 20 per cent. added to officers' retired pay and to the pensions of officers' widows. This bonus will now be added to the retired pay and pensions and cease to be a temporary bonus. The retired pay and pensions will thus be increased, and after three years, if the cost of living falls, it will be subject to automatic reductions in the same way as men's pensions, which I will presently explain. But for the next three years the increased retired pay and pensions will be payable.
    There is one other administrative division to which I must refer. It is the division dealing with the medical services of the Ministry. I have been fortunate in securing as Chief Medical Officer Colonel Webb. During the War he held an important position in the Medical Service of the War Office, and he brings a very special knowledge of the requirements of the serving man who is now a pensioner to the service of the pensioners. The work of this division is probably the most important of any of the divisions of the Ministry. It deals with that primary necessity of the disabled man, namely, the provision of medical treatment both in hos-

    2337
    pitals and climes and convalescent centres. When the bulk of the men were in the Army, the Army did the work, but demobilisation has transferred the necessity for providing hospitals and clinics from the War Office to the Ministry of Pensions. We have already taken over from the War Office two hospitals, and arrangements are practically complete for the transfer of others. The British Bed Cross are assisting the Pensions Ministry as they assisted the War Office, and I have to acknowledge their kindness in offering us the use of some of their hospitals and providing for the conveyance of cot cases by means of their ambulances. As we take over hospitals, we are bound to provide a nursing service, and I am glad to say that Queen Alexandra has graciously consented to be President of the Pensions Nursing Service. I have been fortunate in securing as Matron-in-Chief Miss M. E. Davies, R.R.C., and she will act with an Advisory Committee.
    I am also hoping to have ready very shortly certain convalescent centres at Blackpool, Epsom, and elsewhere, in which men, while suffering from disabilities which require more or less prolonged outpatient-treatment, will be able to employ their time to their own advantage by receiving preliminary training to fit them for their after life. I have been impressed by the large number of outpatients attending hospitals for perhaps half an hour a day, upon whose hands time hangs heavily. I believe that if such men as these are admitted to convalescent centres, they will, while receiving treatment, be capable of much useful training during their convalescent stage, and more rapidly benefit by the industrial training thereafter given them under the Ministry of Labour. Moreover, experience shows that many slightly disabled men, attracted no doubt by the high wages prevalent in the later stages of the War, went back into industrial life probably too soon, and they are likely to break down and they are now in many cases breaking down. They require more or less prolonged convalescent treatment, and I believe that for these men also the convalescent centres are likely to prove of great use.
    I have also to deal with the question of medical boards, which comes under the medical branch of the Ministry. Until recently, the boarding of the men applying for pensions and the re-boarding of men on renewal of pensions was per-
    2338
    formed by the Ministry of National Service, but on the 1st of April last the central and regional staff of the Ministry of National Service was transferred to the Ministry of Pensions, and we became directly responsible for the boarding of all men. On the 4th August we are also taking over from the War Office the re-survey boarding of officers. To give the Committee some idea of the extent of the increase of the work of medical boards, I may inform them that 230,000 men were examined by medical boards in the first six months of this year. There has been a steady and rapid increase right through the year in the number of men boarded owing to demobilisation, and in Juno last 45,000 men wore examined. The Committee may be aware that under the system hitherto prevailing the medical officers at the headquarters of the Ministry, commonly known as the Chelsea doctors, have reviewed the decisions of these boards. They were authorised to alter the amount of a man's assessment, even though they had not themselves examined the man. Many complaints of this system have been brought to my notice, and the Select Committee has recently called special attention to it and has recommended that any case of doubt should be sent for rehearing, either by the same or by a new board, for examination before any alteration is made in the assessment. I entirely agree with that recommendation; indeed, I informed the Select Committee, when I gave evidence before it, that I intended to alter the system as soon as the decentralisation had been completed.
    While is was probably impossible to arrange for Appeal Boards before the Ministry of Pensions had its own medical personnel available to sit on boards and specialists, both surgical and medical, at its hospitals and clinics to constitute the boards, it will be possible to set up the Appeal Boards as soon as the medical personnel in the regions has been completed. Thereafter a definite procedure will be laid down, which will be followed in all oases, namely, that if the medical assessor, on scrutinising the report of the board, is not satisfied that substantial justice has been done either to the pensioner or to the taxpayer, he is not to alter the assessment, but he is to refer the case either back to the same board or to an Appeal Medical Board before any alteration takes place. Similarly, if the pensioner himself is not content with

    2339
    his assessment, if he thinks that he has been assessed too low and wishes to appeal against his pension, he will be entitled to appeal to a Medical Appeal Board, whose decision in the case will then be treated as final, subject to the proviso, which is in the man's interest, that if he falls ill during the final period he will still have the opportunity of going to a medical referee, who may give him temporarily a higher allowance pending the reconsideration of his ease by the board.
    5.0 p.m.
    This arrangement of Appeal Boards while, I believe absolutely necessary in the interests of justice, and to give the pensioner a reasonable assurance that his case is properly considered, will entail a large increase in the medical personnel, which can only be supplied if not only the permanent medical staff of the region is available for boards, but also the specialists attached to the hospitals and clinics, and probably in some cases the medical referees are available. There are some other aspects of the medical service which I must briefly touch upon. The first is the provision of artificial limbs. Soon after I became Minister I wanted to be satisfied that the provision of artificial limbs for both officers and men was sufficient, and that the best limbs were being supplied. I accordingly set up a very strong Committee, upon which several Members of the House kindly served, and they have recently reported. On the whole their report shows that the position is satisfactory. They have made several recommendations which are in the course of being carried out. Perhaps the most important is that an expert Committee should be set up to review all the various forms of artificial limbs at present made with a view to standardisation, by selecting the best from each limb. In future there will be constant requirements for the repair of limbs, and repair will be greatly facilitated if every maker can repair every limb. I might say in this connection that it is proposed that fitting centres shall be established in connection with orthopædic hospitals spread throughout the country, and that in addition repair depots shall be opened in populous centres so that minor repairs can be made in a short time.
    I have also referred to the Committee the extent to which fibre pylons should be supplied and used by men with artificial limbs. I fancy that fibre pylons will take
    2340
    their place alongside artificial limbs much as a slipper does to a boot, and that a man with an artificial limb coming home from his daily occupation will be glad to change it for a light fibre pylon. However, that is primarily a surgical question, and I have therefore referred it to the Expert Committee.
    I was also not satisfied that the provision made for the pensioner suffering from tuberculosis was sufficient, and, in agreement with the Minister of Health, we appointed a Joint Committee for the purpose of thoroughly investigating this question. The Joint Committee has now reported—yesterday, I believe—and immediate consideration will be given to the Report. I cannot close without thanking Sir Arthur Pearson for his continued service for the blind; nor can I omit to mention the splendid work being done in many parts of the country by those who are providing and managing hospitals and homes for the paralysed and the disabled requiring long-continued treatment. I feel very conscious that I have given but the briefest sketch of the work done by the Medical Division of the Ministry of Pensions; it is a subject which alone would provide material for a speech much longer than I can ask the Committee to listen to.
    [At this point for blind male, occupants of the Public Galleries interrupted the right hon. Gentleman, and were immediately removed by the attendants.]
    I propose now to deal with some matters of policy. I will first deal with the question of the discharged disabled man who was resident in one of the British Dominions or in the United States at the outbreak of war. Many thousands of these men rushed forward and joined the Imperial Forces. Many desire to return to the country of their adoption. As at present arranged, a man may return to Canada with, a pension granted on the British scale, which is lower than the Canadian scale, and thus he will appear to have suffered because he joined the Imperial Forces. The widows of men who were killed are even at a greater disadvantage. The British pension rates are much below the rates payable to Canadian widows, and are insufficient to enable the widow to live in Canada. I think it would be a reproach to this country if this disparity were allowed to continue. The case may well happen that one sister married to a Canadian who joined the Canadian Forces

    2341
    may be receiving a widow's pension of 38a. 4d. a week, while her sister married to a man who joined the Imperial Forces will have a much lower pension. I am glad to say the British Government is now in negotiation with the Canadian Government, and if, as I hope, these negotiations can be carried through successfully, pre-war British residents in Canada and the United States who enlisted in the Imperial Forces, or Reservists who joined from these countries, will be given the option of taking pensions and allowances, medical treatment and training, and all other privileges, at the rates and upon the same terms as are provided by the Canadian Orders in Council, instead of the rates of pensions accorded under the Royal Warrants. On the same principle I shall endeavour to negotiate with other self-governing Dominions that pre-war British residents in those Dominions shall be given the option of taking their pensions from the Dominions instead of from Great Britain. This will, of course, add to the expense, as Great Britain will have to refund to the Dominions the cost of the pensions, but it seems to me that this will remove what otherwise might be a great scandal harmful to the best interests of the Empire
    I now propose to deal with the Report of the Select Committee, and to inform the House of the decision of the Government upon the recommendations made. The Report was only published the day before yesterday, but the Cabinet recognised the urgency of the matter, and have given it consideration at two meetings, so wherever else delay may be complained of, it cannot be said that the Government have delayed in coming to a decision upon this important matter. I think it will be better to take the Report paragraph by paragraph, and deal with each of the recommendations.
    In paragraph 4 I am grateful to the Committee for their handsome recognition, of my endeavours. This paragraph contains the three main suggestions. Firstly, that there should be a special inspection and inquiry department. Secondly, that the services of discharged and disabled men should be utilised and special arrangements should be made with a view to training them; and, thirdly, that there should be better co-operation between the various Government Departments dealing with discharged officers and men, and that officers and men should remain on full pay until the necessary papers have been
    2342
    passed to the Ministry of Pensions. First, let me deal with the proposed special inspection or inquiry department. Already a part of this suggestion has been, in operation for several months past. Owing to the large number of complaints, received, both from Members of Parliament and from elsewhere, 1 set up a complaints section, and each one of the complaints received is investigated and a record kept of how long each takes before a proper solution is arrived at. But the Committee's recommendation goes further. It suggests that any case not dealt with within a prescribed time should be automatically reported to the Department and inquired into. This is a very good suggestion, but in order to carry it out it is essential that there should be proper progress reports from each branch of the Ministry. I have already said that I have recently appointed a statistical officer, whose duty it is to see that such progress reports and statistics are forthcoming, and as soon as this is complete it will be possible to work along the lines recommended by the Committee. I will see that it is done.
    With regard to utilising the services of discharged and disabled men and providing for their training, I have already told the Committee that 81 per cent, of our male staff at headquarters is drawn from discharged officers and men. I have laid it down that all of the new appointments of chief officers to the local war pensions committees are to be made from discharged officers and men, and for many months past I have refused to sanction any new appointments except of discharged officers and men. In order that a supply should be available in May last I set up in the Ministry a school for teaching disabled officers and men the work of local war pensions committees. I have had through this school thirty-five officers and men who have been trained or are in process of training, and twenty-eight of these are about to be appointed to posts by local war pensions committees. The Committee will realise that care must be taken to keep the numbers under training within the probable number of vacancies. It would be a very poor recompense if men were trained and there was no work available for them to do. The local committees have been urged by circular to keep us informed of any vacancies about to occur so that they may be filled from officers and men trained at the school. As the Committee is aware, I have no power to

    2343
    insist upon all the employés of the local war pensions committees being limited to this class. I have only power over the appointment of the principal officers, and, indeed, it would not be possible, so long as I have to rely on the local war pensions committees, for me to interfere with the appointments they make of their lower staff. After all they are responsible for local administration, and they must have a reasonable latitude in the appointments they make. I hope, however, the recommendation made by the Select Committee and the statement I am now making will call the attention of the local war pensions committees to the desirability of employing discharged officers and men to the fullest possible extent.
    The next point is the better co-operation between Government Departments, and the keeping on full pay of officers and men until the complete papers are received. I made this latter suggestion to the War Office many months ago, but it was not found possible to adopt it. I will, however, strengthened by the Committee's Report, again bring the matter to the attention of the War Office, and perhaps the endorsement given by the Select Committee will strengthen my hands in that direction.
    Sir MONTAGUE BARLOW: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us the number of cases in which papers are now being held up?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON - EVANS: Obviously I have not the figures in my mind, but if my hon. Friend desires to put the question I will see if I can give him the information later in the Debate.
    Mr. HOGGE: What was the decision of the Government with regard to the men remaining on full pay?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I did not mean that the Cabinet had specifically considered that point. What I meant was that it had come to a conclusion on the scale of pension recommended by the Select Committee, and I am proposing to announce their decision very shortly.
    The next important recommendation of the Committee is in paragraph 6, namely, the statutory right to pension, and in paragraph 8 of the right to appeal on entitlement, and the recommendation that separate tribunals under the Home Office or some other Department of State should
    2344
    be set up independent of the Ministry of Pensions. I will deal with these two questions together as the one is intimately connected with the other. The Government is prepared to accept the recommendation of the Committee that the Appeal Tribunals shall be set up under an authority independent of the Ministry of Pensions, and I am authorised to say that a Bill will be introduced as soon as possible to empower the Lord Chancellor to set up Appeal Tribunals and to make the necessary regulations in respect, to the procedure. The tribunals will consist of one legal representative, either a barrister or solicitor, who will be chairman of the tribunal, and a disabled officer in officers' cases and a disabled man in men's cases, with a duly qualified medical practitioner. Any refusal on the part of the Ministry to a claim for pension on the ground that the disability is not attributable to or aggravated by military service, or is due to serious negligence or misconduct of the claimant, will be subject to appeal by the claimant to this independent tribunal. Similarly a widow or a motherless child whose claim to pension is rejected on the ground that the death of the officer or man was not due to military service, will be subject to appeal. In this way there will be granted a statutory right to assert a claim to pension, and a statutory Court, independent entirely of the Ministry, will be the sole and final judge of whether the right exists in a particular case. I am aware that this does not entirely coincide with the Committee's recommendation. The Committee seems to suggest that there will be some magic if the words "legally entitled" were inserted in an Act of Parliament, but they take care to say that they do not wish the scales of pensions, and still less the administrative machinery of pensions, to be embodied in the legislation. They appear to have in mind that there should be inserted a Clause under which a man should be declared to be legally entitled to such pension as may from time be settled by a Warrant or an Order in Council. I do not believe that this would give any man any greater security than he will have under his statutory right to appeal to an independent tribunal if pension is refused by the Ministry of Pensions, and though I shall be perfectly willing to consider any form of words which would strengthen the statutory right to pension I do not think that the suggestion of the Committee would have that effect.
    Sir J. BUTCHER: Is my right hon. Friend prepared to adopt the suggestion of the Committee that the right to a pension should arise out of the Statute instead of the Royal Warrant; in other words, that the naval precedent should be adopted as regards the Army?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVAN S: I think not. Unless you intend to put the scale of pensions into an Act of Parliament, which the Committee itself does not wish to do, there is no advantage gained by any man by saying he is entitled to something which is in another document—a Warrant or an Order in Council. He is given a statutory right to appeal against a refusal. That is in the Statute, and that is a statutory right to appeal to a statutory tribunal. It is no longer in the power of any Minister to say, "This man is not entitled to a pension. He can go as a statutory right to a Statutory Court to get a decision; and I believe that fairly meets the case for a statutory right.
    Paraphaphs 7 and 8 of the Report deal with another aspect of appeals, and in effect it is proposed that a man should have a right to appeal against a decision by the medical board as to the amount of his pension, and they indicate the constitution which they recommend for an Appeal Tribunal on amounts. It is suggested that there should be a lay ex-Service element on the tribunal, but as the assessment questions arc mainly medical questions the medical element, should have a majority, and they advise that this medical element should comprise senior surgeons and specialists in the diseases or injuries causing the disabilities under consideration. I must say at once that this recommendation appears to me to be entirely impracticable. Let the Committee for a moment consider the work of the last six months. During this six months 920,439 awards have been made, or if I deduct from this total awards to widows, children, and dependants, nearly 700,000 awards have been made either for the first time or on renewal to men. These awards are made for varying periods for from six to twelve months. When the man comes up for a fresh board and a fresh assessment of pension what the Report suggests is that each one of these men should have the right to go before an independent Appeal Tribunal and should be able to appeal against the medical assessment. The Select Committee recognises that an appeal would be of no use unless the medical men upon the Appeal Tribunal were more authoritative than the
    2346
    medical men on the original board. I do not know what proportion of the men the Select Committee thinks would appeal, but if even one in ten appeal we should have something like 70,000 appeals in six months, and the delays would be so great that the appeals could not be heard before the pension had expired. Moreover it would be impossible to get the authoritative consultants and specialists in sufficient numbers to form the Appeal Tribunals. I do not believe that a reform is possible upon these lines. I do, however, agree that it is quite wrong for any medical assessor who has not seen a man to alter an assessment made by a board who has seen the man and I have already told the Committee that as soon as the regional organisation is complete medical appeal boards will be set up to which either the man or the Department can appeal in the event of the assessment being challenged. I ask the Committee to believe me that this is the practical way of curing the evil which the Select Committee 'has pointed out. Any outside tribunal dealing with these assessments would cause so much delay as to actually deprive the man of the benefits which the Select Committee desires him to obtain.
    Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: Why an independent tribunal more than a tribunal connected with my right hen. Friend's Department?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: It is not a tribunal connected with my Department. It is the medical boards all over the country in the regions. In each region there will be appeal medical boards which will consist partly of the permanent staff, partly of the staffs of the hospitals and clinics, and, if necessary, a medical referee. But it is a totally different class of tribunal from that which the Select Committee suggested.
    Sir M. BARLOW: I have been unable to grasp really the difference. To my mind the crucial thing is this: Does the man have a free right of choice? He has a free right of choice under the proposals of the Select Committee. As I understand it, under the Minister's proposal he is to have a free right to appeal when the regional area system is worked out. If that is so, I cannot see why under our suggestion there would be any more difficulty from the point of view of numbers of appeals in working out the system than under the Committee's system.
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: Our Appeal Boards will be constituted of doctors partly in full-time service and partly stationed and in charge of hospitals and clinics all over the country. They will be carrying on their work at the hospitals and clinics when they are not wanted for a board, but they are always available at any moment for a board. I cannot see how you are going to get consulting specialists, physicians and surgeons, to hold themselves at the beck and call of any independent tribunals to go and serve as the appeals come along. It is a very different thing from tribunals being constituted by specialists who are not otherwise interested except as members of the board. I am advised that it would be quite impossible to get the medical personnel available for the purpose.
    If I may I will deal with the other paragraphs of the Committee's Report which deal with their recommendations for increases in the flat-rate pension scales and for alteration in the basis of alternative pensions. I agree with the Select Committee that we cannot usefully consider the amount of flat-rate pension without taking into account at the same time the alternative pension. The theory of both flat-rate pension and alternative pension is the same. The flat-rate pension is intended to compensate the majority, namely, those whose earnings were normal, and the alternative pension is intended for those whose earnings were exceptional and who, therefore, had been accustomed to a standard of living beyond the normal. I accept the general theory and the reasoning by which the Select Committee arrived at its results, and I agree that it is most desirable to place the scale of pensions and its adjustments from time to time upon a simple and easily understood basis. The Select Committee has based its recommendations for an increase as a consequence of and in connection with the rise in cost of the working-class budget as estimated by the Board of Trade. The Select Committee recommends that the Board of Trade figures should be adopted as a definite standard for assessing automatically the rise or fall of pension, and indicates the manner in which the rise or fall can be gauged. I have only one observation to make upon this part of the recommendations. The Select Committee proposes that any increase made should hold good until March, 1921, when the first readjustment should take place. I think this
    2348
    period is too short. Our object should be to give a sense of security to pensioners. I do not want them to have at the back of their minds that in a comparatively short period the amount of their pensions may be again readjusted. The Government is therefore prepared to go further than the Select Committee proposes in this connection, and to say that the increases shall be for a period of three years, and that the automatic readjustment shall take place, as to 20 per cent, of the pension after three years. The Committee will understand that, while I accept the proposal of the Select Committee for an automatic readjustment, I do not pledge myself to the exact words of the Report. The formula will have to be settled in the new Warrant.
    Let me now come to amounts and let me take the man's pension first. The Government is prepared to accept the new scale proposed—that is to say, the new flat-rate pensions for a totally disabled man will be as follows: A single man 40s, which represents a rise of 7s.; a married man 50s., which represents a rise of 17s.; a married man with one child 57s. 6d., which represents a rise of 16s. 6d.; a married man with two children 63s. 6d., which represents a rise of 16s. 6d.; a married man with three children 69s. 6d., which represents a rise of 17s. 6d., with 6s for each subsequent child. The scale for the partially disabled will be a percentage of the full scale, according to the percentage of his disability. There are, however, certain reactions from this increase which will have to be considered and about which I am not in a position to make a final statement to-day. For example, a single man in lodgings away from home for treatment or training has frequently obtained, besides his present pension, an allowance of 7s, 6d. a week towards his board and lodging. He will now have £2 a week, out of which he will be able to maintain himself. Similarly, a married man under treatment and training at home in certain cases obtained an extra allowance up to 7s. 6d. a week. As he and his wife will now have 50s. instead of the previous 33s., this extra allowance should, I think, be discontinued.
    Mr. HOGGEmade an observation that was inaudible in the Reporters' Gallery.
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: My hon. Friend has made a remark which I must repeat for the benefit of the Com-

    2349
    mittee. He has suggested that I am taking away with the left hand what I am giving with my right hand. That is a curious form of comment—it is almost ingratitude. Take the case in question. The man and his wife will have 50s. a week. Before that, the man and his wife were entitled to 33s. a week, and in some cases 7s. 6d. addition, but even with the 7s. 6d. addition they would only get 40s. 6d. a week. My right hand is giving 50s. a week instead of 40s. 6d. a week. There are also certain treatment allowances for men in institutions', and wives separation allowances and constant attendance allowances, which may have to be reconsidered. I do not wish to do more than indicate that as the substantive pension is being largely increased the allowances which were intended to make up for the previous inadequacy of the pension in certain cases will have to be reconsidered.
    Now let me deal with the proposals as regards widows. The existing rate of widows' pension is 13s. 9d. under the Barnes Warrant or, with the 20 per cent, bonus, 16s. 6d. for widows under forty-live, with an additional Is. 6d. for widows over forty-five. The Government is prepared to accept the Committee's recommendations. The new scale will, therefore, be in the case of a widow under the age of forty without children 20s. a week, and in the case of a widow of any age with children or over forty without children the pension will be 26s. 8d. a week. There will be paid, in addition, in respect of the first child 10s., in respect of the second child 7s. 6d., and subsequent children 6s.
    With regard to the alternative pensions, there is no doubt that alternative pensions for men under the existing methods of assessment have completely broken down. As I told the Select Committee in the evidence I gave before it in May last, the reason is that the pension is assessed by taking into account the earning capacity of the pensioner at the present rate of wages and comparing it with his actual earnings at the old rate of wages prevailing before the War. The effect of this comparison is to prevent almost everyone except the totaly incapacitated man, without any earning capacity at all, from obtaining an alternative pension. Those who are capable of earning receive wages at the present rates, which are higher, notwithstanding their disability, than the
    2350
    wages they earned before the War, and yet the wages which they now receive do not enable them to maintain the same relative standard of living that they had before the War. In my evidence before the Select Committee I put to them two proposals for meeting this position, and one of these proposals has been adopted by the Select Committee, namely, to load up the pre-war wages by 60 per cent, in order to get at figures which could be fairly compared with present figures. The Government is prepared to adopt the recommendations of the Select Committee, and in assessing claims for alternative pensions in future, pre-war wages will be loaded up by 60 per cent., so that a man who was, in fact, earning 50s. a week will be deemed to have been earning 80s. a week, and his present earning capacity will thus be compared with the 80s. and not with the 50s. The Government is also prepared to vary the basis of assessment by loading the full pre-war earnings increased by 60 per cent, up to 100s. a week, so that the maximum alternative pension will in future be £5 instead of £4 10s. This will undoubtedly mean a great increase in the number of alternative pensions, and will entail very heavy work upon the local war pensions committees and upon the Department. I think it necessary, however, to carry out the original intentions which lead to the system of alternative pensions. With regard to widows' alternative pensions, the same principles will apply. The prewar earnings of the husband will be loaded up by 60 per cent., and the maximum of the widows' alternative pension will be £3 6s. 8d. a week instead of the present maximum of £3.
    The Select Committee have also made two minor recommendations in paragraph 17 of their Report. The Government is prepared to accept the first of these recommendations—namely, that a widow with children who at first goes on the flat rate should have the option to take an alternative pension as her children cease to be entitled to children's allowances, but in order to obtain this right she will have to make an application and prove her right to alternative pension within a year. The second recommendation is of less importance, it requires some further consideration, and I will not deal with it to-day. It will be understood that the automatic sliding scale will apply to alternative pensions as well as to the fiat-rate

    2351
    pensions. The Select Committee also call attention to anomalies in the Schedule to the Warrant, and this matter shall receive early consideration. There is only one other recommendation in the Select Committee's Report which 1 have not dealt with, and that is the recommendation that the principle of increasing the pension to the maximum for men undergoing treatment and training should be adhered to. This has been a good plan in the past, and we propose to continue it.
    The Committee will realise that these alterations will throw considerable additional work upon the Department. Many preparations have to be made before so large a change can be brought into operation. It is not an easy thing to change the amounts of pensions and allowances payable to 1,000,000 people. The new rates will, therefore, be brought into operation in respect of the first week ending after the 1st September next. I think it is the 3rd September. This gives about a month to make the necessary preparations, and so it is not probable that the increased payment will actually be made on that date, but any arrears which may accrue will be paid as from that date. I do not wish to invite a deluge of correspondence, so that I give notice to all concerned that it is quite unnecessary to write to the Ministry or to the local war pensions committees claiming the increases. The increases will be made automatically. With regard to alternative pensions, however, claims will have to be made by the claimants to the local war pensions committees, and they will be adjudicated as rapidly as possible. It must, however, be many months before the large number of persons newly entitled can receive settlement of their claims. Meanwhile, they will draw their pensions at the flat rate, and all arrears which may be due to them will be settled as from a date in September.
    I should like to thank the Select Committee, on behalf of the Government, for the great care they have given to the matters referred to them, and for the painstaking way in which they have conducted a most difficult inquiry. I am sure that every Member of the House will feel indebted to them for their able Report.
    I am sure the Chairman of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Sir Montague Barlow), has had a specially strenuous time. He has not
    2352
    only been Chairman of this Select Committee, but he has been Chairman of the Select Committee on Tuberculosis which has brought in a Report equally able. I regret that I have detained the Committee so long. My excuse must be the importance of the subject, and the desirability of letting everyone, including the pensioners themselves, know that every effort is being made not merely to do justice to-the disabled by adequate pensions, but also by improvement in and quicker working of the administrative machinery.
    Major COHEN: I have listened with very great interest to the speech of the Minister of Pensions, and I do not intend to criticise anything that he has said as regards pensions. I should like to say a few words in regard to the question of artificial limbs. This question affects some 30,000 of us. Though I know that 40,000 is not three times the size of Liverpool, it is, notwithstanding, the population of a fairly large town, and when one considers that every one of these men has lost a limb the figure seems larger still. As a member of two of the Committees referred to, I am quite satisfied that the limbless man is getting his first leg quickly. There art; very few men who have not already obtained one and if they have not got their limb it is probably because their stumps are not ready to have a limb fitted. In regard to the question of the second limb I know that it is under consideration, but as regards the renewal and repair of the artificial limb I think the Committee will agree with me, when they have heard what I have to say, that the position is not as it should be. At the present time the procedure which a pensioner has to follow if he wants anything done to his artificial limb is unsatisfactory. I would ask the Committee to bear in mind that if a limb requires adjustment it cannot be worn, and, therefore, the journeys made by the pensioner have to be made on crutches, with the limb, if it is a leg, slung over his shoulder.
    First of all, he has to go to the local war pensions committee, and with certain exceptions they send him to a medical referee. In the majority of cases the medical referee lives some distance away, and in some cases so far away that a train journey is necessary. The medical referee examines the man and fills in a form, probably recommending him to go to a special fitting hospital. Theoretically this is sent back to the war pensions committee, but

    2353
    I believe that in actual practice it is generally given to the pensioner himself, who takes it back to the secretary, arid arrangements are then made that he is to be sent to a fitting hospital. The Ministry in London is notified, and after some time writes back stating when there is a vacancy, and which hospital the man is to go to. If the committee or secretary is satisfied that it is the case of a defect in an artificial limb it is not necessary then to send the pensioner to a medical referee. In that case the secretary has to sign the form himself, stating that it is necessary to send the pensioner to a fitting hospital. In the case of what is called a minor repair the local war pensions committee gets an estimate locally if possible, and if the amount is under £3 it may put the work in hand at once. If it is over £3 the Ministry in London has to be notified, and as it is frequently impossible to get even minor repairs done in the district, as there is no one in the vicinity to do them. I believe that 75 per cent, of the cases have to be sent to a special fitting hospital. Is it right that the secretary of the local war pensions committee, who in a great many cases is a woman, and practically in all eases is someone with less knowledge of artificial limbs than, the pensioner himself, should have the responsibility of certifying that it is a case for a special fitting hospital? Then there is the question of delay; a man has to wait months sometimes before he can get into a fitting hospital, and the result is extreme discomfort and annoyance. In many cases there is serious hardship, as the pensioner is unable to fill any employment while waiting for the necessary repairs.
    The consequence is that unless it is a very serious case the pensioner makes shift to do with the leg as it is or does without it, if he can, rather than go to all this trouble. This accounts very largely for the many cases which one sees of men going about without artificial limbs. Would it not be possible to adopt some principle like that which is used in France? I believe that 75 per cent, of the cases there are agricultural labourers and therefore live over a widely distributed area. That country is divided into various centres, each with its own fitting hospital. All that a pensioner who requires anything done to a limb has to do is to go to the local police, purely for identification, and they send hint immediately to the nearest fitting hospital, where the limb is repaired and he is sent back to work in a couple
    2354
    of days. This not only saves the man a great deal of inconvenience and trouble, but it also saves a great deal of expense to the State. There is one other matter to which I would like to allude. In answer to a question last week, the Minister of Pensions said that it was decided to extend to officers the generosity hitherto shown to men with regard to repairs to artificial limbs. One exception was that it did not apply to officers still serving. Surely this is unfair. Comparatively few officers who have lost limbs are serving in the Army. The cost of repairs is as a rule small. I cannot believe that it is because of the expense that these men are excluded, and yet I can think of no other reason. If it is thought right, and it is right, that a pensioner's artificial limbs should be repaired, why should a pensioner who happens to stay on in the Army be debarred from that relief? It is only a small matter, but because it is so small I feel that it ought to be brought to the notice of the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. HOGGE: Anything which my hon. and gallant Friend (Major Cohen) contributes on this subject, when he addresses, the Committee, is a matter which everyone will agree is worthy of the attention of the Minister of Pensions. One did not anticipate making the customary speech on pensions in view of the announcement that the Pensions Estimate would be on to-day, because at that moment one was not certain that the Report of the Select Committee would be published. The publication of that admirable Report—and incidentally may I congratulate the lion. Member for South Salford (Sir M. Barlow) and his colleagues on that Committee on having persuaded in bulk the Government to do what he and myself and many others have tried to do individually for many years past, and having achieved a very notable triumph—practically knocks the bottom from a great many of the speeches which many of us might have been prepared to make to-day, because it proves that the complaints which we did make were genuine and required to be attended to, and if that required any reinforcement, that reinforcement conies from the speech delivered to-day by the right hon. Gentleman detailing what he had to do in the six months after he took office in bringing order out of the chaos to which he succeeded. I do not know if the Committee realised as he went along the extraordinary number of things which he had to do administratively to get anything done at

    2355
    all, and because of that I should like to remind the ex-Pensions Ministers, who were here at the beginning of the Debate but have gone now, of the value and force of the criticism that used to be delivered in this House about the lack of good administrative qualities in the pensions authorities.
    I suppose that I have been responsible as much as most people for criticising the Pensions Ministry. I have dealt with successive Pensions Ministers, and I am glad to admit that since the present Minister of Pensions took office, if I take my own post-bag as an average indication of the way in which complaints have moved, the complaints reaching me have altered from 75 per cent, on pensions and 25 per cent, on military service matters to 75 per cent, on military service matters and only 25 per cent, on pensions matters, and if my right hon. Friend wishes to take that as a testimony to his administrative ability he can do so. I do consider that the Pensions Ministry has gained enormously by the administrative ability of my right hon. Friend. Of all the Ministers who have touched the Ministry he alone has stayed in the Ministry of Pensions dealing with its administration. In previous cases there was far too much gallivanting about the country, far too many speeches from platforms, far too many conferences that did not matter, and far too little solid work in addressing themselves to the difficulties of the problems with which they were confronted. My right hon. Friend has done that, and what can one say but that one is extremely grateful to the Government for at last seeing the common sense of the situation. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend did the final persuasion or not, but I was amazed that the Government did not long ago do what they are prepared to do now. My right hon. Friend talked of the difficulty which there is going to be in putting those things into operation because of the large numbers that had to be dealt with. The same point was made about the demobilisation of men. I have always said that this is the one kind of case that ought always to be attended to at once. It was always the cause of the greatest dissatisfaction among the men in the country and, knowing that, the Government ought to have been prepared, and from that point of view I do not think there is any excuse. But on the basis of what has been given, I am prepared to say now that the Government seem to have
    2356
    realised the force of the criticisms which have been advanced, and they are doing something like the right thing now.
    On one point my right hon. Friend thought that I was ungrateful in the midst of his great generosity. I am not sure that 1 was, because so frequently the Government spoil what they are doing by refusing to go a little further. My right hon. Friend, in submitting the flat-rate scale of pensions and the rate which had been raised, admitted that that was necessary on account of the increased cost of living. The other allowances to which I referred had nothing to do with the cost of living. They were incidental to extra treatment. The man is only going to be in the place temporarily, and compared with the sum which he is given it is an extra allowance for a particular purpose which is going to make him a better man. I do not see why, having given a man this allowance, you are going to take it from him, just because you have raised the flat rate. There is one point which I think has not yet been covered adequately on which there still exists a great deal of dissatisfaction—that is this question of appeal. The Government say that they admit a statutory right to a pension. I should have thought that that means that a man has a legal right. My right hon. Friend is providing a new Court of Appeal which may be a legal Court of Appeal. I want to get this point quite clear at an early stage in the discussion. He said that those Courts were going to be set up by the Lord Chancellor, that they will be presided over by one legal gentleman, preferably a barrister, and that the other members of the Court will be officers in the case of officers and men in the case of men, with a medical assessor. I have never known a legal Court constituted in that way.
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: This is a Court which is to be set up by an Act of Parliament and is therefore a legal Court. There are differences between one Court and another. In the Admiralty Court there are a judge and two naval assessors. The Police Court does not have-that at all, but they are all legal Courts, all established under Acts of Parliament. This will also be a legal Court based on an Act of Parliament.
    6.0 p.m
    Mr. HOGGE: My difficulty is that I do not see how a man who is deprived of all right is going to establish his right before this Court, and I shall be glad to have it

    2357
    pointed out to me how that can be done. This does not constitute a statutory right, because the man cannot go to the Court unless he is refused. My right hon. Friend forgets that in many eases which will arise in years to come a man may want to establish a perfectly legal claim to a pension, but he could not do so.
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I do not want to interrupt. It is very important that the Committee should understand the point. My hon. Friend is contemplating the case of a man two or three years afterwards making a claim. One of two things will happen—either that claim is to be accepted and a pension awarded or else it is to be refused. If it is refused, he has a statutory right to go to a legal Court and to appeal against the refusal, and the Court's decision is final. So he has either a pension or a statutory right to appeal, and in either case he is covered.
    Mr. HOGGE: I leave that, because it is a difficulty as far as I am concerned, and I do not pretend to have the legal knowledge that is necessary. Let me turn to the question of amounts. I am doubtful whether you have there reached a satisfactory position. The average man is assessed and reassessed at intervals of six months. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has in his possession any figures or not, but one's experience proves this, that the average man's assessment goes down very materially, and if you carry that process on sufficiently long you can assess a man off the Pension Warrant altogether. I can understand why the Treasury and the Government should desire that to take place. The figure of £96,000,000 given as the expenditure for a full year probably is an underestimate. I should not be surprised if, eventually, we get over the £100,000,000. When, some time back, we were told that there was to be a Vote of £40,000,000, some of us said that £75,000,000 would be the lowest sum. I notice that a proposal has been made to allow an appeal on the question of amount when the pension becomes permanent. It was reported in the newspapers the other day that the Ministry were prepared to accept that. Is that an alternative suggestion?
    Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I have not closed my mind on that matter. I want to get a system which is satisfactory to the men, even if it removes only a senti-
    2358
    mental grievance. At present it is absolutely impossible to have this Appeal Tribunal on amount, as suggested by the Select Committee. If it applied only to permanent pensions, you would immediately reduce the problem by nine-tenths, because permanent pensions are, roughly, only 10 per cent of the whole, I do not want to pledge myself on that at all.
    Mr. HOGGE:I quite agree. Everyone who has touched this subject knows the difficulty of putting these things into operation. The right hon. Gentleman said he does not want to close his mind. There is one point in the process of a man's award of pension which creates more dissatisfaction than any other. The average man feels, and feels very acutely, that it is a descending process, and that when he reaches a certain figure it will shortly be going down a little bit, and again down a little bit. If my right hon. Friend would address his ingenuity to that point, he would be removing one of the greatest troubles. I frankly confess that I had quite another speech in my mind until I heard the position of the Government. I think many of us had other speeches in our minds; but, putting that on one side, as we are all able to do, I am willing, on behalf of those sitting on this side, to associate myself with the thanks and gratitude expressed to the right hon. Gentleman and the Government for the very generous way in which they have responded to this Select Committee's Report.
    Sir MONTAGUE BARLOW: I hope the House will pardon me if I say a word or two in connection with a subject in which I am personally interested, namely, the Report of the Select Committee of which I had the honour to be chairman. May I say at once that as chairman I claim no special credit or privilege in connection with that Report. If ever a Report was the Report of a Committee as a whole, that Report was. Whatever measure of praise it wins from the House the Committee as a whole is entitled to it. May I say a few words, also, about the spirit in which we as a Committee set about our task. About a year ago in this House there was a Debate on a subject which some of us had very much at heart. We feared an unholy alliance of politics and pensions. I am glad to say we carried a Motion saying that that was an unholy alliance. But if there is a proper form of co-operation between political parties in these big

    2359
    pension problems, I think it was well illustrated in the work of this Committee. We had differences, of course. What Committee does not? But those differences never had a political complexion, and we were all animated by one desire—to do the best we could with the very difficult problem entrusted to us. May I say, also, this, that we desired in that Committee not to hinder but to help, to criticise, if you will, and to correct where we saw necessity, but not to do anything of a sensational character or anything that could be considered matter for "cheap copy." The Pensions Minister has been good enough to say something about my work in connection with that Committee. May I say this: It is referred to in our Report, and I wish to emphasise it again—how much the pension administration does owe to his ability and energy. We saw traces of it in all branches of pension administration. If a day comes, as I suppose in due course it must, when inevitable promotion removes him from the Pensions Ministry, I am afraid there is a possibility of the ex-Service man suffering in consequence.
    There are two or three points of view to be borne in mind in dealing with this pension problem. First of all, there is the problem of the man himself; that is the first thing to be considered. No one who contemplates this problem can feel anything but sympathy with the disabled heroes who fought in the War. That is obvious. Nor can any monetary compensation be really adequate to make good the disability from which they are suffering. But if a good pension is a good thing—no one denies it, and I hope the country and the men also think the new scales generous—permanent employment is even a better thing. We have to see to it that apart from the monetary scales training and employment are really satisfactory. This we hope to be able to deal with later on. Then there is the question of administration—the official point of view, if you will. The whole machinery is official machinery; it must be so. I am impressed for instance with the objection on official grounds to the statutory right to pensions. Obviously, it is no good putting such a load on your machine that it breaks down. No one will benefit by that, least of all the ex-Service man. Then there is the last question, the point of view of the public itself. It may be said, "Well, you are kind to everybody except the public." In
    2360
    my opinion, if the public are prepared to foot any bill they are prepared to foot this bill, for it is the kind of bill that no one would for a moment refuse to pay.
    Generally, with regard to most of the recommendations of the Committee, we are delighted and grateful that they are accepted by the Government and without any reservations. But there are one or two things which the right hon. Gentleman dealt with and about which I was not quite so satisfied. First, take the question of statutory right. It seems very difficult in any discussion on this matter to keep two elements of it distinct, namely, (a) the right of access to the Law Courts: this we thought undesirable; and (b) the question us to whether pensions should be paid, or rather, be expressed to be paid, as an act of Royal Bounty, and not under Act of Parliament as a matter of ordinary routine payment by Vote of this House. You may say that in the result it makes uncommonly little difference, but we have had a great deal of evidence that, in fact, though the grievance is a sentimental one, it is a real one, and if you can remove a grievance which is really felt to be so, without either upsetting the whole machinery of Government or imposing an enormous burden on the taxpayer, and this would do neither, then I cannot see why it should not be done. It was suggested by the Minister that one of the difficulties would be that if you put into an Act of Parliament that a man was legally entitled to a pension, you would be bound to put into that Act the scales themselves. For the life of me I cannot see why, and for this simple reason. In the Naval Act of 1865, Section 3, it is expressly provided that a sailor has a right to his pension, and it goes on to say that the scale shall be fixed by Order in Council. On that precedent we suggested that to remove the grievance felt by soldiers and airmen you should, as in the case of sailors, give a legal right. No doubt if the scales were in the Act they could only be amended by another Act, which would mean delay during which the men might suffer. We suggested further adding the words "legally entitled," which were in an old Act passed during the Napoleonic Wars. There certainly does not seem to be any legal impossibility in putting the phrase "legally entitled" into an Act of Parliament and leaving the scales to be settled afterward. Assuming that that difficulty is not made good, I would strongly urge the Govern-

    2361
    ment to make this small change, and in so doing they will be removing a great difficulty felt by the men. That is the effect of the evidence put before us, and a Select Committee can only report in accordance with the evidence it receives.
    There is a point which was not dealt with by the Minister, and the only one, I think, and that is the question as to whether the men are to be informed at once by the board of what their award is. It is a comparatively small point, but a point to which witnesses attached a good deal of importance. At present what happens is this. A board makes an award, and the award goes to Chelsea to be revised by the Chelsea officials, and, in cases where the officials do not agree with the report of the board, the cases go before doctors for reconsideration. That is now to terminate, and if the award is modified and the man is not satisfied, his case is to have reconsideration by another Board. When you have got as far as to say that the man is entitled to another Board and his case to reconsideration, I do not see why you should not tell the man what the first award is at once, so that he may know what it is until it is reconsidered. In that way you would secure an amount of confidence which at the present time you have not got.
    We are glad that the Government have met us about other points. The regional area is an administrative improvement from which we hope great things. It is the first important step along the line of bringing the administration of pensions closer to the man. I want to utter a word of caution on this subject. In my view, with regard to these regional areas, everything will depend on the type of man secured as regional director, and his selection will be one of the great tests of pensions administration. The man you get for these positions has got to be the Pensions Minister of his area. He must be a strong, capable man. He must be a man able to resist pressure; I hope, not political pressure, but pressure from all quarters, of whatever kind. He must be a man of experience in Government administration or he will not be able to work well with Government Departments; but at the same time he must not be hide-bound with red tape. He must, above all, be sympathetic and must be able to work with other people; and at the same time possess his own soul. Those qualities are not easy to find in one man.
    2362
    There are men who can fill these positions, but they can only be secured by taking immense pains in their selection and by offering adequate salaries to make it worth their while to take the posts.
    We have had encomiums lavished, and quite rightly, on the work of most, if not the majority of local war pensions committees. Certainly in the great towns those committees have done admirable service under great stress and very often without very much recognition. We have been materially assisted on the Select Committee by the evidence given before us by the secretaries from great towns like London and Birmingham and Manchester, and it is interesting to mention that two out of the three were ladies. The work of the great local war pensions committees have been self-sacrificing and admirable. But there are many local war pensions committees throughout the country which are not very efficiently worked, and some of them, I am afraid, are really bad. Some of them are run by volunteers who have not up to the present realised that the mere fact that the work is voluntary does not make up for it being inefficient. The sooner the Minister takes steps to deal with those local bodies the better those who have the interests of the discharged men at heart will be pleased. He has powers under the Act of 1018,and I hope he will put them into force.
    With regard to the allowance to married women, as that principle has been accepted I will only say that an allowance to married women exists in most other countries. We had it in our original Warrant. When we began the War, the allowances to unmarried men was 14s. and to married 16s. 6d., so that it is no new principle. In its present shape, I am sure—or, at least, I hope so—that the scale will meet a difficulty which is a real difficulty. As one of the witnesses put it,
    "According to the scale of the Warrant, the wife of a discharged soldier is expected to live on air, because she gets no consideration of a money character."
    That has now been altered, and we are grateful to the Government for doing so.
    Then a word or two about the case of widows. Up to the present the position of the widow has been, undoubtedly, a very hard one, and widows have been treated in a very unsatisfactory fashion. Let me quote a sentence from evidence on this point, and which is printed in the Appendix to our Report. Under the old

    2363
    scale the maximum was 13s. 9d. and with bonus 16s. 6d. This is what the witness said:
    "Up to the present time we have been given a grant from first one fund and then another; now they are all just finished and we are faced with the worry of finding some other means of providing boots and clothing for our families; and only on 16th May last we proved to the Ministry that our income in some cases was only 3s. 9d. per head after paying household expenses. It is this alone which is causing women to lead a bad life. No mother is going to see her children want for anything while she has a way to get it for them."
    That is the kind of evidence which any Select Committee, and which any Government would find very difficult to resist. I am glad that the Government have seen their way to raise the figure.
    There is then the point of the Board of Trade figures and the sliding scale. I am very pleased that that principle has been accepted by the Government, and I venture to hope that it will be a real contribution to the problem of pensions administration in the future. But in order that the sliding scale may be an actuality it has got to satisfy one or two conditions. First of all, the figures relied on must secure general acceptance. We had to take the Board of Trade figures, because they were the only figures available. They were not very satisfactory for our purpose, because they are only given monthly, and we had not at our disposal the actuarial strength of a Government Department to co-relate the figures for ourselves. The figures in the "Gazette" are. I think, generally accepted by the industrial world as satisfactory figures, but it is rather curious that I received from the Pattern Card Makers' Society of Manchester a protest against the Board of Trade figures. I wrote and asked why, and I received the following reply this morning:
    "We, along with four other warehouse trade unions, signed a sliding scale agreement last November, when the figure given in the 'Board of Trade Gazette' of the general increase in the price of all the items ordinarily entering into the working-class family budget was given at 122 per cent, over July, 1914. The May figure in the same Gazette gives 105 per cent. We are at a loss to find any one article which is reduced in price during that period by 17 per cent. As a result of these figures from six to seven thousand working people have been reduced in wages by 2s. 6d. per week for the males and 1s. 3d. females."
    What the true facts may be I am not in a position to say, because I have not had time to examine into them. What is quite
    2364
    clear is this, that if the sliding scale is to be a real asset in pensions administration, as we hope it is, the figures must be such as to secure general acceptance. Secondly, they must be prepared on some plan which is well advertised and easily understood, and then we hope that pension adjustments will become practically automatic.
    I want to say one word about the only important point which is outstanding, as far as I can see, between the Select Committee and the Government, and that is the question of the appeal on amount. Until the right hon. Gentleman's statement, I must say I had a difficulty in appreciating the difference between his appeal on amount and the appeal on amount which we suggested. It comes to this, if I understand him rightly. We suggested independent appeal tribunals on amount, constituted very much like 1ds independent statutory appeal boards on entitlement. The precise constitution of the board does: not matter so much. We wanted a lay element, and we wanted doctors, if possible, of superior authority to the doctors of the ordinary boards. But the difference, as I understand it, between the Minister's proposals and ours is this: We suggested tribunals of an independent character which would sit for the tribunal work alone. He suggests appeal boards which are really the same as ordinary medical boards, but with different names: then they can sit whenever desired, because they will consist of the ordinary medical staffs of the Ministry. If that is the only possible alternative, we must put up with it, at any rate for a time, but what I would put to the Minister is this: that the evidence given us, which I must say entirely accords with my own personal experience, was to the effect that there is nothing to which the men attach greater importance than this question of a free right of appeal to some kind of independent, properly constituted authority. The difficulty I see about the Minister's proposal is this. A board makes a finding with regard to a man, and they assess him, say, at 50 per cent, disability. The man is not satisfied, and he says, "I want to go before another board. I do not think my case has been properly inquired into." Well and good. Under our proposals, assuming them to be carried out, he would go to an outside tribunal, who might find against him, but there would be a lay element, and he would feel he had had all possible consideration. Under the proposals of the Minister, he has to

    2365
    go to another board similarly constituted to the board before which he has already appeared, and not only that, but it is a board which is expressly under the control of the Minister, because it consists of the ordinary medical staffs in the employment of the Ministry, either whole-time men or part-time men. The difficulty about that, to my mind is this. The disabled men will have the satisfaction of a second hearing, but they will not feel the same kind of confidence in the award as the result of the second hearing as they would have felt in the decision if it could have been given by an independent tribunal. The Minister answers that at the moment it is practically impossible. Those of us who are interested in this subject would be foolish if we made suggestions which clearly at the moment would break the machine down if carried out. But let us see whether we cannot proceed along these lines. The regional system is now coming into operation. There is a Clause in our Report dealing with this matter, which says that although there are administrative difficulties about this appeal on amount, they will probably be reduced when the regional area system is set up, and I venture to hope that under the reconstitution of administration which is involved in the regional system a loophole will be kept open for the constitution of proper appeal tribunals on amount of the type which we venture to suggest in our Report.
    The Minister in his speech was kind enough to refer to the work of the Committee on Tuberculosis. He perhaps was too kind. I was not the chairman of that Committee. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Major Astor) was, but I was his deputy, and I think lie has been kind enough to say I had to do most of the work. I am afraid no other opportunity will arise for saying very much about the Report of this Committee. It is a Committee dealing with work which falls under the Pensions Minister, and therefore it is of a character which comes upon the Vote. It is impossible to say anything at large about the Report of that Committee, as the Government are still considering it, but I have obtained leave to say one or two words about the general gist of that Report. As a matter of fact, it has already appeared in the Press, although, as sometimes happens, the account in the Press is probably not quite accurate. I may venture, therefore, to say one or two
    2366
    words about it, though on the understanding that at the moment it is in the nature of a Report which is being considered. Roughly speaking, we found that there were some thirty to forty thousand tuberculous discharged soldiers. There was difficulty in getting at the figures, because they were for a long time all lumped together as chest cases and it was therefore difficult to separate the tuberculous cases, but on the best evidence we could secure that was the result. The first point we desired to make clear was this, that the tuberculous soldier is only one part of the general national problem of tuberculosis. He fits into the ordinary administration of tuberculosis throughout the country. There is the dispensary, there are the various preliminary stages, there is domiciliary treatment, then we come on to the sanatorium and the training colony, but, particularly in the early stages, the tuberculous discharged soldier and sailor must fit into the ordinary machinery of tuberculosis treatment. Then the next conclusion to which we came was this, that the accommodation with regard to sanatoria and hospitals throughout the country was unsatisfactory and insufficient. It was insufficient in this way. Under the present arrangements the discharged soldier has priority of treatment, and generally speaking, within certain limits, the case of the tuberculous discharged man has been dealt with, but I am sorry to say he has only been dealt with at the expense of the civilian population in a great many cases, and the requirement of additional sanatoria is one that has got to be dealt with immediately, as it is very urgent.
    The provision of sanatoria is a question largely for the local authorities, subject to State subventions, and local authorities, it must be remembered, have had a very difficult time in the last four or five years. There were large schemes for new sanatoria well on their way before the War. Money had been provided in many cases, plans had been secured, and buildings had even been begun. The War came, the military seized the hospitals, the Government stopped the buildings, and therefore, if the local authorities are four years in arrears with their sanatoria, I think we must not say it is entirely their fault. We were all of opinion that the sanatoria must be developed, that accommodation must be improved, and that training colonies must be made the natural.

    2367
    adjunct of the sanatoria. Lastly we were faced with this problem. Assuming a man had sanatorium treatment and passed through a training colony, assuming that he has been built up to a position of health and strength where under the best conditions he may look forward to a very fair average length of life in the future, he is then released from the sanatorium and the training colony, where he has been for six to twelve months under the best possible conditions. He takes up work under all the unsatisfactory rough and tumble conditions of the labour market, he goes to live in a house which is probably not very sanitary, the worries of life fasten upon him, and what is the result? Quite inevitably he drifts back, and the scale of his health descends and descends, and in a few years, or even it may be in a few months, he probably dies, and not only that, but before he dies he infects a large area around him.
    The mere provision of sanatoria and training colonies is not enough. We must make some further provision, and we are going to begin by making that provision for the discharged soldier. In our view the only alternative to offer him is this, either the best possible housing conditions in specially prepared houses, or that the Government should provide something in the way of permanent village settlements alongside the sanatoria. There is an institution (on an experimental scale I agree) recently started at Papworth, near Cambridge. Incidentally it is not a very satisfactory state of things, although everybody speaks well of Papworth, to know that it is so restricted for money that it can hardly carry on. The institution consists of the sanatorium, the training colony, and the village settlement. A man passes through the sanatorium, goes to the training colony outside, learns an industry, and then they say to him: "There is a cottage there in the village ready for you. Won't you come with your family and live here? You will have medical help, you can work at an industry under proper conditions, you will be paid the standard rate of wages for the district. We offer you a healthy life. It is possible you may have to give up certain things, but you are secure of your pension as long as you are here. Won't you co-operate with us, not only in making your own life assured and your own health assured, but in securing for your children and for your neighbours this, that you shall not drift downwards and
    2368
    drag them down in your own unfortunate collapse, which may possibly end in death?" That is the kind of proposal which we sketch out as being really, in our view, the only possible one, and I hope it may receive the kindly consideration of the Government. I am much obliged to the Committee for having listened to me.
    Captain HACKING: I am one of those who in the past have been quite content to hear my own views expressed in much more noble language by certain other Members in the House than ever 1 could hope to express them in myself, but I quite realise that that is a state of laziness which cannot continue for ever, so I rise with some reluctance, and with a much, larger amount of trepidation, to address the House for the first time. I know that I can ask for the indulgence of the House without any hesitation, knowing that the House is always indulgent on these occasions. The subject of pensions I always imagine may be approached from two points of view, from the point of view of the soldier, who is naturally, though somewhat unfortunately, a little biassed, and from the point of view of the civilian. I am not a soldier, I never have been a soldier, and I never want to be a soldier. I happen to have had the honour of holding a commission for the last four and a half years of the War, but that does not necessarily constitute, a soldier. Even if I could speak from the point of view of the soldier, I would much prefer to look at this question from the broader standpoint of the civilian, and I would like to consider it as a question of the benefit of the whole community. The hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Hogge) said this afternoon that a great number of his points had been already met by the Pensions Minister, and on that account he found it somewhat difficult to make a lengthy speech; but if he found this difficulty, the Committee will certainly agree that the difficulty is increased in my case.
    I want to look at this subject for a few moments from the point of view of the civilian, knowing as I do that no industry will be the success that it should be, no individual effort will be as it should be, if just grievances with regard to pensions are allowed to continue. A great number of the grievances have been swept away this afternoon. There still remain one or two, and with one especially I would like to deal at a, little length. It concerns the disability pension in connection with Civil

    2369
    servants. In 1918 a booklet was issued by the Ministry of Pensions entitled ''The Disabled Soldier's Handbook, 1918" and a copy of this handbook is issued to every disabled soldier on discharge. A foreword to the soldier on discharge inside the book contains the following words:
    "The cash allowance that the State gives you is simply compensation for the injury or impairment of your health you have sustained by your war service, and the amount of compensation, that is, your pension, will defend on the extent of your disablement as it appears to the medical board, who will examine you from time to time when your disability exists, and it depends on nothing else. It has nothing to do with any wages or salary you may earn after your discharge."
    I admit that that booklet was not issued by the present Minister of Pensions. It was issued by his predecessor (Mr. Hodge), who is sitting on the Front Opposition Bench, but as no booklet has boon issued since, I take it the present Minister of Pensions agrees with, this booklet. If this publication means anything—and, I take it, Government publications do occasionally mean something—it means that a man on discharge, if he is in receipt of civil pay, will not have his disability pension taken into consideration at all when he receives that civil pay. Now, in the case of Civil servants, when sick leave is granted to them within one month of discharge from the Army, the disability pay is deducted from their civil pay; but if, on the other hand, they are in receipt of sick pay at a later period subsequent to a month from discharge, they do not have disability pay deducted from their civil pay. If a, man is sick within a month of leaving the Army, we might naturally assume that his sickness is, at any rate, partly due to his service in the Army. If a man is in good health for a month after leaving the Army, but breaks down in health after that, the probabilities are that his sickness is due to his civil life—probably his own carelessness. But, according to the regulations of the Civil Service, these men who have been discharged less than a month, and whose illness is probably due to war service, are placed in a worse financial position than those people whose illness is probably due, as I have tried to prove, to carelessness in civil life. One would think that if any differentiation is to be made at all, it should be in favour of the man whose illness is probably due to war service. This, I know, is not directly in connection with the Minister of Pensions, but I do hope that, having acknowledged responsibility for this booklet, he
    2370
    will do all he can to influence the Civil Service in order to get them to abide by their general regulation which, I believe, is that on no account will disability pay enter into the calculation when civil pay has been granted. As the Minister of Pensions has accepted liability for this booklet, I hope he will help to press that matter home. I do not know what excuse the Civil Service makes, but I expect it is that if a man is recently discharged from the Army he has not get rid of the habit, which is certainly prevalent to a certain extent in the Army, of malingering. If he is back for a month, they probably think he will have got rid of the complaint of malingering. As a matter of fact, they have to undergo medical examination when they report sick, and they have to have a medical certificate. If that certificate is from a private practitioner, the Post Office doctor, or the doctor for whatever branch of the Civil Service the man is in, has to examine him, and with that safeguard I do not think the question of malingering enters into the case at all.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Colonel Sir J. Craig): Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will allow me to point out that there is a Bill being introduced by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury which will cover the whole Civil Service, and that will be a very proper time for my hon. and gallant Friend to raise that point. The Secretary to the Treasury announced a few days ago that a Bill was in progress at the present time affecting the whole Civil Service in regard to deduction of 10 per cent, in the case of salaries over £400, and I presume when that Bill is introduced my hon. and gallant Friend will have a good opportunity of raising that point, over which the Pensions Minister has no control.
    Captain HACKING: I quite appreciate that, but perhaps it will save another speech on the point if the hon. and gallant Gentleman will ask the authorities to read in the OFFICIAL REPORT what I have said. The second complaint, I think, does concern actually the Pensions Minister and nobody else—I hope so, at any rate. It concerns the flat-rate allowance of 6s. 6d., which, I take it is now to be increased, issued to childless wives of serving soldiers by the local war pensions committee under Circular 163. This allowance is payable as from 1st November, 1918, to a childless wife who cannot earn wages.

    2371
    The Committee will remember that, some time ago, a very complicated form was issued which had to be tilled, and, owing to pressure which was brought to bear on the Minister, a much more simple form was printed in which only two questions, I think, were asked. The first was as to whether the woman, was childless, and the second was whether she was capable of earning. Unfortunately, I am told, this old form is still in circulation, and, in any case, some of the committees who deal with this subject do not quite understand its application. Some committee spay from 1st November, which, I believe, is probably correct, and others pay from the date of the application being made. Another point in that connection is that the wife of a soldier with three children, who are beyond the age to draw separation allowance, is also entitled to that rate. A great many thousands of mothers do not know that. I do not think it has been very extensively advertised. Probably, from what the Pensions Minister told us this afternoon, he will be rather chary of advertising anything in future. At the same time, if these people have a right to anything they ought to be informed of that right, and I do hope that the Pensions Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary will make a note of that, and see that this is advertised, because on this occasion, at any rate, I do not think it would increase the amount of correspondence. With regard to this flat-rate allowance of 6s. 6d., or the subsequent increase to be made on that amount, in any case I have said that this is only paid to the childless wife of a serving soldier. I would suggest, with all humility, that it would be better if this payment were made by the regimental paymaster in the form of separation allowance, rather than by the Pensions Minister, for this reason: The regimental paymaster has all particulars with regard to the children, and he has at his finger ends all particulars with regard to the man himself. No questions need be asked. It could quite easily be run in connection with the separation allowance.
    A good deal has been said this afternoon with regard to the statutory right to a pension. I have always been in agreement with the statutory right being granted. It has been suggested that it is a question of sentiment. I am one of those who believe that sentiment counts for something. There is very little difference
    2372
    between keen sentiment and a real grievance, and for that reason I am convinced it would make no difference to the Minister or the Government, because it would cost exactly the same amount of money, and I would press strongly upon the Government that they should admit the statutory right to a pension. It would get rid of a great deal of discontent among the soldiers, and it would cost the Government nothing to get rid of that discontent. My next complaint has been met pretty well this afternoon, and it is with regard to the speeding-up of all cases of pension. A great deal of delay, we all know, has taken place in the past. We must not blame the Ministry altogether. The Ministry has had a tremendous task to undertake. We must all appreciate that fact, but I would ask them to do their utmost to try to get to that position when the first payment of pension is made actually on the cessation of separation allowance. Separation allowance is allowed for twenty-eight days after a man is discharged or demobilised, and twenty-eight days ought to be sufficient to allow all particulars to be taken, and cases to be fully investigated, so that the pension can start immediately after the separation allowance has ceased. There should be no gap between the payment of the moneys coming into any house or cottage.
    7.0 p.m.
    My final point is more in the form of a request. A number of Members of this House—I may have ben guilty myself—have at times ridiculed the Ministry of Pensions. It is not necessary for the Members of this House to ridicule that Ministry. There are probably plenty of other people capable of doing that quite as well as we arc. I am certain that ridicule does not help the cause and does not help the Ministry. Grievances, errors, or omissions of an individual character would be far better dealt with by a personal letter to one of the Ministers or to their Parliamentary Private Secretaries than by a question across the floor of the House. I have communicated extensively with one of the Parliamentary Private Secretaries, the hon. Member for Altrincham (Major Hamilton), and 1 hope I am not out of order in mentioning the fact that I have received complete satisfaction. If everybody has had the satisfaction I have had in connection with the Ministry, there ought to be no cause of complaint. Personal grievances mentioned across the floor of the House create general distrust

    2373
    and dissatisfaction by advertisement. Only a few days ago a personal question was asked across the floor of the House by the hon. Member for South Hackney (Mr. Bottomley). I am sorry he is not here to hear me criticise him. He asked a question with regard to a certain lieutenant, which i am convinced did not do that lieutenant any good or the Ministry any good. One would have thought it was a question of self-advertisement by the person who was asking the question, had it not been for the fact that I have always been so tremendously impressed by the simple modesty of the hon. Member for South Hackney. I should like to congratulate in my humble way the Select Committee on Pensions for trying to alleviate many complaints treat existed previously to their Report. The smallness of pensions in general was one of the greatest grievances. That I feel will be met in such a way that it will give perfect satisfaction to the majority of discharged soldiers and sailors. Everybody knows that these people who are receiving a, pension have richly earned it. We are told that we must economise. I imagined that when the Ministry asked the Government to adopt this Report they would be met by the Chancellor of the Exchequer telling them that this was not economy, and that he could not agree to the increases suggested. I am glad that the Government have agreed to increase these amounts, for although the Committee must be in agreement with the general policy of economy, it is certainly not right to practise it on these soldiers and sailors or on the dependants of these soldiers and sailors without whose gallantry the very nation itself might have ceased to exist. We ought to see to it that these men and their dependants are in no worse position to-day than they were before the War on account of the sacrifices they have made for their King and country. I thank the Committee for having listened to me so patiently.
    Mr. HODGE: The Minister of Pensions is to be congratulated upon the success he has achieved with the Treasury. Sometimes these shadows show up in front of us. When before the last General Election I placed a miserable 20 per cent, advance on pensions before the Treasury, if it was not refused, there was at any rate many weeks' delay before it was accepted. We were in the throes of the General Election before the concession was made,
    2374
    and then it was only dated to the month of June last. Does this generous contribution to-day mean that we are going to be in the threes of a General Election? It looks very like it. Be that as it may, I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the success he has achieved, which means a great advance in the scale. When one thinks of the cost of living to-day, even the value of the 50s. that has been promised to married men is only something like 21s. Generous as is the advance on the present scale, when one takes into account the present cost of living, it is not too generous. We have to realise that all we possess to-day is due to the sacrifices of the men to whom we are granting pensions, because without their success we should have had nothing to provide for. I was also glad to hear that, so far as the tuberculosis patients are concerned, that my right hon. Friend was on the eve of some success. There, again, the difficulty was caused because two Government Departments were concerned to get the money necessary to do justice by those men. I am glad that my right hon. Friend is getting that matter into his own hands, because with one Department there is a chance of very much greater success than when you have to deal by and through another Department. The remarks my right hon. Friend made with respect to artificial limbs and the setting up of an expert Committee, caused me to wonder what had become of the expert Committee that was dealing with that subject. I do not believe' that any better Committee could be set up than the one which was in existence when my right hon. Friend became Pensions Minister. We had the greatest engineering experts that the country could give us, the greatest surgical experts, and, in connection with the Ministry of Munitions, we had men who were experts in inventions. I hope that it may be simply a re-forming of that Committee instead of its being scrapped and a new one set up.
    With respect to the new scheme of regional districts, I hope it may be successful in getting rid of many of the delays which have occurred in the past. It must always be borne in mind that this was a new Department created during a war period, with an absolutely untrained staff of women, because we could not get men. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for the Gorbals Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes) had exactly the same difficulties. There seemed to be a lack of

    2375
    vision in the early clays as to the magnitude of the work which had to be accomplished. I was glad to hear what my right hon. Friend said about a smooth running of the machinery at Chelsea. Although it is a bit cumbrous; at the same time we have to give credit to the gentleman who reorganised it. Ho has done wonderful work in reorganisation so far as pensions are concerned. It was thought advisable that he should undertake the reorganisation of Chelsea, which had broken down. Where my right hon. Friend might have received tens of complaints, I received thousands. The reorganisation, slow and cumbrous as it might have been, achieved the purpose of getting rid of these delays and of all errors except those which are inevitable with a human machine. My chief object in rising was to express my great personal delight at the very generous advance that has been made in the amount of the pensions. From that point of view alone my right hon. Friend has every reason to be congratulated. The hon. Member for South Salford (Sir M. Barlow), after having got ninety-nine points out of the 100 recommended by his Committee, was supercritical, He might have taken a more generous line and expressed thanks for having achieved so much. The Report of the Committee must have strengthened the hands of the Minister of Pensions. A year ago, when a similar statement was made in this House, very few Members were present. The attendance is rather better this evening. The lack of Members does not show that interest in pensions which ought to animate this House. So far as we on these benches are concerned, we heartily congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the success he has achieved.
    Captain LOSEBY: The action of the Government in holding two meetings since Tuesday last to consider the Report of this Select Committee and the fact that the Minister of Pensions was able to come down here to-day and say that the principle of the recommendations of that Select Committee, involving a sum of £20,000,000 a year, had been accepted, proves what many of us have known for some time, that in regard to soldiers' grievances none feel them more keenly and sire more anxious to right them than the present Government and the Minister of Pensions. I cannot imagine an act of the Government more creditable than the act of being able to make up its mind within
    2376
    two days upon a subject involving a huge sum of money as in the present case. I hope the widest publicity will be given to the act of the Government in this respect. It is so vitally important that the soldiers throughout the country should realise, though there may be grievances, yet the heart of the House of Commons and the Government is most certainly sympathetic. The recommendations of the Select Committee are of far-reaching importance. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Pensions has accepted the bulk of them. Being so often repeated in Committee, it is not necessary to go into great detail, but I believe the right hon. Gentleman is searching for grievances the whole time; not waiting for them to be forced upon, him. These grievances, I am certain, will be rectified, cost what it may! It is vitally necessary at the present time, when unrest is about, that we should have the soldiers as a body in this country right behind us. Knowing full well, as I do, the intense sense of comradeship amongst soldiers, you will, I say, achieve that effectively and completely once they' fully realise that their broken men are being looked after. The right hon. Gentleman, a previous Pensions Minister, who spoke last (Mr. Hodge) said he could not understand why the chairman of the Select Committee, having received so much, had not proved himself to be more grateful. Why should there be quibbling over the last point? But I do, once again, urge the Pensions Minister again to consider this question of an appeal on amount. It is of such vital importance to the soldier himself. Evidence was given before the Select Committee that the findings of the medical boards vary at times as much as from 20 to 50 per cent. It is very largely a matter of opinion. We had one case where, I think I am right in saying, the first medical board assessed the disability of a wounded man at 70 per cent., and this was reduced by a competent doctor to 20 per cent. That was under a system which has gone. I am very glad it has gone. My point, however, remains, that the original medical board may have been utterly wrong in its first findings, which was very largely a matter of opinion. There is ground for dissatisfaction unless this appeal on amount is given.
    The Select Committee—I urge this with all the sincerity with which I am capable upon the right hon. Gentleman, because I am as convinced as I am alive that grievances will remain until an appeal on

    2377
    amount is given—the Select Committee has made certain definite recommendations in regard to the constitution of the medical boards and the constitution of the Appeal Board. I urge the right hon. Gentleman to throw those recommendations right overboard. He can find a simpler method of putting up medical boards which will enable him to give this right of appeal, to which every man who has been tried for his life has a right. Perhaps he will consider the proposition I have put forward before—that a medical board might be equally competent as now if there was only one doctor upon it and two laymen. Ho would thus get over his difficulty of medical personnel. For my own part I believe he will have not only a satisfactory but a more satisfactory board. He would then on the Appeal Board be able to have two doctors—and he has his superior board! It is possible to show by economy an medical men how you can find these Appeal Boards without any further call upon your medical personnel. The great administrative ability of the right hon. Gentleman, which is a fortunate thing for the soldiers will, I think, allow him eventually to get over the difficulty in this manner. I earnestly appeal to him not to rest until he has achieved a recommendation of the Committee in regard to open court, telling the man then and there what toe is going to get, and letting it run, and then if he is not satisfied he may have a full appeal on amount. It should not surpass the wit of man to achieve this reform which is one of vital importance in regard to the machinery for adapting the pensions to meet the cost of living. I do not think that the words were actually inserted in the Warrant, but I presume that these bonuses will operate on every single figure in the Barnes Warrant: otherwise it is illogical. I am told, for example—and it is a most astonishing tiling—that soldiers wounded prior to 1916 do not receive the 30 per cent, bonus, yet living has risen, and it is quite as difficult for soldiers who volunteered to fight and were broken previous to 1916, to live.
    This is the kind of point to which I referred when I said that we in this House trust the right hon. Gentleman to search out grievances and rectify them. In this particular instance the recommendations of the Select Committee are not accepted unless the bonus operates on every figure on the Barnes Warrant and subsequent figures. I would like again to refer to a point referred to by the right hon. Gentle-
    2378
    man, in regard to the War Office paying a man until their medical board has delivered its findings. Why, it is obvious simple justice! You have that broken man. You are going to throw him on his own resources. You acknowledge your liability in regard to him. Surely it must be, as indeed the right hon. Gentleman himself said, utterly wrong to take the man's livelihood until you have given him that pension which is to take its place. The right hon. Gentleman can have the most complete assurance that this House is right behind him if he will continue this fight with the War Office. These trifling grievances mount up until they may become a very serious danger in the country. Evidence has been given in the last two days of the desire of the Government to remedy grievances. The right hon. Gentleman has been voted £20,000,000 and the House of Commons will vote him another £20,000,000 if it is necessary without hesitation. Pledges have been made and, cost what it may, they are going to be redeemed towards the men but for whom we should not now perhaps be a nation at all.
    My last point is: Tell the men. The right hon. Gentleman has not yet given us a complete assurance. The difficulty, I take it, is now completely gone. It. is this atmosphere of open court for the man who has been assessed by a medical board to which I personally attach so much importance. The Select Committee recommended that the Court or the medical board call it what you will£should tell the man then and there what is his pension translated into terms of money, and that pension should operate immediately. The objection to that has gone. Evidence was given before us that only eight out of 120 cases are ever reduced by Chelsea. The right hon. Gentleman himself has undertaken that the pensions shall not be reduced until the medical board has given its decision. I believe the right hon. Gentleman will give the widest satisfaction if he will accept this recommendation of the Select Committee. An hon. and gallant Gentleman who made his maiden speech suggested that we ought not to ridicule the Pensions Minister. Ridicule the Pensions Minister I Why, anyone who has a grievance, discharged soldiers and the like, are most profoundly grateful to him and to the Prime Minister for sparing for this important Department one of the most able of his Ministers. It is important that it

    2379
    should go to the country that in the right hon. Gentleman we have one with all qualifications— imagination, wide sympathy, determination, and energy. With the House of Commons behind him, and his determination that all the grievances of soldiers should be removed, we have little real cause of uneasiness for the future.
    Colonel ASHLEY: Through the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Gorton Division (Mr. Hodge) there ran a vein of rather envious admiration at the success which the Pensions Minister had achieved in gaining this increase which he, unfortunately, had not been able himself to achieve. Though the right hon. Gentleman is now leaving the Chamber I may say this for his satisfaction: Although the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colchester may have reaped the harvest, yet the right hon. Member for Gorton may plume himself in having sown, and also in having reaped where other people have sown. I would like to join in congratulating the Minister of Pensions in regard to the praises that have come from all quarters of the House, but at the same time we must not forget that his predecessors had not the same favourable atmosphere that he has at the present moment. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Gorton (Mr. Hodge) had grave difficulties to face and so had the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Barnes), and therefore I think the Minister of Pensions will be the very first to acknowledge that his predecessors did good work, and I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has been able to put the top storey on the edifice which they erected.
    May I say how profoundly grateful we are to the Government and to the right hon. Gentleman for the generous way in which the demands of the ex-Service men have been met, and, above all, upon their promptness in coming to a decision? "Who gives quickly gives doubly," and this refreshing decision after forty-eight hours' consideration in the face of months of previous delay will give the discharged men confidence that the Government mean to remedy such grievances as exist, and it is a very important thing to have a large body of ex-Service opinion with you to enable you to reconstruct the country, as they have saved it during the War. I fully acknowledge the excellent
    2380
    work that has been done by the Minister of Pensions, but I desire to put forward a couple of criticisms and some half-dozen suggestions by which the Ministry might complete the edifice and remove one or two minor grievances. In his speech the right hon. Gentleman stated that he employed approximately 14,000 people at the Ministry of Pensions, 11.000 of whom were women. I would like the representative of the Government who is going to reply to explain to the House why in the Ministry of Pensions it is still necessary that out of every fourteen people employed eleven of them should be women? That proportion of women, surely, is not necessary, and some of them, I think, might be replaced by discharged men and, above all, by partially-disabled men. There are hundreds of thousands of discharged and disabled men in the North of England out of a job who want to do clerical work; and although I agree there are many posts in the Ministry of Pensions which disabled men would not wish to fill, and that there are other jobs that women can do better, I think, out of those 11,000 women, there must be some posts which could be occupied by discharged and disabled men. May I congratulate the Pensions Minister upon actually dismissing an official who did not come up to the mark, and if only the War Office had followed his example we might have got on wish the War much better? We have now an official who has actually dismissed two officials—one permanent—and I hope he will continue doing this until he reaches perfection, which he is fast attaining.
    May I bring forward one or two complaints, which would be of importance in ordinary Debate, but which, I am afraid, are only minor points in view of the wide-reaching decisions which the right hon. Gentleman has announced. These complaints affect certain sections of ex-Service men and their dependants, and there is no reason why, because only a small number are affected, that the injustice should not be removed. If there is only one man suffering an injustice, it should be done away with by the House of Commons, which is elected specially for the redress of grievances. In regard to the widows of previous wars, whose pensions have been reassessed to scale for widows of the present War, I think they should receive a pension according to their husband's rank. At the present time I understand that the widow of a private gets 13s. 6d., but the widow of a non-commis-

    2381
    sioned officer or a warrant officer only gets the same amount. I think that must be an oversight in the Royal Warrant, for it cannot surely be the intention that the widow of a man of superior rank, like a warrant officer or a non-commissioned officer, should receive the same pension as a private, and although this affects only some 2,000 widows, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will consider this point.
    Another matter which has constantly come under my notice is the difficulty which exists of obtaining a man's medical history sheet, and this leads to great delay, and if the right hon. Gentleman would do something to speed up this matter it would be very helpful. I know the case of a man in the Royal Army Medical Corps who was in the workhouse until an ex-soldiers' organisation got him out. Although he is quite unfit for any employment, the Pensions Committee have been unable for weeks to enter an appeal on his behalf, because the information as to his medical history sheets are not up to date. Perhaps I may send the right hon. Gentleman details of this case. In reference to the question of parents' pensions, I consider that where any pension is awarded based on dependence on the son, it should be paid from the date of death instead of from the date of application for the pension. Many parents do not know of the regulations, and when they wake up and find they are entitled to a certain allowance they are only given the money from the date of the application, and not from the date of death. I think it is only fair that these people, many of whom are illiterate, should get their award from the date of the death.
    Another point is that when applications for alternative pensions have been entered I think the Pensions Committee should be empowered to pay the difference between the ordinary pension and the prospective alternative pension pending the decision of the Ministry. I could give a number of cases. I know the case of an Irish Guardsman who has been months waiting for his alternative pension. He is very hard up, and if the Pensions Committee had the power I indicate they would not run very much risk, and it would soften the condition of these men who are being held up by these delays. My next point is that the right hon. Gentleman stated that while awaiting assessment of pensions the men could get advances from the Ministry, and he said that he had asked the War Office to put
    2382
    these men on full pay, and that the War Office had refused. I ask him to press the War Office again on this point, if not for full rates, at least for half-pay. It is undignified for a man who has been in the Service to have to ask the Ministry of Pensions to advance him £10 or £15 in order to carry on, and if an officer knew that he was entitled either to half or full pay, he would know exactly where he was, but now he is dependent upon an advance from the right hon. Gentleman, and that is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs.
    May I also ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider the case of men who have received specific injuries in previous wars, but whose pensions awarded at the time have lapsed, and they are now debarred from the benefits of the Warrant of 1918, because they are no longer pensioners? No man who has been wounded in this War will come into the position of having a lapsed pension, and it is very hard that these old men, because they were wounded in a former war, should get no increase at all. I urge the right hon. Gentleman to consider the case of these men, who do not come under the Warrant of 1918. My next point is that of men who received injuries other than on active service, or the widows of men who were so killed, who, I think, should be brought under the Warrant of May, 1918, which brings the pre-war pensions up to scale. I will give the instance of a corporal in the Royal Garrison Artillery, who was blinded by the explosion of a gun. As far as he is concerned he was blinded in the service of his King and country, although the accident happened on parade. Nevertheless, he was under military orders, and if he cannot be brought under exactly the same scale as the others, at least he should have something, and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will consider this point. Would he also consider the case of re-enlisted pensioners in receipt of modified pensions and have them re-assessed at the present time for total service and for higher rank attained during the War. Those are people whom we ought particularly to consider because they have done their service and they gallantly came forward at middle age to train Lord Kitchener's Army, and they arc going to get nothing out of the War. I think they ought to have some recognition by an advancing position for what they have done. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will consider the various points I have mentioned.
    Major ENTWISTLE: I wish to express my thanks to the Minister of Pensions for having accepted most of the recommendations contained in the Pensions Committee Report. It has been stated that this is very generous treatment on the part of the Government, but I do not quite agree with that, for I do not consider it is generous, although I admit it is a very considerable improvement. For instance, a single man has a rise of 7s. in his pension and the married man has an increase of from 17s. to 18s. a week. Everyone realises that those are considerable improvements. In the aggregate the cost to the country is something like £20,000,000 per annum. The maximum disability pension of 40s. a week, however, represents a pre-war value of about 19s. per week, and no one can say that is an extravagant sum for a man who has been totally disabled fighting for us in this War. Allowing for the fact that it is a permanent pension and that he is not subject to the possibility of losing it as industrial workers are liable to lose their wages, the fact remains that 19s. per week pre-war value is not a pension—

  ROYAL ASSENT.
  Whereupon, the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod having come with a Message, the Chairman left the Chair.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER resumed the Chair.
  Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.
  The House went, and, having returned,
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

  1.Finance Act, 1919.

  2.Anglo-French Treaty (Defence of France) Act, 1919.

  3. Treaty of Peace Act, 1919.

  4. Housing, Town Planning, Etc., Act, 1919.

  5. London County Council (General Powers) Act, 1919.

  6.Sheringham Gas and Water Act, 1919.

  7.Fylde Water Board Act, 1919.

  8. Llanelly Rural District Water Act, 1919.

  9. Falmouth Docks Act, 1919.

  10.Medway Conservancy Act, 1919.

  11.Stoney's Divorce Act, 1919.

  12.Pallin's Divorce Act, 1919.

  SUPPLY.
  Again considered in Committee

  MINISTRY OF PENSIONS.
  [Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]
  Question again proposed,
  "3. That a sum, not exceeding £45,855,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Pensions, and for sundry Contributions in respect of the Administration of the Ministry of Pensions Act, 1916." [NOTE.— £27,000,000 has been voted on account.]
  8.0 P.M.
  Major ENTWISTLE: When interrupted I was saying that although the improvement in the pension scales are very considerable they cannot be characterised as too generous, although they may be deemed as just as can be anticipated in the financial circumstances of the day. As regards the pensions as they exist to-day in reference to both single men and married men there is probably no country, except Italy, which pays a lower pension. I know in regard to single men that in the United States they had an elaborate war risk insurance scheme which made a complete difference to the parent scale. They also had a scale in Australia which gave a man with a wife a pension of as much as £3 a week. I must emphasise the point that, satisfactory as the changes are, they are by no means generous. I want next to raise the vexed question of statutory right. There is a good deal in. what the Minister has said that inasmuch as the right of appeal is included in the Statute that is all that matters, and that the demand for statutory right is largely one of sentiment. At the same time I agree with other speakers that this matter of sentiment is a very important thing. It is one which men think a great deal of. In regard to this question most Members of this House are pledged in favour of giving the statutory right. The Minister could easily concede the point without giving anything away, without any cost and without any trouble. The words which have been suggested by the Select Committee "legally entitled" could easily be inserted in the Act of Parliament, and if safeguards were taken to ensure that it shall not mean wholesale recourse to the Courts, and shall not involve tremendous machinery, there is no reason at all why the sentimental point should not be met in

  2385
  that way. The fact that the pension was given as a legal right could be made declaratory in a sense which would afford general satisfaction. We know that under the Royal Warrant the grant of a pension is as good as if it were contained in an Act of Parliament, Members of the House no doubt realise that, but ex-soldiers and the outside world have a feeling of uncertainty on the point. The Minister may not need to consult the Law Officers of the Grown in view of his own knowledge of the law, but if he will consult them I think he will find there need be no difficulty at all in inserting a provision which will satisfy everyone and which will be declaratory that the pension is a legal right to which the man is legally entitled. In many other countries—in New Zealand, France, and Canada for instance—it is a right declared by Statute, and in France it is so much so that there are various tribunals to which an applicant for a pension can go. First of all, he goes to the departmental tribunal. Afterwards he has n right of appeal to the Regional Court. He has also a right of appeal to the Conseil d'Etat. I do not think that is found to be at all impracticable.
  In dealing with the statutory right, one necessarily has to consider the important question of the right of appeal, and also the question of entitlement. The only difference suggested by the Minister was a slight alteration in the constitution of the Appeal Tribunal. I prefer the constitution as it exists now, though I do not know that the proposed alteration is one of very great importance. What a good many of us feel in regard to this question of entitlement is that the point ought not to have to be gone into at all when a man contracts disease or is injured in the course of his service, whether the injury was developed or aggravated by the terms of his service. It has been suggested, and I fully sympathise with the suggestion, that if a man is accepted by the Army as A 1, at any rate, then any subsequent injury or disease which he contracts during his service shall be deemed to be attributable to or aggravated by that service. I should like to see this question of entitlement swept away altogether. I have had very short experience of the operations of one of these tribunals, and I must say that most tribunals give the benefit of the doubt to the man. An hon. Friend near me dissents from that view, but, at any rate, it is to be hoped that the tribunals will mitigate the harshness of this principle, and I
  2386
  further trust it will be acknowledged that if a man is accepted as A I then the question of entitlement shall not arise. I am not sure that I am not prepared to go as far as to include in the same provision C 3 category cases.
  In regard to the question of appeal as to amount, that is a really contentious point. The right hon. Gentleman says the man will have a right to appeal to a medical Appeal Board, and that this board will be appointed by him. Apparently the whole advantage of this scheme is that these medical practitioners will be men at the hospitals readily accessible, so that it will not be difficult to set up an Appeal Court. I am prepared to accept that entirely, but I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will include in the Statute which he says he is going to pass as to the right of appeal, this question of entitlement? I think the right of appeal on amount, even to the tribunal he has himself suggested, ought to be included in this Statute, if really the man is to have that legal right to his pension which the right hon. Gentleman says he has given him by the announcement he made this afternoon. With regard to the question of the constitution of this medical Appeal Board, I will ask the right hon. Gentleman whether there will be any great difficulty in having a lay element introduced into it? I mean an ex-Service man whose wishes can be subordinated to those of the medical men. It would not be an expensive matter. The lay doctor could meet the convenience of the other members, and I do not think there would be any more delay if an ex-Service man were placed on the medical Appeal Board, while it would give a great deal of satisfaction and allay a great deal of suspicion with regard to that board. If the right hon. Gentleman will consider that point and make this very small concession, which could be done without any cost and without involving any delay, 1 think it would give a great deal of satisfaction.
  The right hon. Gentleman did not deal with one point in the Report of this Select Committee which has, I think, a paragraph to itself. It is with regard to the man Being told at once when he has his first board what this assessment is, it may be, as the right hon. Gentleman said nothing on this point, he intends that this shall be done. I think it is a most important thing. What has happened in the past? A man has had an assessment of the amount of his disability. He has

  2387
  heard rumours as to the amount at which the disability has been assessed, and it may be that the rumors is inaccurate, but the amount may subsequently have been reviewed at Chelsea. We know, of course, that that review is now to be abolished. It may be when the man gets the official notice he will find that his assessment has not been altered, but, owing to the lack of official information up to that time, and to the rumours which have got in circulation, a, great deal of dissatisfaction and suspicion have already arisen on that matter. It is not a very important point, but one which the Minister might concede
  There is another small point with regard to the sliding-scale adjustment which has been suggested by the Select Committee, and which the right hon. Gentleman said he was going to adopt, and that it would apply to alternative pensions. I should like to ask him how he proposes to adapt it with regard to alternative pensions? It cannot be quite on the same scale as the flat-rate pension, because if the cost of living falls 10 per cent, the flat-rate pension will fall 10 per cent. But as the alternative pension has merely been loaded up 60 per cent., if we can have the cost of living reduced by 40 per cent., I understand that, the loading up being only 60 per cent., the adjustment must be so made as to keep a stable proportion between the alternative pension and the flat-rate pension, which has been the basis, and personally I think that would be the more satisfactory basis. It has been mentioned that the present 20 per cent, bonus did not apply to pensions awarded before 1916. I was also informed the other day, to my great astonishment, that the 20 per cent, bonus did not apply to permanent pensions. I do not know whether that is correct. It was stated in a letter. The members of the Select Committee were very doubtful about it.
  Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: It does apply to the disability pension, but the hon. and gallant Gentleman may have had a letter with regard to the service pension, and it very probably was that.
  Major ENTWISTLE: I appreciate that most important distinction, and we considered it. I do not see how it can possibly be so, but if there is anything in that point we ought to have an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that these proposed new scales will apply to permanent pensions, to pensions awarded before 1916,
  2388
  and in fact they should be applied proportionately to everything which is contained in the Barnes Warrant. An assurance on that point would be very useful to people who have some doubt on the matter.
  I should like to emphasise the appeal made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Ashley) with regard to the date of pensions to dependants, say, a wife who was not in receipt of a separation allowance and had claimed a pension. There the pension only dates from the date of the application instead of from the date of death. That is a point on which there is considerable feeling. It is a very small matter which will apply to a very small number of cases, and the principle ought to be applied that the pension should be paid from the time that the right to it accrues. I would urge the right hon. Gentleman to use all his influence with the War Office on the question of pay being continued until the pension is granted, and also with regard to the great delay there is in the papers being sent from the War Office, whether it is the Record Office with regard to the men or the various departments in the War Office with regard to officers. We had some very interesting evidence given by Sir Douglas Haig, and he mentioned half a dozen specific cases with regard to officers. Correspondence was produced with regard to those cases, and we found that in almost every case the delay was due to the War Office. It took an average of six weeks for the papers to get from the War Office to the Ministry of Pensions, and when we remember that the War Office, which is guilty of these excessive delays, refuses to give a man his pay until he receives his pension, we cannot emphasise too strongly the injustice and the grievance which is justly felt at this intolerable position taken up by the War Office. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will regard it as a personal matter, because he gets a good deal of the opprobrium which ought justly to be placed at the door of the War Office. I again thank the right hon. Gentleman for having accepted the recommendations of the Committee, which is merely a redemption of our pledges, and is merely just treatment to our soldiers and sailors, and by no means too generous.
  Mr. LYLE: Everyone who read the resume of this Committee must have felt the greatest satisfaction at the Report, and I am certain that all Members who have heard the statement of the Minister

  2389
  of Pensions will now feel doubly satisfied in that he has substantially accepted the proposals of the Select Committee. Most of the speakers have felt that the whole question to them was more or less one of the maximum allowance to be granted, and therefore most of them felt that their speeches had been, so to speak, snatched from their hands. While we are all grateful for the increases which have been granted, I do not think that is the only point that arises. What we all want to do is to remove the sense of injustice and grievance which some of these men certainly have. Perhaps the most important point of all is not so much the amount of money which may be granted as a maximum pension, although that is a very important point, but the way this whole scheme is going to be administered. A great amount of dissatisfaction has arisen over the way that the whole scheme of pensions has been administered. I do not wish to gain any cheap credit by advocating enormous expenditure. I know the burden of debt that hangs round the neck of the country, and I do not want rashly to suggest that it should be increased without full consideration. The right hon. Gentleman is giving very substantial increases, but what I have in mind more is the treatment of the medical boards. So many of these medical boards look upon their job more or less in the same way as the big insurance company doctor looks at his job. The point of view of the insurance doctor is to see how little he can give the men. It is his job to act for the insurance company and to try to make a total disablement into a two-thirds disablement, and a two-thirds disablement into a half disablement. Doctors are just as humane as anyone else, but they have got it into their heads that if there is a doubt the benefit of the doubt must not go to the man but must go to the other side. New ideas should be put into the heads of these medical boards. The men are entitled to liberal treatment, and if we err we should err on the side of being liberal rather than niggardly with these people. The feeling of dissatisfaction and soreness amongst these men is too big a matter to be played with, and from the point of view of expediency and of justice it is absolutely essential that there should be no feeling of soreness or harsh treatment left upon any of these men. Some of the methods are inquisitorial to say the least of it. I have known cases where men have come up to a medical board,
  2390
  and one of the first questions they have been asked is what wages they have been earning. It seems to me that is an absolutely wrong question to ask.
  Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: The hon. Member probably knows that question has been withdrawn. The men were always told they need not answer it unless they liked, but even then they allowed it to worry them, and now it is entirely withdrawn. No one has any right whatever to ask the question.
  Mr. LYLE: I am very glad to hear that statement. It will do good that such a statement has been made publicly in this House. Sometimes these doctors do ask this question, although they are not entitled to ask it, and although it is not with the sanction of the Ministry of Pensions.
  Dr. MURRAY: Were they not originally ordered to ask the question?
  Mr. LYLE: If it is not to be allowed any more I am very pleased to hear it. We hear about certain bad employers exploiting men's pensions, and if a doctor or a board are allowed to ask a man what his wage is then in a similar way they are exploiting him in order to set his pension reduced, just as certain employers of labour have exploited men by giving them a lower wage because they were in receipt of pension. It is quite easy 10 criticise, but I do not wish to criticise in any unfriendly spirit. I am certain that the present Minister of Pensions and his assistants are all sympathetic. They have the interests of these men at heart as much as any one of us, and their interest; is second to none. We can only help by giving instances of the cases that come to our personal knowledge. Apart from the question of the Board and giving the men in every case the benefit of the doubt, there is the question of the war orphan. It is not a very big point, so far as numbers are concerned, but the position which arises is deplorable. There are in my own Constituency quite a number of war orphans who arc in Poor Law institutions. I have not the exact figures, because I was not able to get them, but it is a dreadful thing and nothing short of a calamity that the child of a man who has been out and has suffered and has been broken and finally has died in serving his country, should leave behind him a child who has to take refuge in a Poor Law institution. If that man had lived he

  2391
  would have seen that his child was in better circumstances, and he would have seen that it had a chance in life. Perhaps the child's whole future may be blighted by the father's death, and it is intolerable to every right-thinking man that because of the sacrifice this man has made his child has to suffer in this way. I asked a. question on this point on the 16th of July, and I had a most sympathetic answer from the Minister of Pension, who had also consulted with the Minister of Health; but a sympathetic answer is not enough. We must have definite and immediate action, and we must remove this scandal and this dishonour. It is a dishonour to the whole nation that this state of affairs should exist. Whatever the cost, the country will not begrudge it for a thing of this sort. There ought to be an institution set up in the country quickly in order to remedy this crying shame.
  There is another point which I mentioned the other day by way of question, and that is burial charges. The charges in my own district for burial amount to 10 guineas, and all that is allowed by the Ministry of Pensions is £7 10s. I know the argument will be used that the Ministry of Pensions must be careful what they do with their money, and it must not be thought that they will pay increased charges to any extent or the unscrupulous undertaker will soon get more. But if the cost is really 10 guineas for a burial the full cost should be given to the widow or the relatives. In a certain case the local war pensions committee quite recently authorised the people to go ahead, although £7 10s. was all that was allowed, and they expected that the balance of the 10 guineas would be surcharged, but instead of that the money was deducted from the sum which was due to the widow. I am sure the Minister of Pensions will agree with me that such injustices very soon become something more than injustices; they become what is worse, a festering sore which irritates and inflames. A real injustice to a widow or a child of a man who has given his all for his country will do more in a day to create a revolution than all your Smillie's, your Henderson's, or your Maclean's could do in a whole year by windy, wordy vituperation. It is for that reason that with great confidence I put these cases before the Minister, and I hope that he will deal with them, par-
  2392
  ticularly the case of the war orphan, because that does create a most appalling sense of grievance. If he can remedy these grievances he will add yet another item to the debt of gratitude which we owe him.
  Mr. F. C. THOMSON: I endorse very heartily what has fallen from the hon. Member who has just spoken. There can be little doubt that nothing is more dangerous to this country than the feeling of reaction produced in the mind of a man who has done in every way what he could at a time of national crisis, if he feels that somehow or other his services have not been fully requited and his children have to suffer. The Ministry of Pensions are only too pleased when any cases are brought before their notice in which injustice has been suffered. I would like to add my tribute to what has been said in regard to the work of the Ministry. The ordinary Member of Parliament who has to make inquiries about many matters affecting his constituents feels that the Minister of Pensions and his officials do all they canto assist. That is a common experience. Therefore, it is in no carping spirit that any criticisms that are made are offered.
  I should like to draw attention to the case of the skippers of the R.N.R.T. These men are officers, and the local pensions committees have no power to make advances to them. I have heard of a number of very hard cases that have occurred. The wife, after her husband's death, is paid separation allowance for six months, but in many cases a delay occurs before the pension arrangements are completed. The skipper's wife as a rule has no financial resources, and but for the fact that the local war pensions committee have rendered aid, although they have no power whatever to assist, she would have to go to the parish. Numerous cases of that kind have been brought to my notice. In one case there was a delay of six months before the woman was paid her pension. The local war pensions committee came to her aid, although they had no power to do so, and they notified the. Ministry that they were making a weekly payment of 27s. to her, even without power to do so. If it had not been for that assistance this woman, the wife of a gallant skipper, would have had to go to the parish for aid. Probably in the new regional arrangements that are being made provision will be made for the local

  2393
  war pensions committee being able to make advances to the wives of these skippers who, being officers, have hitherto not been afforded such assistance.
  Considerable dissatisfaction exists with regard to the inequality in the administration of parents' pensions. In some cases which have been brought to my notice women who had strong claims have only been awarded the fiat rate. In other cases surprise has been felt that those who were not entitled to more than the flat rate got more. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give attention to this matter. The pensions should be made a statutory right. There is a strong feeling on this point, which is quite reasonable. Medical boards is another point on which the discharged soldier feels strongly. I have considerable experience of medical boards myself. The great bulk of them are very kind. But now and again one comes across a board of very unreasonable people, who, as it were, seem to look upon the men who come before them as always trying to evade the truth. That is a position in which no man likes to be put. The difficulties, in the way at the present time of entirely independent medical boards, difficulties of personnel, and so on, have been pointed out. The hon. Member who has acted as chairman of the Pensions Committee said that it might not be possible to give effect to this idea at once. But it is the goal to be aimed at in future. The ordinary soldier who goes before a board is sometimes tongue-tied and cannot make the most of his case, and in that case there is left a feeling of injustice which the Minister ought to remove in every possible way. If the Army takes a man as fit to be shot at, it must be held to have got a fit man. I heard recently of a man who went into the Army perfectly fit in every way. He went to South Africa, and after eight months was discharged from the Army on account of deafness. He had lain out a lot, but it was held by the boards that his deafness was not due to his war service. But to the ordinary man res ipsa loquitur. Owing to the condition in which he was discharged from the Army he has never been able to get a proper job since. It is a genuine case. It is all very well to be told that this man had a predisposition towards deafness. The fact is that he went into the Army in no way deaf and he came out deaf. That man's case ought not have been turned down. Once the medical authorities pass a man as fit it should be he-Id that they have got a fit man.
  2394
  Then in the case of a 100 per cent, disability man, if he has served in a previous war and got a pension that really counts against him. That is not fair. He got his pension for previous services, and even if he has 100 per cent, disability in this War, he ought to be regarded as starting again, and anything which he got for previous services should not be counted against him. I understand that a recent Regulation has been published that in the case of any grant by war pensions committees being irregular or unreasonable they should be disallowed and surcharged on any member of the committee by whom the payment was made or authorised. I fully concur in what was said as to the necessity of making slack and inefficient local committees do their work well. But on certain large local committees where people at the outbreak of this War did most admirable voluntary work it is considered rather unfair if such people are to be held financially responsible in respect of any irregular or unreasonable grant that may be made. They are quite willing to take all care to see that the Regulations are carried out. I am aware that there is a right of appeal, but if this Regulation, which was published on 19th April, is enforced drastically, it might have the result of producing the resignation from committees of a great number of people who have done very valuable voluntary work during many years since early in this War. Therefore 1 would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he should consider whether it is desirable to enforce this Regulation, which is felt to be harsh and unreason able, and may lead to the loss of voluntary workers who have now great experience, and whose services are very valuable. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on having accepted in such a generous way the recommendations which have been made by the Committee. In doing so the Government have done one of the best day's work which they have ever done for the great bulk of the population of the country.
  Mr. W. GRAHAM: Hon. Members will agree that there is no difference of opinion between us as to the object we have in view. What has occurred really is a competition in our constructive criticism to try to help, and not to hinder, the work of this great public Department. It is in that spirit that I wish to address a few practical criticisms to the Minister of Pensions. I am glad to think that, to

  2395
  some minor extent, some of us were associated with a scheme for the decentralisation of war pensions administration in this country. We realised almost from the outset, what the right hon. Gentleman and all those who have worked on war pensions committees have realised, that a very large amount of the unrest and dissatisfaction are due not so much to the terms of the Warrant, or even to the scale of the pensions which were in operation, inadequate as they were, but to the weakness and inefficiency of the administration. Very large numbers of both voluntary and paid workers rendered all the help in their power, but they were defeated, largely by a system which was wrong from the roots. Now we have arrived at the establishment ment of regional districts throughout the country. I desire to press this point very strongly on the Minister: that if these regional districts are going to be efficient, we shall have to depend to a large extent on the efficiency of the unit, the local war pensions committee. As long as the War lasted we had the advantage of a large number of voluntary workers. For various reasons, many of which are not within their control, they are now giving up their services, and we shall require to rely in many districts more and more on paid help. Most unfortunately, just when we have reached this stage of decentralisation of war pension administration, we are confronted with the fact that many of the local war pensions committees, even where they have a paid staff of some experience, are not familiar with the ordinary rules and regulations of the Department. One would imagine that at this hour there could be very little doubt or difference of opinion regarding such a thing as the administration of the childless wife's allowance. There were conditions as to inability, from the point of view of physique, for work or employment, but those conditions were modified, and I think I am correct in saying that at the present time either inability to work, or the fact that the applicant has been unaccustomed to work, or mere failure to find employment, is sufficient to entitle an applicant to this 6s. 6d. extra where no separation allowance is available beyond the rate for a soldier who is without children. While those facts are plain, it is true, not so much in the country districts as in some of the large urban centres, that perfectly unreasonable questions are put to these
  2396
  applicants, and in many eases the grant is being refused or withheld on grounds that the Ministry itself could never sanction.
  For example, without giving details of towns, one large local war pensions committee actually required an applicant to fill up an additional form which had reference to a local fund, before they agreed to pay the 6s. 6d. per week. Other committees have asked questions regarding allowances, the general circumstances of the home, and have even inquired into character and so forth. That, I think, can hardly be justified. For this state of affairs I am not blaming the Ministry in any way, still less do I blame some of the paid workers of the local war pensions committees. They have not had great experience of this class of work. On the other side, it is impossible for a large Ministry responsible for thousands, it may be hundreds of thousands of cases, to keep an eye on occurrences of that kind. I am quite content at the moment to take the facts as they are and to try to point to a line of remedy. We have the first remedy in the establishment of the regional district. We have made the Regional Director the Minister of Pensions for the area over which he presides. He is going to rely on the local war pensions committee for the efficiency of his work, and my respectful suggestion is that it may be worth while to apply in the districts throughout the country the device you have adopted at headquarters in London, and to instruct the workers, paid and voluntary, in the regulations and the whole range of duties they have to undertake. That should be possible. Having instructed the workers, the next step would be to make absolutely certain that all applicants and would-be applicants were made fully aware of the terms and the allowances to which they are entitled either under the War Office or under the regulations of local war pensions committees. I think most Members will agree that it is extraordinary, after nearly five years of war and two or three years of war pensions administration on the lines we are now discussing, that it should be possible for any dependant of a soldier to write and ask us if she is entitled to sickness allowance, yet within quite recent days I and other Members have had letters asking such questions. Perhaps a great deal of blame does attach to the, applicant under these circumstances, but at the moment I have more particularly the rural district in mind. I know that in

  2397
  many of these country districts there are not the facilities for bringing within the reach of applicants a general knowledge of the regulations. I know that the Ministry has attempted a very great deal in bringing the benefits to the notice of the people, but probably the hour has come when we should try to put in a very simple form, for the benefit of all concerned, exactly what they are entitled to under local war pension committee regulations, so that there may be no doubt on the point, and to place that information in centres which they are in the habit of using every day, perhaps every hour of most days, in the localities in which they reside.
  Very briefly I desire in the second place to call attention to a very hard class of ease which has come under the notice of all who are engaged in war pensions administration. I refer to that class of case where a pension has been refused to the discharged man himself, or has been refused to a dependant of the discharged man after he has died. Let me give a case in Edinburgh which came under our notice a few days ago. Two years ago a soldier who had rendered very distinguished service in the War was invalided out. It was held afterwards that he had fully recovered from the illness which caused his discharge. Within quite recent times he fell again in ill-health, from a different disease from the one for which he was discharged, and as a result of a very few days attack he passed away, leaving a widow and five young children. The controversy with the Ministry of Pensions then started. I am making no accusation at all, because I can claim to have received a very large measure of consideration at its hands. The Ministry ruled that the illness from which that discharged man died could not in any way be associated either with the illness for which he was discharged or with the service that he had rendered in the War, and the effect of that service upon his health. Against that I put the certificate of a very eminent medical man in Edinburgh, the considered verdict of one of the most outstanding men in his profession, that that discharged man could have resisted the disease with which he was attacked, but for the fact that during his period of service his health had been undermined by the other illness he had incurred, and he was not able to fight this new attack. The present position of that case is this, that except for anything that may be done to the extent of a few shil-
  2398
  lings per week, that widow and her five children, all under fourteen years of age, have to face the future under the darkest and unhappiest possible auspices. The only possible course under existing conditions, unless some friend is forthcoming, for that widow and children is to rely upon the Poor Law for such allowances as are afforded under the Scottish Poor Law administration. I need hardly remind hon. Members that so carefully do we guard our money North of the Tweed that anything she may receive will in no way maintain her and her five children. That seems a very hard and very unjust position. I know that according to the rules of the Department the case may be excluded, although I hope still that it is not beyond the reach of agreement. I want to impress upon, the Parliamentary Secretary the fact that even one case of that kind happening in the locality where the woman resides, and where they knew the man in health and strength at work, and the fact that the woman and her children are compelled to turn to the Poor Law, is sufficient to hinder and to hamper the best activity of a local war pensions committee in that area.
  9.0 p.m.
  I have had rather hard experiences in these matters, but I have no desire to inflict my personal experiences on the House. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Barnes) happens to know that I was responsible for the very large part of this work in the City of Edinburgh, and in the light of that experience I do press most strongly upon the Ministry the consideration that the time has come when within the machinery of war pensions regulations we must establish a compassionate Department of the Ministry or a Department under another name, by which cases of that kind can be considered. I know that it is utterly impossible to frame any Warrant or any set of regulations which will meet all the conditions and all the cases which will arise. It would be idle for anybody to attempt that task when we know that, having made all allowances for elasticity, there will still be the cases of undeniable hardship. Let us try to relegate those cases to a sympathetic Department which will consider them upon their merits and give a Grant under some head, in order that the widow and children of men who have died in the service of the country may not be penalised. Another consideration which I desire to advance is in reference to a very important point raised by the Minister in his introductory

  2399
  speech. We in the South and East of Scotland and, indeed, throughout Scotland generally, have lost a very large part of our population within recent years by emigration to Canada and other parts of the world. That is true also—although, perhaps, not so acutely—of England and Wales. Those men went to Canada and established homes, and many of them married, and many were unmarried men who were rapidly piling up wealth and prosperity in the Dominions beyond the seas. Not forgetting their relatives at home, they made allowances from week to week or from month to month till the commencement of the War, when they joined the Canadian or other forces. A very large number of those men have, unfortunately, fallen in action, leaving those dependent parents behind on this side. Where the dependants were wives they were covered, up to recent times, by the Canadian War Pensions Regulation. Where they were dependants of single men who had served from Canada they were covered by the allowances made. But a very large number of aged parents remained. The aged parents of married sons in Canada, although they depended in many ways to a material extent upon those sons, were refused any allowance under the Canadian War Pensions Regulations, and it was ruled—because we discussed the matter with the Ministry here—that they were not entitled to anything tinder our British Warrants or under what was provided by the local war pensions committees. Quite recently, I am glad to think, there has been some modification of that very harsh and unjust rule by the Canadian pension authorities, but may I mention that the consideration is not yet in any way adequate, nor does it meet the acute and growing needs of those people because of their age at the present time. I would respectfully suggest that it is well worth the consideration of the Ministry of Pensions whether it should not embark on a kind of unified or uniform policy with the Canadian War Pensions Department and with the war pension authorities of other parts of the British Empire, and make it absolutely certain that, if these dependants are not provided for under one set of Regulations, that they will be fully covered under another.
  Let me allude to one or two aspects of the disablement scheme. The training for new occupations has been transferred to
  2400
  the Ministry of Labour, but the duty of providing treatment, which is the preliminary to that training, remains with the Ministry of Pensions. I desire to pay all possible tribute to the work which the Ministry of Pensions has done in this respect, and also to the very large amount of ground which has been overtaken by the joint disablement committees throughout the country. There are, however, one or two difficulties which, despite that activity, we have not succeeded in solving. There is, first of all, the difficulty of providing treatment for the neurasthenics. A very large number of men have been discharged in various stages of neurasthenia as a result either of their experience in France in the firing line or of the hardship through which they have passed. In many cases that neurasthenia was in the incipient or initial stage when they left the Colours, and was not even apparent to the medical men who examined them; but the minute those men are up against the hard grind of daily toil, or the noise of the factory or the workshop, and came back to industrial conditions, neurasthenia or nerve trouble commenced to manifest itself in their lives. So far the disablement committees have afforded help and established centres for its treatment, but I have come, with some regret and hesitation, to the conclusion, in the light of experience in the South-east of Scotland, that we are probably on the wrong lines in trying to treat neurasthenia on what I may call the principle of association—that is, gathering comparatively large numbers of neurasthenics under one roof and treating them there in a kind of colony. The very same criticism applies, and, I think, with far more emphasis, to the case of epileptics. In point of fact, our efforts in that direction absolutely broke down, because we could not get the patients to remain together, and we had to abandon the whole business more or less in deep despair. Now, the difficulty and drawback of this associated treatment is this, that, while it may apply to mild neurasthenia, it is just about the worst thing we could devise for the advanced cases of neurasthenia, because, when these men are herded together—I do not use that phrase offensively—under one roof, ray experience in disablement-scheme work has been that they immediately start to interchange views on their troubles and their anxieties, and one depressed or gloomy man in that colony has the effect of para-

  2401
  lysing the efficient treatment, even from the medical point of view, of quite a large number of his fellows.
  May I make this suggestion, with all respect, to the Ministry? Let them try to devise a system of boarding out, so to speak, the worst cases of neurasthenia. I would like to see these men placed either on farms or with people in the rural districts up and down the country, where they would have the benefit of the association of only a small number of people, and that number of people happy and healthy and generous in outlook. At the same time, let us try to give them the benefit of employment in the kind of conditions I have tried to picture, and we shall find that we are doing far more to effect their recovery than we are doing now by comparatively expensive institutions, no matter how perfect and how thoroughly up-to-date these may be. That applies to the advanced case of the neurasthenic. With reference to the mild case, I should suggest, as I also suggest for the cases of incipient consumption, the wide extension of convalescent treatment on the lines recommended in the Report of the Committee which has inquired into this matter. I believe it would be one of the soundest investments for the Ministry of Pensions as this time to devote its activity as far as it possibly can to the prevention of the disease rather than to its cure after it has emerged, and the value of that convalescent treatment for these men who are on the border-line of their discharge at the present time would be this, that we could take them for one month or two months per annum out of their employment and give them the benefit of the fresh air and the healthy surroundings of a convalescent colony of the kind I have mentioned, and we should find by doing that, that either the neurasthenia, in many cases, or the consumption itself would be arrested or cured, and that investment of public money, which could be used also for the civilian population, would be the means of preventing the expenditure later in the day of very large sums when, I regret to think from rather hard and painful experience, many of these cases arc beyond our cure and care. I feel that, perhaps, I have detained the Committee at undue length, but these are very important considerations, as they seem to me, in war pensions administration. I desire, before resuming my seat, to congratulate the Minister on the very large measure of success he has achieved in the concessions
  2402
  announced. I respectfully appeal to him to back up that success with equal success in the sphere of curative effort, and I can assure him, from the standpoint of the local war pensions committees throughout the country, that if that policy, broad, generous, statesmanlike, is adopted, he may rely upon all our sympathy and all our help and consideration in the days to come.
  Sir JOHN BUTCHER: As a member of the Pensions Committee, I desire to offer my sincere thanks to the Pensions Minister and the Government for having so promptly and sympathetically adopted nearly all the important recommendations of our Committee. This is a matter in which not only the disabled men in the country and their dependants feel very strongly, but it is a matter in which the country itself, without exception, feels strongly, and justly so, and I think the country will be grateful to the Government for having acted so promptly in this matter. A Report was produced on. Tuesday of this week, was accepted on Thursday, and is to be brought into operation next month. I think that is a sample of Government efficiency which might be imitated in all spheres so far as possible. I should like to make a few observations upon two points, and the first is the question of the statutory rights. To some that may seem a small point, but as a matter of fact it bulks somewhat largely in the views of those who are affected by it. They say, "Why should our right to pension depend upon a Royal Warrant? On the face of it, that is a mere matter of bounty. Why should not our rights be founded upon an Act of Parliament which declares our right to be legal?" To a certain extent it is a matter of form, but there is some substance behind it, and the fact that many people think there is some substance behind it and are very anxious to get the matter corrected, ought, I think, to influence the Government in making their decision. As a matter of fact, it will not cost them in administration or in anything else one single degree of efficiency. There is this curious anomaly at the present moment. The naval pensions are founded on an Act of Parliament, the Act of 1865, which says that naval men are to have their rights according to a certain scale to be laid down by Orders in Council. There has been no difficulty in working that Act. The Orders in Council are produced, and the hands of those

  2403
  who administer these naval pensions are not in the least hampered by the fact that the right to pension is found in an Act of Parliament. I therefore beg the Minister to reconsider his decision, to adopt the course which is suggested in paragraph 6 of our Report, and to assimilate the procedure as regards military pensions to the procedure which exists with regard to naval pensions, and in both cases to have the right founded on an Act of Parliament and not upon a Royal Warrant. The other point to which I wish to draw the Minister's attention is the question of the appeal on amount. We found in the evidence that we took that this was a matter which affected the minds of the people very seriously. I gather from the evidence given by the Pensions Minister that he has no real objection to an appeal on amount as regards permanent pensions. If that be so—and I trust that will be put into operation at once—I hope he will, as a matter of administration, adopt the same principle with regard to these temporary pensions, because temporary pensions go on very often for a long time. They may go on for one, two, or even a greater number of years, until finally the disability has got to be such that the doctor says it has reached a permanent stage, and that a pension must be allowed accordingly; and if it is necessary in the case of a permanent pension to have an appeal, I suggest that while they are reaching that permanent stage it would be only reasonable to say to the applicant, "If you want an appeal on the question of amount you shall have it just the same as if your application was now for a permanent pension." I know there may be difficulties, but, knowing the great efficiency and great administrative capacity of the Pensions Minister, and his most able assistant, the Parliamentary Secretary, I hope it is not beyond their power to carry that into effect.
  My last word is this. There have been undoubtedly most serious complaints. I do not suppose there is a Member of this House who has not got letters—almost despairing letters—from men themselves and from their dependants saying, "We cannot get our pensions fixed; we cannot even get an answer to our letters." Those defects, I think, have been largely swept away by the administrative capacity of the present Pensions Minister. He has got rid of a large number of arrears, and I believe
  2404
  in a very short time he will get rid of the rest. But I do impress upon him that this is a matter which very often affects the mind of these people almost as much as the amounts they are going to get. If there is delay, they feel they are being neglected, that their claims are not being heard, that their just claims are not being accepted by the Minister in the way in which they ought to be. Therefore, while I heartily congratulate him upon the vast improvement that has occurred with regard to these delays, I do hope that he will continue to devote his ability to answering letters and avoiding any delay that can possibly be avoided. Some of my hon. Friends have referred to other questions besides those contained in our Report. As to these, we hope to deal with them later on. We have dealt with what we thought were the most urgent ones, but if, as I hope, these reforms are not only set in motion by the Minister, but are dealt with by him promptly and effectively by way of administration, I think that he will give great satisfaction throughout the country, not only to these men and their dependants who have suffered, but to the country at large, who feel most deeply and earnestly that the claims of these men, who have fought for us, and won this great victory, should be the first charge upon the national gratitude and the national consideration.
  Mr. G. JONES: When I entered the House this afternoon, there were quite a number of points on which I thought soldiers and sailors had got a legitimate grievance, and to which I meant to call the attention of the House if I were so fortunate as to catch Mr. Speaker's eye, but after listening to the generous and statesmanlike speech of the Minister of Pensions I found, as many other hon. Members no doubt found, that the ground had been cut from my feet in regard to the main points. But there are some matters which are not mentioned, and it is to emphasise them that I have risen to- night. It would be a lamentable tiling if a great scheme, such as that outlined By the Minister of Pensions, were allowed to be damaged, or prevented from having its full effect, because of certain minor matters which have been overlooked. The hon. Member opposite has already dealt with one of these points, and that is the question of the position of men who went into the Army classified as healthy and who are either invalided or have died, and when a claim

  2405
  is made the doctors say, "Oh, that was not caused or aggravated by war service." I suggest that no doctor can trace the origin of disease with certainty. Doctors differ on the point. One may say it was caused by war service, and another may come along and say it was not. This House and country want the benefit of the doubt to be given in such cases to the men. We do not want the House of Commons to haggle on scientific questions as to whether it was caused by war service or not. A man came forward, was classified as fit, and was fit, before entering the Army. He has been invalided or he has died. We want to regard his illness or death as being brought about by the War. I know of a remarkable case in the constituency of the Minister of Pensions. A comparatively young man went there perfectly healthy and was classified A1. He was engaged on the clerical staff at Colchester, and was working night and day, and then sent with a draft to Russia. His health was undermined by constant and excessive work, and he fell ill and died. The widow put in a claim for a pension, and was told that her husband died of pneumonia, and it was not attributable to war service, but was the sort of thing from which anyone might suffer. I think that kind of case is an absolute scandal and a disgrace, and I am sure the sense and the conscience of the country are against a continuance of such a system.
  The other question to which I want to refer is the question of statutory right to a pension. I had the greatest possible difficulty in following the argument of the Minister of Pensions with regard to it. He is going to concede the statutory right to appeal, apparently, in regard to a bounty, but he will not concede that there should be a statutory right to a pension. When he came to the recommendation of the Committee with regard to an appeal on entitlement he made fun of incorporating such words in an Act of Parliament. If his objection is verbal, let him say what he would like, and we will not quarrel about it. We say that it is wholly against the feeling of the country that men can be given as a bounty that to which they say they ought to have as a right, and the country wants to give as a right. It is a. humiliation to these men that their pension should be given as though it were a charity, when we say they have earned it and saved the country by their valour. What were the arguments of the Minister of Pensions? So far as I could gather,
  2406
  they came to this, that if you give a legal right to a pension you must incorporate in the Statute the scale of pensions. The argument was completely knocked over by the hon. Member for Salford (Sir M. Barlow), who pointed out that in the Naval Act, where there is a statutory right to a pension, the scale is not incorporated, and why we cannot do for the soldier what we have already done for the sailor passes my comprehension. I cannot help feeling that my right hon. Friend was not properly coached, or he would not have put forward such an argument as he did. He apparently did not discover that the scale of pensions was not even in the Naval Act, and I do hope he will go into it a little more fully and concede that which the conscience of the country demands shall be conceded. It would seem that some subordinate official in the Ministry of Pensions has some clever point—they do have clever points in these Departments—and has been pulling the Minister's leg, and caused him to take up this position, which I say is wholly indefensible from a logical point of view. If the right hon. Gentleman has any real reason, I do hope he will tell us what it is. If there is a reason we ought to know it, and if there is no reason I venture to suggest that the whole objection against conceding a statutory right to a pension has entirely disappeared.
  The other point I desire to support is this—it has been put by many hon. Members—that there should be an appeal, not merely on entitlement, but also on amount. They might give a man such a small pension that it is little better than no pension. The Minister of Pensions said, "We have had 926,000 cases in six months. It is too many. We cannot cope with it. It is not practicable." I think the right hon. Gentleman is underestimating his own energy and his own ability. I feel quite convinced that if he took this job in hand, he would carry it through with the same success as he has done with many other things in his Department. To talk of 926,000 cases is misleading. You will only get appeals from those dissatisfied, and if a man gets a proper examination and something near what is fair he will not trouble about appealing, but will accept the award. I would suggest that in regard to Appeal Tribunals we might follow the idea of the, National Service Act. There we had local tribunals of impartial men to whom the applicant could tender his evidence and the Crown could tender their evidence and there could be cross-examination. I

  2407
  know there are objections to that, but we should bear in mind how doctors differ. One doctor will say a man is fit; another will say he will be dead in a few months, and very likely both are wrong. It is most undesirable that there should not be an opportunity of cross-examination of some of the doctors who settle a man's fitness. There could be nothing better than a number of laymen who could hear the doctors cross-examined and come to a conclusion which is the safer to follow. I know one particular doctor who advises the Ministry of Pensions and who has been honoured with a title, who, if he gets a nerve case, starts off with assuming the man is a fraud. It is very rough on a man who comes across such a doctor. If that doctor is brought before an impartial tribunal, he can be cross-examined on his little peculiarities as illustrated by his past history. The tribunal will soon arrive at the truth. We want an impartial tribunal to whom a man can tender evidence and have an opportunity of cross-examination. I hope this great scheme which the Minister of Pensions has brought forward will not be spoiled by these minor defects.
  Lieut.-Colonel WILLOUGHBY: I wish to thank the Minister of Pensions for having agreed to give old soldiers who have served in previous wars the same benefits as will be received by the men who have served in this War. I have always tried to speak for the old soldier in this House, and I know this will be a great benefit to him. During this War, when the state of the country was very serious—late in 1914 and early in 1915—we were largely dependent on numbers of old men who had finished their period in the Army, who were over forty-five years of age, yet who came forward and fought in our trenches and upheld the honour of the country. These men, through age and work, already suffered from certain infirmities. Very often they are refused pensions because it is said those infirmities were contracted before this War. I would like the Minister of Pensions to consider their oases and see whether they are not entitled to pensions. In exactly the same way Naval Reserve men and sailors were called up and went out to fight in the North Sea in the winter of 1914–15. They were invalided out, and because they had, owing to their calling, contracted rheumatics before the War, it stood in the way
  2408
  of their receiving disablement pensions. I maintain that that disability has been aggravated by the War. It is a cause of great dissatisfaction which we all wish to-avoid. Another question in connection with old soldiers is that of disablement benefit for men with some slight heart trouble or something of that sort. Many men I know are anxious to work, but are unable to take it because of their anxiety as to whether the pension will be continued. I hope those men will be given permanent benefit as soon as possible. I put forward the plea for old soldiers and hope that the Pensions Minister will be able to attend to them. I desire to thank him for his kindness in giving the advance in the old soldiers' pension for disablement in previous wars, and also for the very courteous way in which the Ministry have met any case put before them.
  Dr. D. MURRAY: I would join in the congratulations to the Minister of Pensions for the growing efficiency, I would almost say the growing humanity, of his Department, and add my testimony to those who have spoken of the courtesy received from the Department. It is a great pleasure to me that the system of regional areas has been adopted, because it will make for efficiency. The chief point I wish to touch upon is the question of entitlement. A great deal has been said about doctors in this Committee. One of the most cruel duties that can be placed on medical boards is that they should be asked to say whether a certain disease was caused by or has been aggravated by service in the War. It is not a question which should be put to a medical board. Perhaps this would add to the cost, but it would save a great deal of heart-burning and a well-grounded sense of injustice throughout the country if this question did not arise at all, and if the Government came to the conclusion that, if a man were disabled or died on service, from whatever cause, he should be entitled to the same consideration as a man in whose case a medical board had decided that his disability was due to his service. Most of us have come across cases of that sort. I have been in communication with the Ministry in regard to one case recently. It was the case of a young officer—an excellent officer he was—who died on service from a disease. It would be difficult to say that it was caused by service, but it would be just as difficult to say that it was not caused by service. How

  2409
  even a medical man could say that this particular disease was not aggravated by service passes my understanding. In that case the widow has been deprived of a pension for herself and her child because the disease was supposed not to be attributable to the man's service. I know that that is the case with some men that I have examined. I quite admit that the doctors may be wrong. In such cases, of course, the benefit should be given to the man concerned or to his widow or orphans, as the case may be.
  Doctors differ. Lawyers differ upon much simpler matters than those which come before the doctors, which sometimes are very difficult to decide. I strongly support the appeal to have this question of entitlement settled once for all, on the understanding that if a man has been taken into the Army, and has fought for his country, and was physically fit when he entered, that anything that happened to him subsequently should be regarded as due to his military service. This point, I hope, will be settled upon reasonable lines. As it at present stands the position is illogical and unscientific, and may, without difficulty, be accounted an injustice. Medical reports are certainly not perfect, but it must be remembered, after all, it is new work to medical men. The doctors on these boards do not act on their own unaided intelligence. They get orders from above. Many of the criticisms levelled at the individual doctors on these boards and against individual boards should be levelled at the Ministry of Pensions, and those who direct them there. For instance, a man may be assessed at 40 per cent., but it will be according to definite regulations which are laid down, and upon which the members of the medical board have to act. I myself have been a member of a medical board, and I trust, and think, I always gave a liberal interpretation to these various regulations. But, as I say, there are definite regulations on which the percentage, according to loss of limb, or other faculty, is assessed. It is so much percentage for the loss of a leg, so much for the loss of an arm, and so on. The assessment is in proportion to the disability incurred. I think the doctors do their best to adjust their duties, in the first place not losing sight of the interests of the man, and, in the second place, they have in view the fact that they are paid to do their duty to the Ministry of Pen-
  2410
  sions and they must therefore abide by its rules. I think it will be found that; 95 per cent, of the medical men on the boards are inclined to put the most liberal interpretation possible upon the regulations sent from headquarters, so that I hope, in the criticisms which are made, and justly no doubt, on the awards made by these boards, it will be remembered that the doctors are acting under instructions from above. Sometimes these instructions are not inspired from right above, and it may be that sometimes some of them are from below.
  Another point in connection with the medical boards. There is too much clerical work put upon the shoulders of the men who examine. One man may be doing the work whilst the other two are writing up the records. There should be a clerk to do this. If there was, a good deal more work could be done, and more attention could be given by the three men to individual cases, instead of the thing working out as it does at present. That is a practical point. It received the attention of the Minister of Pensions. One; other point—that is, the suggestion that a man should be told at once what he has been assessed at. I must admit that I sacrcely agree with that view. I should not like to be a member of a medical board which did that. In view of a certain humanitarian principle involved, I think that, at any rate, there should be a little interval between the assessment and the announcement of it. Yet, on the other hand, it should be told the man as quickly as it can reasonably be done.
  Mr. J. W. WILSON: I am very glad to be able to join the rest of the House in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Pensions Minister, not only respecting his admirable Report, but I wish to congratulate the Committee on the result of their labours. By common admission and in common experience it is acknowledged that the Minister has quickened up his Department, and that his labours have tended to improve administration throughout. I only hope he may have strength and energy to continue that good work, and particularly in the administration to see the reforms which he has in view are carried out. One of the most necessary wants in regard to the ultimate and permanent benefit of the recipients of the pensions is that they should know at the earliest possible moment consistent with the medical examination the permanent

  2411
  pensions which they are going to get. This from the Labour point of view is most necessary. It is the chief point raised here because it is human nature that the man who feels that the matter is affecting his employment, whilst at the same time he is getting over the strain and his earning power is increasing each week, should suspect that the calculation and assessment of his pension is affected by the fact of his increasing employment. It is human nature to suspect this; therefore, the sooner it can be said to him, "There is your pension, take it, and make the best of the powers you have left," the better. That is the essence of all pensions administration. That leads me to my second point. I hope in carrying out the administration of his Department the right hon. Gentleman will bear in mind, not only in large towns and centres of population where it has been comparatively easy to provide war hospitals and other institutions for the permanent treatment of cases of partial disablement, or damaged limbs, or refitting of limbs, or electrical or massage treatment for the partially disabled, and men of partially recovered powers, but over the whole country to spread these benefits with the greatest possible speed. It is more difficult to do this in country districts. On the other hand, there are cases where men have been demobilised, after perhaps many months and even years undergoing hospital treatment, and on recovering so far they go back to their homes and find no arrangement whereby they can have treatment for the rescue of the affected limb or the power they have partially lost. In many instances, owing to the admirable hospital treatment, these men have recovered in a surprising degree. I have had cases brought to my notice in connection with hospital work where we have seen the men losing their powers which they had recovered in hospital in consequence of lack of treatment. That, I think, has arisen, partly, at all events, owing to the transference of supervision from the hospital and the military authorities to the Pensions Department. I know the right hon. Gentleman has had a great deal to struggle against in getting these various systems to work in the country, but I ask his special consideration to these matters, because I feel it is one thing to grant a money pension, but it is a greater thing still to restore the powers which the man has lost in the service of his country.
  Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: I think it would be for the convenience of the Committee, as this Debate stops at ten o'clock, if I endeavour now to reply to several points. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, that it should be and is our desire, as soon as possible, and as soon as individual cases-permit, to get to the final stage, so that the-man may know what his pension is, and then he can build on a pensions foundation the superstructure which really means his-future life. I am equally in agreement with my right hon. Friend that we have got to get the treatment right down to the man. He is aware that in the towns it is probably done with a considerable degree of success already, but in the more sparsely populated districts it is much more difficult. A system has been established, and not with any long delay, by which we hope to have the country properly covered.
  May I express to the Committee my extreme gratitude for the extraordinary chorus of praise that I have had the pleasure of listening to to-day? I begin to wonder whether some evil fate is not in store for me when everybody is so extremely kind as they have been to-day. It seems to me that the more hon. Members realise what pensions administration is the more kindly they are to any faults on our part, and on the part of those who have been in close touch with the work either on the local war pensions committee or on the Select Committee of the House, and I find it is those who arc most forbearing to our shortcomings. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Gorton (Mr. Hodge) I wish to thank for his extremely generous reference to the work which I have been able to do, and I am glad that his large-heartedness has made him give expression to sentiments for which I am very grateful. Many very useful suggestions and questions have been raised in the course of this Debate, and if I am not able in the, short time at my disposal to deal with all of them, the Committee will realise that it is not for want of will but want of time, and I will undertake that no single suggestion that has been made in Committee to-day shall be passed by without the most careful consideration. To-morrow or the next day the Official Report of this Debate shall be brought to me with every suggestion noted, and I will personally undertake to go into the reasons for and against every suggestion that has been made.

  2413
  Let me deal with some of them. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Fairfield Division of Liverpool (Major Cohen) raised a very useful point with regard to the method of supplying artificial limbs. He suggested that the French system was better than our own, but I am not so sure of that The French system necessitated the man with an artificial limb requiring repair or refitment to go to the nearest police station and get instructions from the police. The French have found that some local agency in the village or town or on the spot was necessary to deal with these cases. We find that too, but instead of using the policemen we are using the local war pensions committees, and I think, on the whole, our system is better. That, however, does not preclude the suggestion for a speedier and easier method of getting repairs done, and that point will be very carefully considered. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Blackpool (Colonel Ashley) made a series of suggestions, as, indeed, one would expect him to do, seeing that he is one of the collectors of all these suggestions, and his great organisation naturally keeps him well informed. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said that at the Ministry of Pensions he thought too many women were employed, and ho asked me to consider whether some of them could not be replaced by discharged men. I have already told the Committee that of the men employed at the Ministry of Pensions 81 per cent are discharged officers or men, and that is a very large percentage, and I do not mind telling the Committee that wherever I get an opportunity I am pressing on other Ministers that they should follow the same example in the Government service.
  Whether more men can be employed rather than women is a point which must be decided by the heads of the sections and branches and the various divisions. I can only give a general instruction, and I hold the heads of the Departments responsible for the efficient working of the staff, and I can only to a certain extent interfere with the staffing.
  In the pensions issue office, which employs 4,000 or 5,000, it is mostly women's work, and it is hardly work which we should find a discharged man would do. In peace time a great deal of the Post Office Savings Bank and issue work has been done by women, and the pensions Issue Office is very similar work in which women can be very reasonably employed.
  2414
  While wishing not only to be fair to the men, but more than fair, I have also to be fair to the women. These women were employed at a time when we could not get men during the War, and they have qualified themselves for the work. Am I to turn them into the street? Frequently they are widows of men who have suffered in the War, and sometimes they are the children of those men, and no general rule of so much per cent, of men and a reduction of the number of women can possibly be laid down. I must try and do my best at headquarters and through the local organisations for the employment of discharged men, but I feel sure the Committee will not press me more than that.
  The same hon. and gallant Gentleman asked various other questions, but I think I had, better deal with them in a general way, and I will consider them afterwards, because there are one or two other points which I want to deal with. The hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Lyle) raised the question of war orphans, and he said there were a large number of them in the workhouse. I wish he would let me know where, because at West Ham I heard the same story, and I took a great deal of personal care, and sent people to see how many were there. I found there were eight war orphans in that workhouse, but they are not there now, and they have not been there for three or four weeks. There arc some children there of serving soldiers, but I am not entitled to interfere with them, except under certain circumstances; but in the case of the war orphans I am their official guardian, and if any hon. Member finds war orphans in any Poor Law establishment I wish he would let me know, because it is my duty to see that they are not there, and I will undertake to see that they do not remain there.
  While we have had many useful suggestions, the Debate really has turned upon two main points, namely, the statutory right to a pension and the appeal as to amount. Let me deal with the statutory right to a pension. I believe that by giving the statutory right to appeal and by setting up a statutory Court we do everything in the way of recognising that the men are legally entitled to a pension that you would do if you put the words "legally entitled" into an Act of Parliament, taut, as I said earlier in the Debate, I am quite prepared to consider any words which will strengthen that position. I do not care whether it is sentiment or what it is, but

  2415
  if men trunk that they can get something which is not a bounty or charity but is something which they have earned, then I want to put those words into the Act, so that they may have no false shame about it, but may take that to which they are entitled. I will consider any words that can be suggested. It was proposed that a man should be told the amount of his pension at the first board. The difficulty about that is that the assessment may be altered afterwards by a Chelsea doctor. I do not want to leave the man under the impression that he can get 30 per cent. or 40 per cent. pension when he may find that it is altered afterwards. Contentment would not come that way; it would only lead to disappointment. As soon as the decentralisation is complete and as soon as I have got the Appeal Medical Boards going, the man shall be told at the first board what is his degree of disablement, and he shall be given the opportunity, if he chooses, of appealing to the Appeal Medical Board. I quite agree that it is desirable that there shall be a feeling, not merely of satisfaction, but that justice is being done to him, that he shall be told exactly what is his medical assessment, and that, if he does not like it, he shall be allowed to appeal.
  I cannot meet the Committee to any large extent on the question of the appeal on amount, but I will ask the Committee to take it from me that if this were done the pensions administration would break down. If during the last six months one man in ten had appealed, there would have been 70,000 appeals and not 10,000 of them would have been yet settled. Thus 60,000 men would now be waiting and would not be getting their pensions. I am not going to prophesy, but I dare say that we can keep on improving our machinery, and that under the regional organisation we shall be able to concentrate more than we can to-day. Certainly, when we come to permanent pensions, that which is going to determine a man's future, the case is totally different from the appeal on the question of amount. When we get there, I do not want to close the door, but, if you press this now, you will paralyse the machine and harm the man. If later on we can so improve the machinery that it becomes possible, I shall be the first to welcome an appeal also on amount. I do not think that I need add anything now except to repeat that I will consider all
  2416
  the suggestions that have been made, and to say once more how grateful I am to the Committee for their reception of the Pensions Estimates.
  It being Ten of the Clock, the Chairman proceeded, pursuant to Standing Order No. 15, to put forthwith the Question necessary to dispose, of the Vote under consideration.
  Question
  "That a sum, not exceeding £45,855,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Pensions, and for sundry Contributions in respect of the Administration of the Ministry of Pensions Act, 1916,"
  put, and agreed to.
  The CHAIRMAN then proceeded, pursuant to Order No. 15, to put severally the Questions, That the total amounts of the Votes outstanding in the several classes of the Civil Services Estimates and of the other outstanding Votes, including Supplementary Estimates, and the total amounts of the Votes outstanding in the Estimates for the Revenue Departments, and the Navy Excess Vote, be granted for the Services defined in those Classes and Estimates.

  MINISTRY OF PENSIONS.

    CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1919–20.—CLASS I.
    1. "That a sum, not exceeding £1,349,660, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class I. of the Estimates for Civil Services—namely:

    £

    4. Houses of Parliament Buildings (Supplementary sum)

    2,310

    9. Ministry of Labour, Employment Exchange and Insurance Buildings, Great Britain (Supplementary sum)

    500,000

    10. Public Buildings, Great Britain (Supplementary sum)

    847,350

    £1,349,660"

    Question agreed to.
    Class II.
    2. "That a sum, not exceeding £3,796,403, be granted to His Majesty, to complete

    2417
    the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class II. of the Estimates for Civil Servises—namely:

    £

    4.

    Home Office

    152,058

    5.

    Foreign Office

    109,668

    11.

    Board of Agriculture and Fisheries

    378,095

    18.

    Board of Control, England.

    116,650

    19.

    The Mint

    6

    20.

    National Debt Office

    11,236

    21.

    Public Record Office

    17,697

    22.

    Public Works Loan Commission

    8,851

    23.

    Registrar-General's Office, England

    41,459

    24.

    Stationery and Printing

    2,280,442

    26A.

    Privy Seal Office

    3,900

    27.

    Secret Service

    50,000

    Scotland.

    31.

    General Board of Control, Scotland

    29,734

    32.

    Registrar-General's Office, Scotland

    7,514

    Ireland.

    34.

    Household of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland

    2,304

    35.

    Chief Secretary for Ireland

    49,604

    36.

    Department of Agriculture
    and Technical Instruction

    328,588

    38.

    Congested Districts Board for Ireland

    69,750

    39.

    Local Government Board

    100,320

    40.

    Public Record Office

    5,945

    42.

    Registrar-General's Office

    9,595

    43.

    Valuation and Boundary Survey

    22,987

    £3,796,403"

    Question agreed to.
    Class III.
    3. "That a sum, not exceeding £7,850,379, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class III. of the Estimates for Civil Services—namely:

    £

    1.

    Law Charges

    135,132

    2.

    Miscellaneous Legal Expenses

    21,314

    3.

    Supreme Court of Judicature and Court of Criminal Appeal

    195,044

    £

    4.

    Home Office

    152,058

    5.

    Foreign Office

    109,668

    11.

    Board of Agriculture and Fisheries

    378,095

    18.

    Board of Control, England.

    116,650

    19.

    The Mint

    6

    20.

    National Debt Office

    11,236

    21.

    Public Record Office

    17,697

    22.

    Public Works Loan Commission

    8,851

    23.

    Registrar-General's Office, England

    41,459

    24.

    Stationery and Printing

    2,280,442

    26A.

    Privy Seal Office

    3,900

    27.

    Secret Service

    50,000

    Scotland.

    31.

    General Board of Control, Scotland

    29,734

    32.

    Registrar-General's Office, Scotland

    7,514

    Ireland.

    34.

    Household of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland

    2,304

    35.

    Chief Secretary for Ireland

    49,604

    36.

    Department of Agriculture
    and Technical Instruction

    328,588

    38.

    Congested Districts Board for Ireland

    69,750

    39.

    Local Government Board

    100,320

    40.

    Public Record Office

    5,945

    42.

    Registrar-General's Office

    9,595

    43.

    Valuation and Boundary Survey

    22,987

    £3,796,403"

    Question agreed to.
    Class III.
    3. "That a sum, not exceeding £7,850,379, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class III. of the Estimates for Civil Services—namely:

    £

    1.

    Law Charges

    135,132

    2.

    Miscellaneous Legal Expenses

    21,314

    3.

    Supreme Court of Judicature and Court of Criminal Appeal

    195,044

    2418

    £

    4.

    Land Registry

    32,605

    5.

    Public Trustee

    5

    6.

    County Courts

    189,277

    7.

    Police (England and Wales)(Supplementary sum)

    4,000,000

    10.

    Criminal Lunatic Asylums, England (Supplementary sum)

    7,366

    Scotland.

    11.

    Law Charges and Courts of Law

    64,700

    12.

    Scottish Land Court

    5,798

    13.

    Register House, Edinburgh

    36,314

    13A.

    Police (Scotland) (including a Supplementary sum of £530,000)

    710,000

    14.

    Prisons

    114,772

    Ireland.

    15.

    Law Charges and Criminal Prosecutions

    37,753

    16.

    Supreme Court of Judicature and other Legal Departments

    91,649

    17.

    Irish Land Commission

    577,335

    18.

    County Court Officers, etc

    75,911

    19.

    Dublin Metropolitan Police

    93,044

    20.

    Royal Irish Constabulary.

    1,285,223

    21.

    Prisons

    102,017

    22.

    Reformatory and Industrial Schools

    65,874

    23.

    Dundrum Criminal Lunatic Asylum

    9,246

    £7,850,379"

    Question agreed to.
    Class IV.
    4. "That a sum, not exceeding £19,854,570, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class IV. of the Estimates for Civil Services—namely:

    £

    1.

    Board of Education

    16,353,111

    2.

    British Museum (including a Supplementary sum of £10,000)

    129,714

    3.

    National Gallery

    11,167

    4.

    National Portrait Gallery

    3,211

    5.

    Wallace Collection

    5,315

    6.

    London Museum

    2,400

    7.

    Imperial War Museum (including a Supplementary sum of £37,300)

    48,500

    8.

    Scientific Investigation, etc.

    63,974

    2419

    £

    9.

    Scientific and Industrial Research

    162,815

    10.

    Universities and Colleges, Great Britain, and Intermediate Education, Wales

    645,700

    10A.

    Universities, etc., Special Grants

    300,000

    10B.

    Serbian Relief Fund

    12,500

    Scotland.

    12.

    National Galleries Ireland.

    4,887

    Ireland

    13.

    Public Education (including a Supplementary sum of£451,280)

    1,822,636

    14.

    Intermediate. Education. Ireland

    89,000

    15.

    Endowed Schools Commissioners

    492

    16.

    National Gallery

    2,650

    17.

    Science and Art

    155,498

    18.

    Universities and Colleges

    41,000

    £19,854,570"

    Question agreed to.

    Class V.
    5. "That a sum, not exceeding £696,246, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the. Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class V. of the Estimates for Civil Services—namely:

    £

    1.

    Diplomatic and Consular Services (Supplementary sum)

    205,885

    2.

    Colonial Services

    482,061

    3.

    Telegraph Subsidies

    7,300

    4.

    Cyprus (Grant in Aid)

    1,000

    £696,246"

    Question agreed to.

    Class VI.
    6. "That a sum, not exceeding 10,327,838, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class VI. of the Estimates for Civil Services, namely:
    2420

    £

    1.

    Superannuation and Re-tired Allowances

    469,649

    2.

    Miscellaneous Expenses (including a Supplementary sum of £5,000)

    21,744

    3.

    Hospitals and Charities, Ireland

    738

    4.

    Temporary Commissions

    85,000

    5.

    Repayment to the Local Loans Fund

    5,011

    6.

    Ireland Development Grant

    135,000

    7.

    Government Hospitality

    110,000

    8.

    Expenses under the Representation of the People Act

    200,000

    9.

    Development Fund

    1,000,000

    10.

    Road Improvement Fund

    8,250,000

    11.

    Mission of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to Canada

    5,000

    12.

    Repayments to the Civil Contingencies Fund

    45,696

    £10,327,838"

    Question agreed to.

    Class VII.
    7. "That a sum, not exceeding £25,987,265, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in Class VII. of the Estimates for Civil Services, namely:

    £

    1.

    Old Age Pensions

    10,892,000

    2.

    National Health Insurance, Joint Committee

    664,605

    3A.

    Ministry of Health

    6,650,590

    5A.

    Scottish Board of Health

    773,037

    6.

    National Hearth Insurance Commission (Ireland)

    271,745

    7.

    Ministry of Labour (including a Supplementary sum of £4,000,000

    5,935,053

    8.

    National Insurance, Audit Department

    85,400

    9.

    Treatment of Tuberculosis(Special Grants)

    700,000

    11.

    Friendly Societies' Deficiency

    14,835

    £25,987,265"

    Question agreed to.

    MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS (ORDNANCE FACTORIES).
    2. "That a sum, not exceeding 90, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Expense of the Ordnance Factories, the cost of the production of which will be charged to the Ministry of Munitions."
    Question agreed to.

    MINISTRY OF NATIONAL SERVICE.
    6. "That a sum, not exceeding, £47,588, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of National Service."
    Question agreed to.

    MINISTRY OF RECONSTRUCTION.
    7. "That a sum, not exceeding £33,878, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Reconstruction."
    Question agreed to.

    MINISTRY OF LABOUR (CIVIL DEMOBILISATION AND RESETTLEMENT DEPARTMENT).
    8. "That a sum, not exceeding £21,373,593 (including a Supplementary sum of £9,500,000), be granted to His Majesty, To complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of Civil Demobilisation and Resettlement of the Ministry of Labour, including Out- of-Work Donation and the Contribution to the Unemployed Insurance Fund, and Re payments to Associations pursuant to Sections 85 and 106 of the National Insurance Act, 1911, and the National Insurance (Part II.) (Munition Workers) Act, 1916, and Grants for the training of Demobilised Officers."
    Question agreed to.

    NATIONAL WAR SAVINGS COMMITTEE.
    9."That a sum, not exceeding £65,540, be granted to His Majesty, to
    2422
    complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and. Expenses of the National War Savings Committee."
    Question agreed to.

    WAR TRADE DEPARTMENT.
    10. "That a sum, not exceeding £l,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the War Trade Department."
    Question agreed to.

    RESTRICTION OF ENEMY SUPPLIES DEPARTMENT.
    11. "That a sum, not exceeding £19,164, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Restriction of Enemy Supplies Department."
    Question agreed to.

    COMMISSION INTERNATIONALE DE RAVITAILLEMENT.
    12. "That a sum, not exceeding £45,016, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Commission Internationale de Ravitaillement."
    Question agreed to.

    CENTRAL CONTROL BOARD (LIQUOR TRAFFIC).
    13. "That a sum, not exceeding £116,350, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic), including the cost of acquisition and direct control of licensed premises and businesses and the provision, of canteens."
    Question agreed to.

    IMPERIAL WAR GRAVES COMMISSION.
    14. "That a sum, not exceeding £937,347, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of pay-

    2423
    ment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Imperial War Graves Commission, formed under Royal Charter, 10th May, 1917."
    Question agreed to.

    MILITARY SERVICE (CIVIL LIABILITIES) DEPARTMENT.
    15. "That a sum, not exceeding £4,092,103 (including a Supplementary sum of £2,400,000), be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Military Service (Civil Liabilities) Department, and for the payment of Grants for assisting Officers and Men of His Majesty's Forces in cases of serious hardship to meet certain financial obligations, and Grants to facilitate their reinstatement in civil life."
    Question agreed to.

    ROYAL PATRIOTIC FUND.
    16. "That a sum, not exceeding £156,135, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for a Grant-In-Aid of the Royal Patriotic Fund."
    Question agreed to.

    LOANS TO DOMINIONS AND ALLIES.
    17. "That a sum, not exceeding £110,000,000 (including a Supplementary sum of £60,000,000), be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for Loans to the Government of British Dominions and of Allied Countries, and for Loans and Grants for purposes of Reconstruction and Relief in War Areas."
    Question agreed to.

    CANAL COMPENSATION.
    19. "That a sum, not exceeding £600,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for Compensation to Canal Companies and Canal Carriers in the United Kingdom arising out of Government control."
    Question agreed to.

    BREAD SUBSIDY.
    20. "That a sum, not exceeding £30,000,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Cost of the Bread Subsidy."
    Question agreed to.

    TREASURY SECURITIES DEPOSIT SCHEME.
    21. "That a sum, not exceeding £925,407, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Expenses connected with the Treasury Securities Deposit."
    Question agreed to.

    PROPERTY LOSSES (IRELAND) COMPENSATION.
    22. "That a sum, not exceeding £160,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for ex gratia Grants in respect of Losses and Injuries sustained in the Rebellion in Ireland."
    Question agreed to.

    MISCELLANEOUS WAR SERVICES (FOREIGN OFFICE).
    23. "That a sum, not exceeding £l,835,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the cost of certain Miscellaneous War Services."
    Question agreed to.

    PURCHASE OF HOUSING MATERIALS (ENGLAND AND WALES).
    24. "That a sum, not exceeding £5,500,000, be granted to His Maresty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Cost of Building Materials for the Housing of the Working Classes in England and Wales."
    Question agreed to.

    PURCHASE OF HOUSING MATERIALS (SCOTLAND).
    25. "That a sum, not exceeding £1,500,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in

    2425
    course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for the Cost of Building Materials for the Housing of the Working Classes in Scotland."
    Question agreed to.

    COAL MINES DEFICIENCY.
    26. "That a sum, not exceeding £26,400,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, to meet the Deficiency arising under the Coal Mines Control Agreement (Confirmation) Act, 1918, and the cost of carrying out the recommendations contained in the Interim Report of the Chairman of the Coal Industry Commission, dated 20th March, 1919, and for kindred purposes."
    Question agreed to.

    REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1919–20.
    9. "That a sum, not exceeding £4,887,044, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, for Expenditure in respect of the Services included in the Estimates for Revenue Departments, namely:

    £

    1. Customs and Excise

    2,091,664

    2. Inland Revenue

    2,625,380

    3. Post Office (Supplementary sum)

    170,000

    £4,887,044"

    Question agreed to.

    NAVY ESTIMATES, EXCESS 1917–18.
    10. "That a sum not exceeding £10, be, granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ended on the 31st lay of March, 1918, to make good Excesses of Navy Expenditure beyond the Grants or the year ended on the 31st day of March, 1918."
    Question agreed to.
    Resolutions to be reported upon Monday; Committee to sit again upon. Monday.

    WAYS AND MEANS.
    Considered in Committee.
    Resolved,
    "That towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1918, the sum of £10 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom "—[Mr. Baldwin.]
    Resolved,
    "That towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920, the sum of £613,315,596 be granted out of the-Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."—[Mr. Baldwin.]
    Resolutions to be reported To-morrow; Committee to sit again To-morrow.

    GOVERNMENT WAR OBLIGATIONS BILL
    Read the third time, and passed.

    WEST INDIAN COURT OF APPEAL BILL.
    Considered in Committee, and reported without Amendment; read the third time, and passed.
    The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
    ADJOURNMENT.—Resolved,
    "That this House do now adjourn."—[Colonel Sanders.]
    Adjourned accordingly at Eighteen minutes after Ten o'clock.