§ Then there is the matter of the ex-service men. We have already taken administrative powers to put an end to the internment of ex-service men whose reason was impaired in pauper institutions, and I feel perfectly certain that the House will condone us for having been in haste to do that justice, and to report it as a thing done, rather than a thing we intended to do. For whatever legislation be necessary in regard to what I have mentioned, we shall ask the support of the House of Commons.
§ I have in front of me, moreover, the King's Speech for which the party opposite is responsible. I find it not at all an inconvenient quarry, and if I take out of that quarry boulders a little bit bigger than probably would have come from it had hon. Members opposite remained here, I am sure, all the same, they will be a little sparing with the chisels they use to knock corners off the Bills which we produce. For instance, the Bills they promised us include Bills to improve the position of pre-War pensioners, and to deal with the discouragement of thrift involved in the present means limitation in the grant of Old Age Pensions. They also promised a probationary system of dealing with offenders, and Bills were to be introduced to amend and consolidate the Factories and Workshops Acts, and certain Bills relating to the subject of legitimisation. We shall carry on the inheritance that we have received in the King's Speech, and we hope to cultivate the field a little more amply than would have been done had we not come into office.