Commons Sitting of 3 July 1924

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.
PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  Great Western Railway (Dock Charges) Bill [Lords],
  Read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.
  London and North Eastern Railway (Dock Charges) Bill [Lords],
  Verbal Amendments made; Bill read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.
  Aire and Calder Navigation Bill [Lords],
  As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
  Southern Railway (Dock Charges) Bill [Lords] (by Order),
  Consideration, not amended, deferred till To-morrow.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

    CIVIL LIABILITIES GRANTS.
    Mr. NIXONasked the Minister of Pensions if he will extend the time limit in the matter of applications for the civil liabilities grants to such persons who, in the opinion of the war pensions committees, are exceptional cases?
    The MINISTER of LABOUR (Mr. Shaw): I have been asked to reply. In exceptional circumstances, including, of course, cases in which the war pensions committees make representations, applications for civil liabilities grants which are out of time can be considered.

    DISABILITY AND SERVICE PENSIONS.
    Mr. BAKERasked the Minister of Pensions whether he is aware that his Department has refused the issue of pensions under Article 1,163 of the Royal Warrant of 1914 to men suffering with a disability due to War service who have more than 14 years' Army service in cases where the man was demobilised and the disability accepted after discharge; and, if so, whether he will take the necessary action to amend the Royal Warrant so that in all cases where a man has 14 years' or more service, and is suffering from a War disability, he shall receive a pension for life?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of PENSIONS (Mr. Muir): The intention of this Article was to provide compensation for service in the case of regular soldiers who had been prevented by discharge on account of disability from completing the service necessary to qualify for long service pension. Men serving on short time engagements during the War and demobilised when their services were no longer required are not within the scope of the Article. The Article referred to is common to the Ministry and the Service Departments, and my right hon. Friend would have no authority to adopt the course suggested as regards those cases which come before his Department.
    Mr. BAKER: Is it not unsatisfactory that a man, having been brought into the service pension and the disability pension, should be deprived of the service pension because the disability pension has been taken away from him?
    Mr. MUIR: This article was intended to apply only to the case of those men who had been disabled and whose service was thereby cut short in qualifying for long service pension.
    Mr. BAKER: When a man has been granted a service pension in addition to a disability pension surely it is unsatisfactory and unjust that, because he is deprived of the disability pension, the service pension should be taken away from him?

    FINAL AWARDS (APPEALS).
    Major Sir BERTRAM FALLEasked the Minister of Pensions whether he will consider cases of appeal against final

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    award in those cases where application was not made before 6th February, 1924, in special cases where it can be proved that applicants were not aware of a final date having been fixed, and where real hardship exists?
    Mr. MUIR: As I pointed out in the answer which I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend on the same subject on the 29th April last, the period of appeal is fixed by Statute and it is in the last resort for the tribunal to determine, subject to the statutory provisions, whether it is empowered to entertain an appeal. I may add that the arrangements to which I then referred for dealing with cases in which it is shown that an award was erroneously declared final at the time it was made, owing to a definite error of fact or judgment, are now in active operation.
    Captain BOWYER: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that there are thousands of ex-service men who have never been individually told that they have any right of appeal at all? Will he reconsider this matter in view of the fact that a man who signs form Z22 does think in many cases that he has no further right of appeal?
    Mr. MUIR: Notice has been given, and if there are any outstanding cases——
    Captain BOWYER: This is a most important matter. No man who had a final statutory award before the 19th August, 1921, has received individual notice. Will the hon. Gentleman reconsider the matter?
    Mr. MUIR: The change has been a recent one, and notice has been given of it.
    Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: What form has the notice taken
    Mr. MUIR: The notice has been in the Press.
    Mr. WESTWOODasked the Minister of Pensions if he is aware that the pensions assessment appeal tribunal, sitting to hear and decide on a pensioner's appeal against a final award, do not always have the whole of the evidence relevant to the case submitted for their consideration; and, if it can be proved that relevant evidence has been omitted, where the decisions are against the
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    pensioner, will the Ministry be willing to review any such case?
    Mr. MUIR: The Ministry's instructions require that the whole of the evidence relative to the case, so far as it is known to the Ministry, shall be embodied in the précis which is prepared for the hearing of a case by the tribunal, and I am satisfied that this instruction is generally observed. Two copies, of the précis are sent to the man at least 10 days before the hearing, and if he has any objection to it, any representations made to the Ministry before the hearing, or to the tribunal at the hearing, would receive full consideration. An exceptional case in which evidence materially affecting the question of assessment only became available subsequent to the earlier decision on the case would be considered.

    COMMUTATIONS.
    Mr. NAYLORasked the Minister of Pensions whether he is aware of the hardships imposed upon certain pensioners who are not permitted, by the terms of Article 1,078 of the Royal Warrant, to commute a part of their pensions unless they are receiving more than 2s. per day; and whether he will consider the advisability of amending the terms of Article 1,078 so as to allow of the part commutation of pensions, where satisfactory reasons are shown, below 2s. and above 1s. per day?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Major Attlee): I have been asked to reply. I do not think it would be in accordance with the permanent interests of the pensioners concerned to reduce their pensions to as little as 1s. a day in order to increase the capital sums paid them for commutation.
    Mr. MACPHERSON: Is the Department carrying out the policy which has hitherto been carried out of Assenting sparingly to applications for commutation? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in many cases in which commutation has been granted it has turned out very ill indeed?
    Major ATTLEE: The present practice is to look very closely into every application for commutation so as to see whether it would be a real benefit to the applicant.

    EDUCATION GRANTS.
    Mr. NIXONasked the President of the Board of Education if, seeing that

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    the education grants for children of widows of ex-service men is at present based upon the policy of whether the father, had he lived, would have been in a position to provide such education as secondary or grammar school standard, he will make a change by suggesting to the special grants committee that in future they should base their decision on the principle of whether the child would benefit by such higher education?
    Mr. MUIR: I have been asked to reply. Perhaps I may be allowed to refer my hon. Friend to the answer on a similar point given to the hon. Member for Tottenham on the 26th ultimo, of which I am sending him a copy.

    POLICE (WHITE OVERALLS).
    Captain Viscount CURZONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that in four county police forces and in 50 city and borough police forces white overall coats are worn, in most cases continuously, and in all cases after dark, by police employed on point duty; and, in these circumstances, will he reconsider his refusal to issue equipment with such overalls at the more inadequately lighted points in the Metropolitan Police Area, in view of the difficulty experienced by drivers of vehicles in certain cases in seeing the signals of the officers employed on point duty?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Arthur Henderson): I have nothing to add to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to the Noble Lord on the 28th February last.
    Viscount CURZON: Am I to understand from the right hon. Gentleman's answer that, in spite of the particulars given in the question, he refuses to make any experiment in this matter?
    Mr. HEALY: Is this to apply to the police force in Northern Ireland?
    Mr. HENDERSON: This matter has been decided according to the judgment of the Commissioner, and he thinks that the overalls are not suitable for London service.
    Viscount CURZON: I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment on the first opportunity.

    ALIENS (EMPLOYMENT)
    Mr. HANNONasked the Home Secretary whether, in the case of aliens registered with the police in this country, any details are furnished by such persons in regard to their place of employment; whether, in the event of their change of address, the police authorities communicate to the new district information regarding the individuals concerned; and whether any restriction is enforced in regard to the employment of aliens in trades or industries in which there is considerable unemployment?
    Mr. HENDERSON: The answer to the first two parts of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the third part, an alien is not admitted to this country for employment unless he is in possession of a permit issued to his prospective employer by the Ministry of Labour.
    Mr. HANNON: How many of these aliens are keeping British people out of employment?
    Mr. HENDERSON: None, that I am aware of.

    TRAFFIC REGULATION, WESTMINSTER.
    Mr. HANNONasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been drawn to the danger of the street crossing between Old Palace Yard and Westminster Hall; whether any steps are taken by the police to regulate the speed of traffic proceeding between Millbank and Parliament Square; and whether, with a view to safeguarding the lives of Members of this House and others who have business in Abingdon Street, he will consider what steps he can take, by the erection of additional refuges or otherwise, to eradicate the present dangers of the crossing?
    Mr. HENDERSON: The difficulties of the crossing are well known, and police are instructed to prevent any person driving at a speed or in a manner which is dangerous. The Commissioner does not think that additional refuges are at present required.
    Mr. HANNON: Is there any policeman on point duty there at all?
    Mr. HENDERSON: In this case the police are aware. They have to watch the traffic coming from that part and to see that drivers do not exceed the speed.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Will they pay particular attention to the safety of the people who frequent Abingdon Street?
    Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: May I advise the right hon. Gentleman to stand for 10 minutes in the street and see the speed of the traffic?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I know the difficulty, and if the instructions of the police are observed I think that it will be all right.
    Mr. HANNON: Will the right hon. Gentleman bring the matter to the notice of the Commissioner, to see if anything can be done to safeguard the lives of the people?

    TAXICABS (ADVERTISEMENTS)
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Home Secretary whether he has been approached to permit of advertisements being placed in licensed taxicabs; and whether he can give this House an assurance that he will not permit any cabs which are to be licensed by his Department to carry advertisements either inside or outside?
    Mr. HENDERSON: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. With regard to the second part, I have asked the Commissioner to arrange that if any concrete proposals are submitted to him he will consider them on their merits, having regard to considerations of safety, interference with lighting, etc. In the circumstances, I cannot give the general assurance asked for.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that we have our eyes assailed enough already by advertisements without putting them in taxis? Is not that nearly reaching the limit?
    Sir HARRY BRITTAIN: Is there any reason why a taxi-cab owner, or a taxi-cab driver and owner, should not enjoy the same privilege as the omnibus proprietor?
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Should you not take a lesson from Glasgow, where they do not allow advertisements of any description in the tramcars?
    Marquess of TITCHFIELD: Should not taxi-cab owners have the same opportunity of advertising themselves as Members of this House?

    WOMEN PRISONERS (RELEASE).
    Mr. MASTERMANasked the Home Secretary how many young women in prison in England and Wales during the the past five years, in default of payment of fines, have been liberated on payment of these fines at the prison without any notice having been given?
    Mr. HENDERSON: This information cannot be given, but the Prison Commissioners have obtained figures covering the two periods of six months ended 12th January, 1923, and 1924, respectively, and showing the number of cases in which women prisoners were liberated on payment of their fines. There were 258 in the former period, and 294 in the latter. I have no information as to the ages of these women. No notice is required before payment of a prisoner's fine.
    Mr. MASTERMANasked the Home Secretary (1) whether he has any reason to believe that persons of undesirable character, including men of alien origin, have been known to come to a prison and pay the fine of a female prisoner, thereby securing her release and, as a result, obtaining possession of her; whether any Reports on this subject have been received by him from governors, chaplains, or visitors of prisons; and, if not, could he obtain such a Report and present it to the House;
    (2) whether a recent change in administration has been made giving young women the choice of remaining in prison for a night, thereby placing on them the onus of refusing immediate release; and, if so, whether he is prepared to inquire into the working of this order and to take any steps needed to prevent any evils arising from this system?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I will answer these two questions together. Some information on this subject was collected by the Commissioners of Prisons, which, though

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    not sufficiently definite for publication, suggested that it would be well to take precautions. Where payment of a fine is tendered and the prisoner desires release, there is no power to refuse it. In cases, however, where the payment is tendered at night by some person, who may be an undesirable character, the suggestion is made to the prisoner that, if she desires to avoid such person, she will be allowed, at her own request, to sleep in the prison for the night, and go out the next morning. The practice, which is not new, appears to me to be reasonable and in the prisoner's interest and not one from which evils are likely to arise.
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Is it because of legislation or regulation that no alteration can be made in this arrangement? Although it is very undesirable that outside people should investigate this subject, and no charge is brought against the Home Secretary's own officials in this matter, would the right hon. Gentleman be kind enough to make inquiries among his own people?
    Viscountess ASTOR: Although the present practice seems to be reasonable, does the right hon. Gentleman not think that the results are really disastrous to hundreds of girls in the country, and could not something be done?
    Mr. HENDERSON: No, I do not think that the results are disastrous. We have given an opportunity to the women to remain if they so desire. If the fine is paid we cannot prevent them from being released.
    Mr. MASTERMAN: Why not?
    Mr. HENDERSON: As long as the fine is paid we cannot prevent their release. What we cannot do by compulsion, we try to do by a voluntary arrangement which works in the interests of the person concerned.
    Mr. W. THORNE: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in West Ham we often "bind them over" for a certain period, which we find does them more good?
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Is it the fact that if persons who are not known, to be related to a prisoner come and pay the fine, a note is taken of them, and investigations are made?
    Mr. HENDERSON: Yes; we exercise what care we can to prevent these poor and unfortunate prisoners getting into the hands of undesirable people, and if any hon. Member can suggest what we can do within our power to strengthen the present arrangement we shall be prepared to do it.
    Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Is it still the practice—it was so last year—that if a person comes to pay the fine of a woman prisoner without apparently being connected with her directly, that person's name is taken and investigation is made?
    Mr. HENDERSON: The practice is exactly the same as when the right hon. Gentleman was Home Secretary.

    FIRST OFFENDERS (LETTERS).
    Mr. STRANGERasked the Home Secretary whether he will grant facilities to enable prisoners who are first offenders to send and receive one letter fortnightly from the time of sentence until discharge?
    Mr. HENDERSON: The frequency with which letters are now allowed to prisoners depends on their classification, as stated in the reply to the question on the subject on the 16th April last, and first offenders receive treatment according to the Division in which they have been placed by the Court. I would point out that first offences vary considerably in degree of gravity, and that all first offenders are not entitled to special privileges.
    Mr. STRANGER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the minimum time at present is one month, and in the circumstances, in crimes of lesser gravity, will he arrange that the minimum time during which prisoners may receive and send letters is a fortnight instead of one month?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I will look into the point.

    INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS.
    Mr. STRANGERasked the Home Secretary what steps, if any, his Department takes to review sentences of children sentenced to industrial schools; and what steps, if any, he takes to separate those sentenced for criminal or moral offences from others?
    Mr. HENDERSON: As the answer is somewhat long, with the hon. Member's permission, I will circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the answer:
    The progress of children sent to industrial schools is constantly reviewed by the managers, who are well aware of the views of the Home Office that children should be licensed to their homes or otherwise as soon as such a course can be adopted with advantage to the children. Applications from parents for the discharge of their children are carefully investigated by the Home Office, but it may be added that there has been a remarkable decrease in recent years in the number of such applications. Experience shows that often no distinction can be drawn between children who have been found wandering or otherwise suffering from neglect and those who have committed petty offences, but a child who is found to exercise a bad influence would be transferred to another school more suitable for the particular type of child. The question of further classification of the schools is under consideration. If the hon. Member would care to visit some schools and ascertain the facts for himself I shall be glad to make arrangements.

    BIRTHS IN PRISONS.
    Mr. STRANGERasked the Home Secretary how many children have been born in prison during the six months ending 30th June last; and whether he will consider the provision of extra food and nourishment for expectant and nursing mothers whilst in prison?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I regret that I am not in possession of the information asked for, but inquiry is being made. Medical officers have full instructions to grant extra or special diet to all expectant and nursing mothers, and these instructions are observed.
    Mr. MONTAGUE: Will the right hon. Gentleman take into consideration the possibility of arranging that expectant mothers shall be removed temporarily from the prison, so as to prevent the stigma of the prison resting on the children?
    Mr. HENDERSON: Sympathy, of course, would demand that that course should be followed. We have no power at present to release temporarily any expectant mother. Once a prisoner is released we have no power to replace that person in prison. When the question was before this House there was a Clause providing that prisoners be removed from prison temporarily for operations, but the House definitely refused to allow the Clause to be sufficiently wide to include cases of expectant mothers.
    Mr. AYLES: Can the right hon. Gentleman see his way to advise the Commissioners to relax the silence rule for women prisoners suffering in this way?
    Mr. STRANGER: Will the right hon. Gentleman grant facilities to the House to discuss these matters? The Home Office Vote has been dealt with, and the discussion of prison matters was not reached.
    Mr. HENDERSON: I would welcome an opportunity to have the whole question raised, but that matter does not rest with myself. The question as to which subjects are to be discussed must be negotiated through the usual channels.

  EDUCATION.

    TRAINING OF TEACHERS (DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE).
    Mr. WHITELEYasked the President of the Board of Education whether he is now in possession of the Report of the Departmental Committee on the Training of Teachers; and whether he can relieve the uncertainty and anxiety of the uncertificated teachers in elementary schools by announcing the date of the next examination which will provide them with the opportunity of securing their final certificate?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Trevelyan): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. As I have already announced in answer to questions in this House, it is impossible for me to make any statement as to the future of the acting teachers certificate examination until I have received the Report of the Committee.

    NON-PROVIDED SCHOOLS.
    Mr. BLACKasked the President of the Board of Education how many non-provided schools have been transferred to the local education authorities since 1902; how many non-provided schools remain untransferred; and whether the Government have any policy with regard to the establishment of a single system for the whole country?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: The number of non-provided schools that were transferred to local education authorities between the 1st August, 1902, and the 31st March, 1924, is 1,386; and the number of non-provided schools existing on the latter of these two dates was 11,785. Any modification of the dual system as established by the Act of 1902 would require legislation.
    Mr. BLACK: In the opinion of the Government, is not the cessation of this dual system important and demanded in the interests of education?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: That is too big a question to discuss by question and answer.
    Mr. HOPE: How many of the 1,300 transferred schools belong to the British and Foreign Schools Society?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: I cannot say without notice.

    RURAL SCHOOLS (STAFFING).
    Mr. BLACKasked the President of the Board of Education whether he can state the policy of the Government with respect to remedying the position in many rural schools where one teacher is teaching standards 1 to 7, where such teachers state that it is physically impossible to impart satisfactory education, and where many of the older children leave school without getting beyond the fifth standard?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: I am, of course, aware of the difficulty to which the hon. Member refers, which is due to intractable geographical conditions necessitating the provision of very small isolated schools. The Board are suggesting to local education authorities the desirability of concentrating as far as possible the older children of neighbouring villages in suitable centres with a view to improved classification and organisation.
    Mr. MONTAGUE: Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been called to the serious overcrowding, particularly in London, of infant classes in the schools because of the large number of "under-fives"?

    CAPITATION GRANTS.
    Mr. BLACKasked the President of the Board of Education whether he can state the minimum and the maximum capitation grant per pupil made by local authorities for all requisites in the elementary school; whether he can provide that in future an adequate minimum capitation grant shall be given; and whether he can state, in the absence of such satisfactory grants, that the nation is able to secure a full Return for the sums expended on elementary education?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: The estimated expenditure of local education authorities in the year 1923–24 on "other expenses of maintenance" of public elementary schools amounted on the average to 31s. 10d. per child, the range of expenditure being from 13s. 7d. to 57s. 9d. I may refer the hon. Member to Table 8 of the Return—"Cost per Child, Elementary Education (1923)"—a copy of which I am sending to him. I shall be able to give him further information when the audited accounts of the local education authorities have been received and collated. It is the duty of the local education authorities (and a condition of grant) to maintain and keep efficient all public elementary schools within their area, and to equip them adequately and suitably with apparatus, books, etc., required for the curriculum. Where it appears that there is a deficiency at any of these points, the Board will bring the matter to the notice of the authority.
    Mr. BLACK: In cases where only one halfpenny per week, per child, is available for these requisites, is it not impossible for the school to give proper facilities for education?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: Wherever the supply appears to us to be insufficient we advise the local authority to remedy it.

    PERCENTAGE GRANTS (INQUIRY).
    Mr. GRAHAM WHITEasked the President of the Board of Education if he has received any Report relating to his Department from Lord Meston's Committee of Inquiry into the system of percentage grants to local authorities?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: I understand that the Committee have not yet issued a Report. As the Committee was set up by the Treasury any Report which they might issue would be addressed to that Department.
    Sir JOHN MARRIOTT: Has the right hon. Gentleman made any inquiries with regard to that Report, from the point of view of the Board of Education, with which it is largely concerned?
    Mr. G. WHITE: Is any change contemplated in the present arrangements?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: No. As regards the other question, I am, of course, interested in the result of the Report.

    SCHOOL-LEAVING AGE.
    Mr. G. WHITEasked the President of the Board of Education if he has received any communication from local education authorities in opposition to the proposal to raise the school-leaving age?
    Mr. NICHOLasked the President of the Board of Education how many local authorities propose to exercise the powers of raising the school-leaving age to 15 years; and which authorities have so decided to act?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: The Board have not received any communication from local education authorities in opposition to the proposal to raise the school-leaving age. They have now before them two specific proposals for the approval of bye-laws for raising the age to 15, namely, from the County Borough of Bath and the Education Committee of East Suffolk. These are now under consideration. Several other authorities are considering whether it is desirable or practicable to submit a bye-law for the purpose.
    Mr. NICHOL: In view of the complete cutting out of any provision for children between 14 and 16 under the Insurance Acts, is the right hon. Gentleman now prepared to take steps to have the age limit raised?
    Mr. AYLES: If the age limit were raised to 15, would not that solve the problem of unemployment of children up to 16?
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Has the Minister made any provision for these boys and girls who are to be kept at school until they are 15 years of age, so that they may receive wages, as if they were in employment. We promised when we were standing for Parliament that we would see that these children were paid as much wages for going to school up to 15 as if they were working, and is the Minister providing for that payment?
    Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid the Minister cannot always read the hon. Member's speeches at election time.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: May I just point out——
    Mr. SPEAKER: I would ask the hon. Member not to make speeches, but to ask questions.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Well, I wish to point out——
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must not take up too much time, and must put his question through me to the Minister.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: If I get a chance I will put my question, but I am not getting a chance. [HON. MEMBERS:"Order!"] I want to ask the Minister if what I put to my constituents was not the same as the Labour party put in their election address, and is he prepared to implement the promises that were made to our people that their children were to receive as much wages for going to school as if they were working in the workshops?
    Mr. FERGUSON: Mr. Speaker, I have not had a chance. I want to know if the right hon. Gentleman is in favour of them going to school until they are married and then giving them pensions after that?
    Mr. TREVELYAN: I do not know what the law is in Scotland, but I have pointed out that in England local authorities have power to give maintenance grants if they wish. With regard to the larger question, I do not think it can be discussed in questions and answers.

    SEAPLANE SERVICE (SOUTHAMPTON TO CHERBOURG).
    Lord APSLEYasked the Under Secretary of State for Air whether negotiations

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    with the French authorities are nearing completion with regard to a proposed seaplane service from Southampton to Cherbourg and various French seaside resorts; and if he is in a position to state when the service will be commenced?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Mr. Leach): The preliminary negotiations which had been opened with the French authorities in regard to the establishment of a seaplane service from Southampton to Cherbourg and other French ports were not brought to a conclusion because, in view of the experimental nature of the employment of this type of aircraft on regular air transport services, it was considered necessary to confine operations in the first instance to the Southampton-Guernsey service. Valuable experience is being gained on the latter route, but I am not in a position to state whether the services referred to in the Noble Lord's question will be commenced, the decision in regard to this resting primarily with the directors of Imperial Airways, Limited.
    Lord APSLEY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that experiments have been going on for over a year which have proved eminently satisfactory; and in view of the great demand on both sides of the Channel for a passenger and mails service between Cherbourg and Southampton and also to the French holiday resorts before the holiday season is over, will be take any steps to see that the matter is expedited as much as possible?
    Mr. LEACH: I can only hope that the Imperial Airways, Limited, will take notice of what the Noble Lord has said and carry out his suggestion.
    Captain BRASS: If these services are instituted will a subsidy be given to the company?
    Mr. LEACH: The subsidy scheme has already been arranged, and would certainly not be interfered with.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE.

    CARDINGTCN AERODROME.
    Mr. WELLSasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air what additional employment has been created at Cardington due to the decision of the Government to re-open the aerodrome; and does he pro-
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    pose to give, as far as possible, preference for work to those unemployed living in the district?
    Mr. LEACH: In answer to the first part of the question the number of workmen for whom employment will be created is unlikely to exceed 50 in the first six months, or 150 in the first year; the answer to the second part is in the affirmative.
    Major COLFOX: Will a preference be given to unemployed ex-service men?
    Mr. LEACH: Yes, if they are competent.

    AERIAL WARFARE.
    Mr. THURTLEasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether, with a view to impressing upon the people the probable results of any future aerial warfare, he will arrange that in the next aerial pageant organised by his Department at Hendon there shall be depicted, not only the bombing of warships and tanks, but also the bombing of the houses of non-combatants?
    Marquess of TITCHFIELD: On a point of Order. Is not this question sarcastic; and, if so, should it appear on the Order Paper?
    Mr. SPEAKER: I do not read it that way.
    Marquess of TITCHFIELD: Is not the reference to the bombing of the houses of non-combatants intended in that way?
    Mr. LEACH: My hon. Friend's suggestion has been noted for appropriate consideration.
    Mr. THURTLE: May we take it that my hon. Friend, whose pacific convictions are so well known, is aware of the desirability of making people realise the horrible side of war?
    Sir H. BRITTAIN: Cannot the ordinary citizen——
    Mr. SPEAKER: I think the supplementary question has shown that the original question was ironical.

    BOMBING OPERATIONS, IRAQ.
    Mr. LANSBURYasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air (1) whether he can give the House the total number of casualties suffered by the

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    British Air Force during bombing operations carried on in Iraq or elsewhere during the past five months, and the total casualties suffered by the people living in the various places against which these operations have taken place;
    (2) on how many occasions during the past five months has the Air Force been engaged in Iraq or other places bombing undefended villages or townships; and whether any notice, and, if any, what length of notice, is given to the civilian population—women, children, and men—to withdraw before the bombing commences?
    Mr. LEACH: Bombs have been dropped on five occasions in Iraq during the period referred to, and in all cases except one not less than two days' warning was given to enable the inhabitants to withdraw. The objectives selected were the encampments and grazing grounds of the offending tribes. The case where no warning was given was one of an attack by tribes on native police, in which one police officer and three police were killed. In this period there have been no casualties to the Royal Air Force in Iraq during bombing operations. As regards casualties inflicted by the operations, none have been reported to Air Headquarters. My hon. Friend will realise that in areas where violence is habitual, Air action, however regrettable the necessity for it, in many cases checks at an early stage disturbances which would otherwise cause great loss of life. In this connection, I may mention that a frontier tribe, of the same type as those which the hon. Member has, apparently, in mind, recently killed 146 men and 127 women and children during a single raid into Iraq territory, in the course of which all the male prisoners and wounded, both men and boys, were put to death.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Is it not a fact that the particulars of the case last mentioned by the hon. Gentleman happened hundreds of miles away from any district that has been bombarded during the last five months?
    Captain BRASS: What has that to do with the question?
    Mr. LANSBURY: What has it to do with the bombing of other villages?
    Mr. LEACH: The offending tribe escaped back over the borders before operations could be taken by us against them, but it is also the fact that this kind of raid, with its consequent loss of life, has been almost entirely abolished by the measures taken by the Air Force.
    Mr. LANSBURY: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that that is no answer to my question, namely, whether the outrages he has mentioned did not take place hundreds of miles away from any district that has been bombarded during the past five months, and will his Department print a White Paper giving the full particulars of why and where bombing has taken place, together with the fact—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech!"]—together with the fact that no one but the airman concerned is ever present to know whether any of the inhabitants have been killed? [HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"] You behave. [Interruption.] You are not going to shout me down!
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: What did the late Secretary of State for the Home Department—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"].
    Mr. SPEAKER: Hon. Members should leave it to me to keep order. Perhaps the fact that the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) remained standing drew attention away from the Chair. Mr. Lansbury, the next question.
    Mr. LANSBURY: I understand that the hon. Gentleman purported to answer them both at the same time.

    AIR SERVICE TO PRAGUE.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air what is the position of the negotiations between His Majesty's Government and the German Government with regard to passenger-carrying air services over German territory; and whether arrangements have yet been come to for the putting into operation of the British air service to Prague?
    Mr. LEACH: As regards the first part of the question, in view of certain conversations now proceeding with the German Government, a statement at the moment is to be deprecated. With regard to the second part of the question, no

    1493
    arrangements can be made for a British air service to Prague until a settlement has been reached with the German Government in regard to flight over German territory.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that for some months now he has put off this matter with this sort of answer about these conversations, and can he give any indication when a settlement will be arrived at?
    Mr. LEACH: The hon. and gallant Member is in error in suggesting that I have put off dealing with this question; the Department has done all that is humanly possible to achieve what the hon. and gallant Member wants.

  UNEMPLOYMENT.

    INSURANCE FUND.
    Mr. HANNONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the position as at 30th June, 1924, of the. Unemployment Insurance Fund, showing the total indebtedness to the Treasury at that date?
    Mr. SHAW: I have been asked to reply. The total indebtedness of the Unemployment Fund to the Treasury on the 30th June, 1924, was £7,130,000.

    BENEFIT NOT CLAIMED.
    Miss JEWSONasked the Minister of Labour the amount of unemployment benefit which has not been claimed by applicants at the Employment Exchanges during the last six months?
    Mr. SHAW: I regret that the information desired is not available, but the amount in question is certainly negligible.

    GOLD AND BULLION (GREAT BRITAIN AND UNITED STATES).
    Mr. AYLESasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what amount of gold and bullion is held respectively by the banks in Great Britain and the United States of America, and what proportions these bear to the world supply?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Snowden): As the answer contains many figures, with my hon.
    1494
    Friend's permission, I will circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    The following is the answers:
    The amount of gold and bullion held against Bank of England and currency notes is £153,437,000. There are no available figures for the amounts held by other banks in this country, but the total cannot be large. As regards the United States, there is no complete information. But the gold held by the Federal reserve banks and the United States Treasury on 1st May, 1924, was $4,014 million. The total monetary gold stock in the principal countries of the world at the end of 1922 was estimated in the United States Mint Report at $9,210 million. I am not aware of any more recent estimate.

    GOLD DISCOUNT BANK, GERMANY.
    Sir FREDRIC WISEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the German gold discount bank began its operations?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: I understand that the bank started operations on the 16th April, 1924.
    Sir F. WISE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if they carry on on a rentenimark basis, or a sterling basis, or a dollar basis?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: I am afraid I must ask for notice of that question.

    INHABITED HOUSE DUTY.
    Mr. JAMES GARDNERasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that there are many thousands of houses in London let out in flats and tenements where the owner or his agent pays the Inhabited House Duty direct to the collector of taxes, charging the same as a portion of the rent; and whether he will take steps, during the Committee stage of the Finance Bill, to ensure that tenants in such circumstances shall have, the full advantage of the abolition of this tax?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: My attention had not previously been called specially to this matter, which should correct itself in the

    1495
    passage of time. I fear that in any event it would not be relevant to a Finance Bill.
    Mr. GARDNER: Can the right hon. Gentleman not take some steps to ensure that the tenant secures the advantage of the tax being abolished, in view of the experience under the Rent Acts, when rate reductions were not passed on to the tenants?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: I stated, in reply to the original question, that it could not be dealt with in the Finance Bill, and it does not fall within the province of the Treasury.

    OLD AGE PENSIONS.
    Mr. J. GARDNERasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is prepared to revise the Regulations respecting old age pensioners which makes provision for assessing the interest on their savings at 5 per cent. even when their money is deposited in the Post Office Savings Bank and only receiving 2½ per cent.?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: My attention has been called in the course of debate to this and many other details of the present scheme of old age pensions. But, as the Financial Secretary has already explained, it has been necessary to confine the proposals now before the House strictly to a simple amendment of the law on general lines in order that the Bill may pass into law at an early date.
    Mr. WRAGG: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that any amount of capital over £400, in the case of an old age pensioner, is assessed as bringing in 10 per cent. and not 5 per cent.; and as 10 per cent. cannot possibly be realised on that capital, cannot steps be taken to remedy this injustice?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: I am perfectly aware of the fact mentioned by the hon. Member. It is a highly technical matter, but briefly I may say that it is calculated upon an annuity basis, and that it gives terms more favourable to the old age pensioner than an ordinary annuity would.

    RICHBOROUGH.
    Mr. HARMSWORTHasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether His Majesty's Government have yet come to a decision upon the Report of the Disposal and Liquidation Commission regarding Richborough?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. William Graham): I regret that I am still unable to make any statement in the matter. But, no effort will be spared to enable me to make it in the next week or two.

    ENTERTAINMENTS DUTY.
    Mr. BAKERasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has completed his inquiries with regard to the alleged failure of houses of entertainment to pass on to their patrons the reductions in Entertainments Duty; whether his inquiries have included the Berridge Road Picture House, Nottingham; whether he is aware that, when the proprietor was interrogated on the 27th June as to his intention to conform with the undertaking given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he replied that he was proposing to maintain his prices at the old level; and whether, seeing that the prices charged for admission to this house are the same as they were before the Budget was introduced, he will take steps to deal with this situation?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: The particular case mentioned by my hon. Friend has not previously been brought to my notice. On the general question involved, I would refer him to the full statement which I made in Committee on the Finance Bill on the 30th June.
    Captain BRASS: Has the right hon. Gentleman asked for reports from the country on this subject, or is he merely relying on the reports which are sent to him?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: The hon. and gallant Member was evidently not in the House when this matter was debated a few days ago. I then stated that I had made inquiries in every part of the country, not merely into one branch of the entertainment industry, but into all, including sports.
    Sir K. WOOD: Having regard to the fact that the right hon. Gentleman stated on that occasion that one branch of the

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    entertainment industry was not fulfilling the obligations which he desired them to do, is he going to take any further steps in the matter?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: The hon. Member had an opportunity, of which he took advantage, of replying to my statement, and then, I think, he confessed to the difficulties of dealing with the matter, and I think he went so far as to admit that I appeared to be doing everything I possibly could.

    MEXICO (EXTERNAL DEBT).
    Sir H. BRITTAINasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that Mexico has failed to pay the half-yearly interest on the external debt due this present week; and whether any explanation has been advanced with regard to this delay?
    Mr. LUNN (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): The reply to the first part of the hon. Member's question is in the affirmative. In reply to the second part, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs informed the hon. Member for West Fulham (Sir C. Cobb) on the 18th June, the failure of the Mexican Government to deposit the necessary sum for the service of the debt under the agreement reached with the International Bankers' Committee is understood to be largely due to the revolutionary movement in Mexico.

    KING'S BENCH DIVISION (ADDITIONAL JUDGES).
    Mr. LANSBURYasked the Prime Minister whether, before consenting to the appointment of additional Judges, he will consider whether it would be possible to reduce the periods of the legal vacations at Christmas and Easter and the Long Vacation?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Webb): I have been asked to reply. The Long Vacation has been shortened in recent years. The question of its further shortening has been considered from time to time. My right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor is satisfied that the disadvantages which would accrue from any further cutting down of the Long Vacation, not only to the Bench but to both branches of the profession and the general public, far outweigh any
    1498
    advantages which could possibly accrue. By rules made in recent years, arrangements have been made whereby a speedy trial can be secured during the Long Vacation of any case which needs such treatment. As regards the other vacations, the conduct of litigation both by the Bar and by the solicitors' profession would be greatly hampered if they were deprived of the opportunity which these vacations give both for a necessary holiday and for preparing that mass of work which has to be dealt with before the case comes into Court. It should be remembered that Judges are always available during the vacations to deal with applications which require to be immediately or promptly heard.
    Mr. LANSBURY: As the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I am sorry to see, has gone, may I ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether, in view of the financial stringency and the need for economy, he will bring pressure to bear on the Lord Chancellor to alter his view and allow these gentlemen to work a little longer for their £5,000 or £6,000 a year and who get away with a three months' holiday?
    Mr. G. LAMBERT: May I ask the President of the Board of Trade whether it is contemplated by His Majesty's Government to appoint two additional Judges?
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman acquaint the House as to how many holidays in the year these Judges get, because they are always so anxious to see that the working class do not get any holidays, and they are not working for the money the Judges get?
    Mr. H. H. SPENCER: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is not aware that His Majesty's Judges, both in the arduousness of their work and the quality of it, are rendering very much greater service than some of their critics?
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: They do not work eight hours a day. [An HON. MEMBER: "Nor do you."]
    49. Sir K. WOODasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware of the number of cases awaiting trial in the King's Bench Division; and whether any steps are to be taken whereby litigants may obtain an early trial of their causes?
    Mr. WEBB: I have been asked to reply. The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. In reply to the latter part of the question, the Government have decided to take the necessary steps for the appointment of two additional Judges to deal with the congestion of work in the King's Bench Division.
    Mr. LAMBERT: Will the appointment of the two additional Judges come before the House before it is ratified?
    Mr. WEBB: It is necessary that it should come before the House.
    Sir K. WOOD: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to put a Resolution down immediately, or before the House adjourns?
    Mr. WEBB: That is a matter of the Business of the House, for which I am not authorised to reply.

    CADETS (FEES).
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Prime Minister whether any decision has been reached with regard to the abolition of fees for cadets under training for the Royal Navy, His Majesty's Army, and the Royal Air Force, as in the case of the forces of Japan and the United States of America?
    The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Mr Clynes): I cannot at present add anything to the answer given by the Prime Minister to the hon. and gallant Member on 16th June last.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I will repeat the question.

  PEACE TREATIES.

    TREATY OF LAUSANNE.
    Sir F. WISEasked the Prime Minister if there are any immediate prospects of France or a third Power ratifying the Treaty of Lausanne?
    Mr. CLYNES: I regret that I cannot give a definite forecast regarding legislative decisions in other countries.
    Captain EDEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman say if there are any other signatories who have not ratified the Treaty besides ourselves and France?
    Mr. CLYNES: A statement has already been made in this House on that question.

    GERMAN REPARATION.
    Sir F. WISEasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what is the amount received from the German Government for April and May by the Reparation Commission; and how much went to the credit of Britain?
    Mr. GRAHAM: The Reparation Commission have published full accounts up to 31st December, 1922, and have issued to the Press figures bringing the accounts (as regards the most important items) up to 31st December, 1923, but I regret that the information as regards later months is not available at present. It will no doubt be published by the Reparation Commission in due course.
    Mr. NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN: Does the Financial Secretary to the Treasury then not know how much money has been placed to the Credit of the British Government during these months?
    Mr. GRAHAM: Yes. We do know, for example, that there was a sum of about £300,000 under the Reparation (Recovery) Act., and a round sum of, perhaps, £100,000 in paper marks due for the Army, but the difficulty about making statements of that kind is that they are subject to deduction and qualification, and I think they are apt to be misleading.
    Sir F. WISE: If we are not kept in touch, anyhow monthly, with the amount which comes to our credit, and if an amount does come to the credit of the British Government, does it go to our credit in Paris or in London?
    Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: Does some of it go to the credit of the British Clearing House for Enemy Debts? If so, will the hon. Gentleman arrange for the issue of a White Paper to show what we have received?
    Mr. GRAHAM: I cannot reply to the last two points without further investigation. We do know, roughly, of course, what is credited, but that is subject to the difficulty which I indicated in reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ladywood (Mr. N. Chamberlain) that it is subject to deductions in what, I think, every hon. Member will agree is a

    1501
    very complicated situation on the Continent. I will consider the point the hon. Member has put in regard to a, White Paper.
    Sir F. WISE: Does that amount lie to our credit in Paris, or does it come to London?
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: I would like to know how much of this money is to go to raise the standard of living of the working people in this country.

    SUMMER TIME BILL.
    Mr. LAMBasked the Prime Minister the terms of the international agreement by which he is committed to giving facilities for the Summer Time Bill, and also the date on which the agreement was reached?
    Mr. CLYNES: This agreement was reached on the 10th March last, and full details were given by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on the 13th March in answer to questions by the hon. Member for Croydon South (Sir W. Mitchell-Thomson) and the Noble Lord the Member for Battersea South (Viscount Curzon), and also in his speech on the Second Reading of the Bill.

    LEAGUE OF NATIONS (BRITISH DELEGATION).
    Mr. J. HARRISasked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to state the composition of the British delegation to the next Assembly of the League of Nations?
    Mr. CLYNES: I regret that it is not possible at the moment to make a statement on this subject; but an announcement will be made as soon as possible.

  GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

    WOMEN (SALARIES).
    Viscountess ASTORasked the Prime Minister what steps are being taken to give effect to a Resolution passed in the House of Commons on 5th August, 1921, especially in reference to the paragraph stating that, while not committing itself to the increase in the Civil Service
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    salaries involved in the payment of women in all cases at the same rate as men, the House was of the opinion that the question of the remuneration of women as compared with men should be reviewed within a period not exceeding three years?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: The Government endorse without qualification the principles embodied in the Resolutions referred to in the Noble Lady's question. With regard to pay, I would remind the Noble Lady that under those Resolutions the House of Commons, in view of the then financial position of the country, declined to commit itself to the increase of Civil Service salaries involved in the payment of women at the same rates as men, but resolved that the question of the remuneration of women as compared with men should be reveiwed within a period not exceeding three years. The Government, after full consideration, have decided that the state of the country's finances is still such as to make it impossible to justify the enormous increase in expenditure that would be involved.
    Viscountess ASTOR: But are not the Government a little ashamed of this decision, after all the promises they made before the Election?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: I am not aware of any promise that either I or any other Member of the Government has made which is in conflict with the decision I have just given.
    Viscountess ASTOR: Is it not true that the Members of the present Government were always holding up the other parties as not being willing to give equal payment for equal work?
    Mr. SNOWDEN: The Noble Lady appears to me to be a very much closer student than I am of the past doings and statements of the Labour party.
    Viscountess ASTOR: I have had to fight against them, and I know.

    VALUATIONS OFFICE (PROMOTION).
    Captain RAMAGEasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury why, when a non-service official was promoted to the rank of first-class valuer over the heads of ex-service officials of equal and higher seniority, as notified in the Inland Revenue Weekly Notes of the

    1503
    9th February last, those ex-service officials who, from their records, might reasonably have looked for promotion, were not even interviewed by the chief valuer's conference with regard to this appointment; and what are the principles upon which promotions are made in the Valuation Office?
    Mr. GRAHAM: Promotions in the Valuation Office, as in other branches of the Revenue, are made by the head of the Department, on recommendations submitted by a Departmental Promotions Committee. Promotion is by merit. Where, as in the case in question, selection is to be made from amongst second-class valuers, evidence as to comparative merit is furnished by first-class valuers and considered by superintending valuers in conference in the light of their own knowledge of the staff. Candidates are interviewed by the conference in cases where it may be necessary to supplement the evidence, more particularly in the delicate task of making the final comparison of the most meritorious officers. The number of interviews thus required is comparatively small. The recommendations of the conference are in due course laid before the Departmental Promotions Committee. On the position of ex-service staff, I would refer to the reply given on the 26th February last to the hon. and gallant Member, of which I am sending him a copy.
    Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: Has the hon. Gentleman gone into the facts of the case in question, and has he satisfied himself, personally, that there has been no such victimisation of an official, who, apart from doing good service, is an active defender of the rights of ex-civil servants?
    Mr. GRAHAM: I can certainly say to the hon. and gallant Gentleman that there is no foundation whatever for that suggestion. The problem, as he will see from the long reply I have given, is entirely one of merit, and the decision in this case must rest with the Departmental chief.
    Lieut.-Colonel JAMES: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the official to whom I have referred had 15 years' excellent service, and was passed over without any
    1504
    examination whatever, and that he had taken an active part on behalf of ex-civil servants?
    Mr. GRAHAM: I think the short reply is that these promotions are really regulated by committees, who take the whole facts into account, and I have not discovered any case that could be described in any way as victimisation.

    HOUSE OF COMMONS REFRESHMENT DEPARTMENT.
    Mr. W. BAKERasked the right hon. Member for Cheltenham, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, whether, seeing that the waiters and other members of the domestic staff employed by the Kitchen Committee of the House of Commons are not insured under the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920, he will consider the necessity to make other and special arrangements to provide for the period of the long Recess during which they will be unemployed?
    Sir JAMES AGG-GARDNER (Chairman of the Kitchen Committee): In reply to the question of the hon. Member, special arangements are always made by the Kitchen Committee to provide, during the long Recess, for those members of the staff who are in regular employment. The remainder receive suitable notice, and recommendations for other work.
    Mr. BAKER: Is it regarded as satisfactory that efficient and satisfactory members of the staff of this House should be thrown on to the unemployment market without provision when this House rises for the long Recess?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member had better read the answer, which was difficult to hear.

    CATERING TRADE (PAY AND CONDITIONS).
    Viscountess ASTORasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the growing public dissatisfaction with the conditions of pay and employment of waitresses at Wembley and elsewhere: and if he can state the reasons which make it impracticable to set up a Trade Board for the catering trade?
    Mr. SHAW: I have received representations from various quarters to the effect that the conditions of pay and employment in the catering trade are unsatisfactory. I have asked for the specific evidence on which such representations are based, and if the facts justify this course, I should propose to institute a general inquiry with a view to determining whether there is a case for the application of the Trade Boards Acts to the catering trade.
    Viscountess ASTOR: Is it not the fact that the Inspectors of the Ministry already have evidence enough to go on? Also that the National Union of General Workers and the Workers' Union have got enough evidence; and is there not enough evidence, and is not this the time, to set up a Trade Board?
    Mr. SHAW: If I had thought that the evidence was sufficient I should not have asked for specific evidence.
    Miss JEWSON: Is it not the fact that the Employment Exchanges are used to supply cheap labour to the employers for Wembley and elsewhere, and will the Minister not give instructions to the Exchanges that no woman shall be offered a job below a decent wage?

    NUNEATON CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY (DISPUTE).
    Sir K. WOODasked the Minister of Labour the present position of the strike at the Nuneaton (Warwickshire) Co-operative Stores?
    Mr. SHAW: I am aware of the dispute to which the hon. Member refers, but I do not think that I can usefully make any statement on the matter.
    Sir K. WOOD: Is it not a fact that Mr. Bramley has ordered the men back to work, and that the Co-operative Society have said that unless they go back their places will be filled?
    Mr. SHAW: I am not aware whether those are facts or statements.

  SCOTLAND.

    FISHERY CRUISER "MINNA."
    Viscount CURZONasked the Secretary for Scotland what was the duration
    1506
    of the cruise which he recently undertook to the Hebrides in the fishery protection cruiser "Minna"; whether during that period the ship was withdrawn from her proper duty; and what was the cost of the cruise to the States?
    Mr. JAMES STEWART (Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health, Scotland): The duration of the tour of inspection which my right hon. Friend undertook in the "Minna" was five days. During that period the vessel was not withdrawn from her police duty on her ordinary beat. The cost, apart from the ordinary running expenses, was about £25, including the expenses of the officials who assisted him.
    Mr. WESTWOOD: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Noble Lord has paid more than that in five weeks in fines for exceeding the speed limit?

    FIRTH OF TAY (FISHING).
    Mr. MORELasked the Secretary for Scotland if he is aware that a long established fishing industry in the Firth of Tay is being threatened with extinction owing to the action of the syndicate which owns the salmon and sea-trout fishing claiming and exercising the right of hauling the nets of any fishermen fishing for anything other than salmon or sea-trout and prosecuting the owners if salmon or sea-trout are found in the nets, meantime seizing the nets; and if he will cause inquiry to be made with a view to taking such action as will enable fishermen to continue earning their livelihood?
    Mr. STEWART: My right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland has received a statement from my hon. Friend about this matter, and he will make inquiry into the position.

    BUILDING TRADE DISPUTE (COURT OF INQUIRY).
    Mr. F. G. PENNY(by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Labour whether he has yet appointed the Court of Inquiry into the building trade dispute, and, is so, when the inquiry will begin?
    Mr. SHAW: I am glad to be in a position to state that Lord Buckmaster has consented to be chairman of the court and that Mr. F. A. Hargreaves, chairman of the Cotton Spinners' and Manu-

    1507
    facturers' Association, and Mr. Arthur Pugh, General Secretary of the British Iron, Steel and Kindred Trades' Association, have agreed to be members. The Court will meet at 11 o'clock to-morrow at the Royal Courts of Justice to discuss procedure, and I hope that, with the assistance of the parties, it will be possible to proceed at once with the inquiry.

    NEW ROADS (APPLE TREES)
    Colonel Sir CHARLES YATEasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will take measures to encourage the planting of apple trees along the new roads now being constructed, with a view to an increase in the production of food in this country?
    The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Gosling): I have been asked to answer this question, and would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the answers which I gave on the 17th June to the hon. and gallant Member for the Bilston Division, and on the 24th June to the right hon. and gallant Member for the New Forest and Christchurch Division. I am sending him copies of the questions and answers to which I have referred.
    Sir C. YATE: Might I ask if the answer to that question is "Yes" or "No"?
    Mr. GOSLING: The answer I have already given to the House——
    Mr. SPEAKER: We are slow enough to-day, without repeating answers already given.

    QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS.
    Viscount CURZON: On a point of Order, may I, Mr. Speaker, draw your attention to Question No. 73, which is in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for West Woolwich (Sir K. Wood), which is a question of urgency and has not been reached. It is as follows:
    "To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he proposes to proceed to the eviction of Mr. W. E. Dudley, of Woolwich, an ex-soldier, who is unable to find suitable housing accommodation for himself, his wife, and five children?"
    Will you allow me to put the question as a private question?
    Mr. SPEAKER: No, I could not allow that, especially in view of the fact that it is the fourth question on the Paper by the hon. Member for West Woolwich, and in any case would not have been called.
    Sir K. WOOD: May I, Sir, in asking you to reconsider that decision, point out that this concerns the affairs of a constituent of mine, and that the matter is really of an urgent character?
    Mr. SPEAKER: If I were to adopt that course, hon. Members might put more supplementary questions than they do now. I have often asked hon. Members to be considerate in supplementary questions, and to have more regard to questions later on the Paper. This present incident allows Members to see the effect of their own indulgences.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: I want to know, Sir, how to put down a question concerning the Stone of Destiny that is lying at Westminster. I have put down such a question, but it has not gone through—I am told on your instructions. The Stone of Destiny was taken by [Hoy. MEMBERS: "Order, order!"]
    Mr. SPEAKER: I cannot allow questions to be put to me about matters disallowed, but the hon. Member may, if he wishes, see me privately.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. BALDWIN: May I inquire what business will be taken next week?
Mr. CLYNES: On Monday we contemplate taking the Foreign Office Vote; but I would ask the House to regard this as a provisional arrangement, because the Government are considering whether any effective steps can be taken in regard to the rejection, in another place, of the War Charges (Validity) (No. 2) Bill, and the business for Monday may, for this reason, have to be varied.
Tuesday: Finance Bill, Committee.
Wednesday: Unemployment Insurance (No. 2) Bill, Report; Pacific Cable Board Bill, Consideration of Lords Amendment; Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill [Lords], Report and Third Reading.
On the assumption that much of the work on Wednesday will be non-controversial, we propose to ask the House to

1509
discuss the Address in respect of the appointment of two additional Judges to the King's Bench Division and to that end we propose to sit after Eleven o'clock, if necessary.
Thursday: Foreign Office Vote.
Friday: Old Age Pensions Bill, Committee; Pensions Increase Bill, Committee; Telegraph (Money) Bill, Second Reading; Isle of Man Customs Bill, Second Reading; Public Works Loans Bill, Second Reading.
Mr. LAMBERT: Do I understand that the Address is to be presented for the appointment of two additional Judges in the small hours of Thursday morning, and can the right hon. Gentleman not see has way to place such a Motion down so as to give a more reasonable opportunity for discussion?
Mr. CLYNES: Not presented in the small hours, but the discussion would have to be prolonged if the House required it.
Mr. ACLAND: With regard to Monday's business, does my right hon. Friend realise that many of us in the House who are in favour of the passing of the War Charges (Validity) (No. 2) Bill would very much object to anything being rushed through the House in one day, namely, Monday, without having anything like adequate notice of what scheme the Government are really going to propose? I think in regard to a matter so important and difficult as the reversal of the action taken in another place, we should have full warning and full notice before the Government attempt to put it through.
Mr. CLYNES: I am not overjoyed at finding this defence of the action of the House of Lords coming from my right hon. Friend.
Mr. LEIF JONES: Will the Lord Privy Seal tell the House whether he will enable us to see the new Bill, or make it understood what the procedure is which he proposes to follow before asking the House to give any vote upon the matter? I do not know whether a Financial Resolution will be necessary, but will my right hon. Friend remember that the House of Lords have decided to read this Bill upon this day six months, and that carries us to the 1st January next? Does my right hon. Friend propose to anticipate
1510
that action on the part of the House of Lords?
Mr. CLYNES: We are quite aware of the uncertainty and the urgency, and it is because of this uncertainty that we want time to see whether to-morrow a definite announcement can be made as to any alteration in Monday's business. As to whether the business will be varied will depend upon the course of the conversations that may take place in the interval.
Mr. JONES: May we take it that sufficient time will be given to hon. Members of this House to understand the procedure which the Government propose to take in considering any Bill which they propose to pass?
Mr. CLYNES: As I have stated, if any action at all is to be taken, it will have to be taken upon Monday.
Mr. BALDWIN: Would it be possible for the Lord Privy Seal to make a statement on the Adjournment to-night, because time is very vital in regard to this matter, and on this side of the House we have every desire to facilitate the passage of the Bill?
Mr. CLYNES: I think it would, and I shall endeavour to do so.
Mr. MACPHERSON: Will the right hon. Gentleman also make a statement with regard to the discussion on the appointment of the two Judges? My right hon. Friend must realise that this matter is bound to be controversial. The appointments must be substantiated by a great many facts and Members of this House are anxious—I think I can speak for the Whole House—to have a full and adequate discussion on so important a step. I would therefore appeal to the right hon. Gentleman, on behalf of those who act with me, to place that Order for the discussion of the Address earlier on the Order Paper. It is too much to ask the House of Commons to discuss so important a matter as that at so late an hour.
Mr. CLYNES: Those considerations have been present to our minds in reaching a decision on this question. This question is urgent because of the great arrears in the Courts; it is for this reason we are putting it down for Wednesday.
Sir J. MARRIOTT: Do I understand that, if the Foreign Office Vote is taken on Monday, a second day will be given for it on Thursday?
Mr. CLYNES: Two days have been allotted to Foreign Office questions next week on our programme.
Major COLFOX: Seeing that the action taken in another place on the War Charges (Validity) (No. 2) Bill was largely due to the feeling about the milk twopences, will the right hon. Gentleman, before bringing forward a Bill in substitution of the War Charges (Validity) Bill, consider the possibility of a second Bill which would refund those twopences to the people to whom they belong, namely, the producers?
Mr. L. JONES: Does my right hon. Friend realise that there would be no objection in any quarter of the House to the Bill in a modified form. What is important is the judgment which has been given, and the proceedings before the Courts. If my right hon. Friend wants an easy passage for this Bill in a short time, then he should acquiesce in the view that such cases should be exempted. In that case there would be little difficulty in passing it. But if he persists in trying to restore the Bill to the form in which it left this House, the same opposition will be applied to it, and therefore we may fairly ask for a full opportunity for debate.
Mr. CLYNES: These are matters of argument into which I cannot now enter. I can only say in general terms that the Government will not alter the substance and character of the Bill in order to meet the views of another place.
Sir K. WOOD: When is it proposed to take the Housing Bill?
Mr. CLYNES: We expect to be able to give at least one day to the Committee stage of the Housing Bill in the week following next week.
Mr. H. H. SPENCER: The right hon. Gentleman has indicated that on Wednesday a good deal of the business is expected to be non-controversial. Has the Minister of Labour informed the right hon. Gentleman that the Unemployment Insurance Bill is extremely and highly
1512
controversial, and that this House will need a good deal of time to discuss the very important new policy, which is entirely different from the last policy of unemployment insurance, which has been introduced into the Bill by the Minister?
Mr. CLYNES: That is not my information.
Mr. FOOT: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any indication as to when the Representation of the People Bill will be considered in this House? I may remind the right hon. Gentleman that it passed the Committee stage some time ago.
Mr. CLYNES: No, Sir. That is a question which should be put down on the Paper.
Captain BRASS: Does the right hon. Gentleman say that the Unemployment Insurance Bill is non-controversial?
Mr. KIRKWOOD: Yes, he said it is simplicity itself.
Mr. CLYNES: I had in mind not so much that particular Bill as the other Bills which I named for Wednesday next.

CHAIRMEN'S PANEL.
Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSON reported from the Chairmen's Panel; That they had appointed Sir George McCrae to act as Chairman of the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills (in respect of the Public Health (Scotland) Amendment Bill).
Report to lie upon the Table.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

  SCOTTISH STANDING COMMITTEE.
  Mr. WILLIAM NICHOLSON reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had added the following Ten Members to the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills (in respect of the Public Health (Scotland) Amendment Bill): Mr. Batey, Major Burnie, Mr. Hayes, Mr. William Henderson, Sir William Lane Mitchell, Mr. Pilkington, Mr. T. Atholl Robertson, Mr. Russell, Major Steel, and Sir William Mitchell-Thomson.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

NORTHERN IRELAND LAND BILL,
"to amend the Law relating to the occupation and ownership of land in Northern Ireland; and for other purposes relating thereto," presented by Mr. ARTHUR HENDERSON; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 188.]

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,
Coatbridge Burgh Extension Order Confirmation Bill,
Kilmarnock Corporation Order Confirmation Bill,
London and North Eastern Railway (Dock Charges, Scotland) Order Confirmation Bill, without Amendment.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to enable the Rhymney and Aber Gas Company to sell gas on a heat unit basis; to make new provision as to charges for the gas and application of the profits of the company; to consolidate the ordinary capital of the company; to confirm an agreement made between the company and the Powell Duffryn Steam Coal Company, Limited; and for other purposes." [Rhymney and Aber Gas Bill [Lords.]
And also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company to raise additional capital; to extend the area of supply of the company; and for other purposes." [Clyde Valley Electrical Power Bill] [Lords.]
Rhymney and Aber Gas Bill [Lords],
Clyde Valley Electrical Power Bill [Lords],
Read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY.
  [13TH ALLOTTED DAY.]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Mr. ROBERT YOUNG in the Chair.]

  SUPPLY.
    CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1924–25.
      CLASS II.

        BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, SCOTLAND.
        Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £326,692, 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, 1925, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Board of Agriculture for Scotland, including Grants for Agricultural Education and Training, Loans to Co-operative Societies, Expenditure in connection with the Supply of Seed Oats and Seed Potatoes, certain Grants-in-Aid, and certain Services arising out of the War."—[Note:£120,000 has been, voted on account.]
        4.0 P.M.
        The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. Adamson): The condition of agriculture during the past year has not been so satisfactory as one could wish, but the depression which overtook Europe and America after the War has probably been less acute in Scotland than in most places. There is little doubt that the comparatively efficient state of agriculture and agricultural education in Scotland have been important factors in enabling Scottish farmers to meet their difficulties better than has been the case in other parts of the world. In the further development of agriculture, education and scientific research must play a more important part in the future than in the past, if the agricultural industry is to occupy the position which every one of us, I am certain, wishes it to occupy. These two great factors—agriculture and education—must be brought into closer contact if the well-being of the agricultural section of the community is to be served and their prosperity assured. In this connection, agricultural education must be more fully developed by the education authorities, in conjunction with the agricultural colleges. Education in rural
        1532
        districts must have more of an agricultural bias than has been the case in the past. Our village schools should have their garden plots where the pupils could be taught the elements of science in its application to plant life, soil, bacteriology, and agricultural botany. The post primary schools must be more generously supplied with ground for actual cultivation and with a more advanced type of teaching.
        Mr. MAXTON: Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that in the primary schools in the rural areas of Scotland education should be given a definite bent towards agriculture?
        Mr. ADAMSON: "More of an agricultural bias" were the words which I used. The county areas must have still larger schools with experimental or demonstration farms, these central demonstration schools being closely linked up, on the one hand, with the smaller schools, and, on the other hand, with the agricultural colleges. Care must be taken to see that the higher colleges are adequately and efficiently staffed with teachers who have specialised in the higher branches of agricultural science, one of the most difficult of sciences, but at the same time a science which, if fully placed at the disposal of the agricultural community, will enable that community to help itself. While education will provide for the future farmer, research will do more for both the present and the future prosperity of agriculture than any other movement that could be suggested.
        Sir HENRY CRAIK: I am sorry to interrupt, but I think it would be more convenient to discuss this matter on the Education Vote. The right hon. Gentleman is raising very doubtful points of educational policy to which some of us object. Would it not be better to discuss them on the Education Vote rather than the Agriculture Vote?
        Mr. ADAMSON: The right hon. Gentleman or any other Member who disagrees with what I am saying on this question of agriculture——
        The CHAIRMAN: May I point out that under this Vote, which we are now discussing, agricultural education and research properly come in.
        Sir H. CRAIK: The point which I raised doubt about was the distinct reference in the right hon. Gentleman's speech to the elementary schools. He announced a certain policy with regard to these schools, which certainly, in my mind, is open to dispute, and I think some hon. Members opposite will agree with me. Therefore I think it raises a very important question of general policy, quite apart from the agricultural colleges.
        The CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Gentleman is likewise tied down under this Vote to agricultural education.
        Mr. ADAMSON: Already the research stations in Scotland are supplying valuable information to the farmer, but they are only beginning. Nutrition, plant breeding, animal breeding and animal diseases are being investigated, and sound foundations are being made with respect to these matters. Our further needs are for research in dairying economics and horticulture, and we hope to provide for these in some measure, as well as to extend the existing institutions by means of the additional grants for such purposes which are being put at the disposal of the Development Commissioners by the Government. Nothing is more likely in the long run to produce the best effects than the extension of education and research. It is gratifying to report that the work of the Board of Agriculture in this respect has become so extensive that I have thought it desirable to appoint a committee to investigate and report upon the systems and finances, and the report of the committee, I understand, will be issued very shortly. One of the most gratifying features of the Board's work in Scotland is the response which has been made by agriculturists to the proposals for research work. No less than £22,000 has been raised by the agriculturists themselves for the establishment of a plant-breeding station. Some £5,000 or £6,000 has been raised for the inauguration of the Animal Diseases Research Associations. Large donations have been made by private individuals and others to the Rowett Research Station, and, if similar benefactions can be obtained for research in animal breeding, the scientific investigations in Scotland will be on a sound footing.
        The condition of the crofting areas makes it necessary for the Board of Agri-
        1534
        culture to adopt special methods for their development and assistance. The problem of winter keep for stock is one of the most difficult. During the past year I have provided funds for experiments in the use of ensilage and the construction of silos at several centres. If these experiments prove successful, it will go a long way to add to the prosperity of the North-West Highlands of Scotland. Gratifying success has attended the provision of egg-distributing stations. The improvement of poultry has been marked, and all that now remains is to ensure that the superior results are exploited to the uttermost by means of co-operative societies. Co-operation in egg collection in the Orkney Islands has been remarkably successful; so much is that the case that the annual value of the eggs exported is greater now than the annual valuation of the Islands. In the Island of Tiree it is also reported that the output of eggs is equal to the rent of the holdings on that island. These results alone would justify the work of the Board of Agriculture, even if they have no others to their credit. The schemes for the improvement of live-stock are continuing to work satisfactorily. The improvement of the sheep on crofters' common grazings, through the provision of better grants by the Board of Agriculture, has been noticeable.
        It is to be regretted that, while there are examples in Scotland of successful co-operation, the spirit of co-operation is not extending so rapidly as one would desire. As the Committee knows, I succeeded in obtaining facilities for the Board of Agriculture to make loans, as recommended by the Linlithgow Committee, to co-operative societies for the acquisition and improvement of premises and working capital. I also succeeded in getting the consent of the House to withdraw the proviso that the maximum grant to the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Societies should not exceed two-and-a-half times the income from other sources. These are very considerable facilities, and I trust that they will be taken full advantage of. While the Government have every sympathy with the difficulties of the farmers, neither the Government nor the public can be expected to regard these difficulties as insuperable while the farmers themselves neglect to organise their industry on a more co-operative basis. It is indisputable

        1535
        that millions of pounds are lost to the farmer annually owing to the determined individualism of his method of buying and selling. It is the intention of the Government to explore every possibility by which assistance can be given to agriculture in this direction, but assistance can only be given to those who are willing to assist themselves, and I would urge upon my farmer friends the importance of preparing for continued competition from abroad by organisation at home to meet it.
        There is no lack in Scotland of appreciation of education and research. The desirability of uniting in other directions is also apparent. Next week the International Conference on Cattle Breeding is to be held in Edinburgh. A National Dairy Council for Scotland is in process of formation. A conference upon potato diseases and potato cultivation is to be held in the course of the next month. All these are gratifying evidences of the interest in the scientific side of agriculture If only greater interest could be taken in the business side of the industry and the organisation of purchase and sale, the future of agriculture in Scotland in my opinion would be brighter. I am convinced that the best prospects for the smallholders in the Highlands and Islands lie in co-operation. There is no reason why cheese-making should not become a common method of agriculture in the Highland glens and in the Islands. All that is needed is the desire to co-operate and a willingness to accept the advice and instructions of the representatives of the Agricultural Colleges and the Board of Agriculture. An attempt is now being made to start a cheese factory on one of the Board's estates in Skye. I visited there recently and was convinced that everything was favourable to the scheme except the temperament of the Board's tenants, who with characteristic Scottish independence fail to appreciate the advantages of co-operation like the Danish farmer. Nevertheless I am convinced that in such methods we must look for improvement in the prosperity of the crofting counties. It is significant that where the Board of Agriculture have made settlements and have compelled the crofters to co-operate in the purchase and management of sheep stocks such co-operation has been an unqualified
        1536
        success. Although large sums have been lent by the Board of Agriculture for the purchase of sheep stocks there are no arrears of interest except in two cases, and they are of trifling amount. I can recollect no occasion in recent years where land settlement in Scotland has not been one of the major questions of debate. The subject is one which deserves unremitting interest and attention. We are all of us exercised by the problem of how to bring to the towns the sweetening influences of the countryside, and there is no one who does not feel some disquietude as to the future of the human stock of these counties if the drift to the towns continues, and if still the numbers of our people born and bred in the country and deriving a decent living from rural occupations continues to diminish. This question of land settlement should therefore be brought continually under review in this House.
        The total area which has come within the scope of the Board's land settlement schemes amounts to 679,751 acres. We have taken over from the Congested Districts Board 84,000 acres. The Board of Agriculture itself has purchased 350,370 acres, and under Part II of the Act there have been settled on private estates 245,381 acres. The number of holders who have been settled in this way is 4,500, of whom 3,904 have been placed by the Board of Agriculture. At the present moment the total number of applicants for small holdings and for enlargements of holdings on the Board's list is 9,984, of whom 3,504 are ex-service men and 2,264 of them are entitled to first priority. Of this last number, however, only 720 are regarded as suitable for settlement. That is to say only 720 ex-service men who applied to the Board for holdings before the 1st March, 1921, and who are otherwise qualified for settlement, now remain on the lists. They are spread over the whole country. Of these 340 are being provided for in schemes already projected. It is obviously impracticable and uneconomic to frame schemes of land settlement for the remaining 380 without including with them a large number of applicants who either applied subsequently to the 1st March, 1921, or who have not ex-service qualifications. In the face of this demand for small holdings it is absurd to continue to confine land settlement to the first priority ex-service men having

        1537
        the present qualification, and I propose to ask for the necessary powers to proceed with the settlement of second preference applicants and civilians, while giving the first preference men first consideration.
        As hon. Members of the House are aware, the possibility of the Board's settlers losing their holdings by sale and resumption on the part of a purchaser who has no other land has been before me and my predecessor, and I am glad to be able to announce that a Bill has been prepared to meet this difficulty and has been given its First Reading in this House. It is a Bill which will secure the holder in his tenure. There is one other matter to which brief reference may be made. It has become a matter of primary importance that the production of food and the prospects of the small-holders and farmers should not be prejudiced by the absence of power to control the depredations of game, foxes and other vermin. With this consideration in mind, and having before me the Reports of the Deer Forests, and Game and Heather Burning Committees, it is my intention to introduce such Measures as may be necessary to deal with this important aspect of the small holdings movement and of agriculture in general. Rural unemployment and distress in the northwest highlands and islands of Scotland have been met, as far as possible, by providing (1) a scheme of land drainage and improvement at a cost to the State of £45,000, which represents less than half of the total expenditure on these relief works; and (2) relief works on roads in Lewes and other outer islands in conjunction with the Ministry of Transport, costing nearly £30,000; and (3) assistance given to the smallholders to the extent of £100,000 for the purchase of seed oats and seed potatoes in the congested districts, thereby enabling necessitous crofters to get seed at approximately half its market value. In connection with a subject like this, I could go on for a long time, but, feeling as I do, that it raises matters of vital importance as far as agriculture is concerned, I consider it would be a mistake for either the Under-Secretary or myself to take up too much time in introducing the various topics that will come under review in the course of this Debate. Consequently, I am refraining from taking up more time at this
        1538
        juncture in order that as many hon. Members as possible may take part in the Debate, and I hope hon. Gentleman will refrain from making long speeches, so that as many as possible may join in the discussion.
        Lieut.Colonel Sir JOHN GILMOUR: The right hon. Gentleman in his closing remarks has asked hon. Members to limit their speeches in order that as many as possible may take part in this Debate. I have no fault to find with that at all. It is certain that this subject of agriculture is one of the most important which comes before this assembly. It affects primarily the condition of our country and the prosperity and progress of all classes. I do not believe there is any subject which requires more careful consideration from everybody than this one which we are now discussing. I am also happy to think that while there may be many different views expressed upon the problem, hon. Gentlemen of all parties realise to-day that this is a matter which, whether they come as representatives of the towns and of our great commercial centres, or as representatives of purely agricultural areas, it concerns both. It is not easy for those who live in our great cities to realise fully the difficulties of the problems which confront agriculturists. I speak as one representing part of a great industrial centre, who has been brought up in the country and has been associated with agriculture, and I realise that there is unfortunately a great gap between the views of many people in these areas.
        I trust that the right hon. Gentleman who represents the Department to-day will realise that the duties of the Board of Agriculture are such that they should be representative of all branches of agriculture. I do not wish to raise anything of an acrimonious note in this discussion, but I do want to say, whether rightly or wrongly, that there is a large section of agricultural opinion in Scotland who have come to consider that the Board of Agriculture has not, in the past, realised that this particular subject is of a very wide nature. In our discussions in this House we have seen that interest has been turned mainly towards, no doubt, important questions, but still limited questions and limited areas, instead of to all parts of the agricultural industry in this country. I am the first to recognise

        1539
        that the problems of land settlement, of small holdings and of crofting areas and congested districts are problems of immense importance, and I want to emphasise this point, that hon. Members, in considering these questions, should remember that one has to consider agriculture as a whole, both from the point of view that it employs the largest number of people and that it produces the greatest amount of food for the supply of our people in this country. The consideration cannot from the circumstances of the case be confined to the crofter and Highland areas. On the contrary, it is on the larger holdings, of what I believe to be more economic size, and it is in the southern portions of our country, that the chief interest, certainly of those who live in our cities, is bound to be centred. I am, therefore, all the more pleased to note that, in his opening remarks, the Secretary for Scotland laid stress upon the necessity for the progress and increasing development of agricultural research and of education. Upon the thorny subject of whether the question of agricultural education is to be dealt with in primary schools, I will not venture to touch at the moment. All I will say is that, in my judgment, the sooner we take an interest in this education problem, the more likely we are to increase the interest of the rising generation and to fit them for taking their place in the agricultural world.
        I have looked at the Report which is in the hands of hon. Members. It covers a very large area, and it is full of interest, but I want to ask just one or two questions with regard to the Board of Agriculture itself. I notice a considerable increase in the item, "Salaries, Wages and Allowances." I presume that some portion of this is due to the necessary increase of staff to deal with the problem of land settlement, but I wish to say again, without going too far, that there is a distinct feeling among the agricultural community that the offices are large, and that the staff is numerous, but that there is very often—it may be partly due to mistakes on the part of the agricultural interest themselves—a distinct delay in getting their questions dealt with by the staff of the Board. The right hon. Gentleman, of course, has succeeded to this office and has had no great time to investigate this problem.
        1540
        He has succeeded to these difficulties and problems which have faced others before him. But I do beg of him, when he comes to consider the future and the work which lies before him, to try and impress upon the staff under him the absolute necessity of gaining the confidence of the agricultural community as a whole, and not turning a deaf ear even to suggestions which, to the official mind, may not appear very workable, but which, at least, ought to be investigated and met with some consideration.
        If one looks at the various increases under this Vote, the larger portion, of course, is assigned to the relief of distress in the Western Islands and to services in congested districts. I recognise the necessity of that, but I wish to raise a particular point in which for a number of years I have myself been much interested. The Secretary for Scotland spoke to-day, and spoke rightly, of the great advantage which agricultural co-operation is likely to bring to agriculturists of all classes. In my judgment, the problem is not one that is confined purely to small holdings. It can and ought to be extended to the larger holdings. One knows from long experience that our Scottish people are slow to move, that they are slow to adopt these new and, as I believe, advantageous methods of purchasing the seeds and manures which they require, and of marketing the produce of their farms. But, while I recognise the friendly tone of the right hon. Gentleman towards this movement, I do beg of him to do what he can to increase the sums which are placed at the disposal of the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society, which for a number of years has asked for such an increase in pursuance of its work. We are grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the step which was taken in doing away with the limitation which has hitherto existed, that a grant could be made for that work only in proportion to what was put down from private funds; but I want to point out that the work of that Society is an educative one. It is a work of propaganda, and, unless it can widen its field, it is really not what I should call pulling its weight.
        In addition to that, I want to stress another point. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman can come to any kind of arrangement whereby either that Society or any other should be placed

        1541
        in a position of knowing, say for a term of three years, the kind of amount which would be at its disposal. I say that because it appears to me to be impossible, for a propaganda of this nature, to appoint, first of all, the requisite number of organisers to go into the various districts in Scotland, and, secondly, if they work from hand to mouth and from year to year, they cannot attract to their service that class of man as an organiser whom we should desire to see attracted.
        Mr. T. JOHNSTON: May I ask if the right hon. Gentleman is referring to the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society, Limited, of which he is vice-president, and if he can explain to the Committee—we are all very interested in this—why it is that that society will not spend all the money it has got, but actually invests money with the Edinburgh Corporation?
        Sir J. GILMOUR: I am quite certain that, if the hon. Gentleman would care to investigate the expenditure of the society, he would agree that we are working practically up to our limit every year. Of course, there must be a little in reserve to meet salaries and expenses and various other matters of that kind, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are working up to the fullest extent, and, indeed, we submitted over a year ago a further and enlarged scheme, in which we pointed out that the limit which we have now of a little over £2,000——
        Mr. KIRKWOOD: Nearly £4,000!
        Sir J. GILMOUR: The grant that we get, as hon. Members will see if they will look at the Estimate, is a little over £2,000. The late President of the Society, Dr. Douglas, who was at one time a Member of the House of Commons, and who took a very great interest in this matter, submitted, just before his death, a scheme which would have placed this work upon a much wider basis. I do not wish to raise any question of obstruction on the part of anyone, and, indeed, I do not know where the mistake lies, but I do know that by some misfortune, instead of securing a sum of at least £5,000 for the development of the work this year, we are only receiving to-day a little over £2,000. In any case, whether we are spending every farthing that we possess or not, let us look at this matter from
        1542
        the point of view which I am sure is the point of view of the right hon. Gentleman, and which I hope may be the point of view of Members in all quarters of the Committee, namely, that of the urgent necessity of education in this matter. It is not to be done in a day, and it cannot be done except by men who have a competent knowledge of that of which they speak; and these are not so readily found. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether he can offer some supplementary grant, even at this eleventh hour, for the extension of this work? He has referred to the question of egg-collecting societies. All I have to say on that is that we would desire, above all things, to appoint now an extra organiser to deal with that very question in the Orkneys and elsewhere, and it is only because we have not the funds at our disposal that we are unable to do this. Turning to the larger areas, and coming to the question of milk production, there is nothing which, in the South-West of Scotland, has done more to improve the class of milk, and to lighten the burden of the life of those who produce milk, than this co-operative work and the erection of creameries. That has led, in my judgment, to an improvement in the life of those who are engaged in this industry, and, also, has not only given them an infinitely better return for produce, but has ensured the sale of the milk to those in the cities in a better condition than would otherwise have been the case. I do not wish to labour this, or to take up the time of the Committee, because I realise that many others wish to speak, but, believing, as I do, that this is a matter of primary importance for all classes of agriculturists Scotland, I do press the right hon. Gentleman to do what he can to give us a little more assistance for this work.
        There is just one other thing that I want to say. I have from time to time been pressed by those who are interested in the training of women in agricultural work. I recognise the great difficulties of that problem, and I am glad to note, in the Report which we have before us, that certain steps have been taken in that direction. It is clear that, as long as our system of agriculture exists in Scotland on its present footing, and as long as women are ready and available to work on the land, as has been our custom, it is very desirable that they should receive

        1543
        an efficient training. One of the greatest and most difficult problems of any agriculturist is the rearing of calves, and one of the evils which everyone sees is the destruction of calves in so many cases. It is largely a problem of getting the individual who can take charge and who will give the time and trouble and has the necessary knowledge to bring up the calves. It is not an easy matter, but, in my judgment, if the Board can do anything to increase and develop that part of the work, they will be doing something which is of advantage. I believe, too, that it may give an opening to many individuals, even from our cities, to go on to the land and live a healthy life in the open air, which, again, will react upon the general position. As far as I and my friends are concerned, we wish to assist and develop the work which the Department is carrying on, but we do ask that there may be a recognition of the wider interests of agriculture, which I believe has not been entirely the case in the past. I would, in conclusion, say that, if the right hon. Gentleman will proceed upon the lines which he has outlined to us in his speech to day, he will have our support.
        Mr. MACPHERSON: I think the Committee must regret that we did not have an opportunity for a discussion upon the Vote for the salary of the Secretary for Scotland, not because we disapprove of him, but because, on that Vote, each and all of us could raise any subject which in any way affects the interests of our country. I have read with very great care the Report of the Board of Agriculture, and I must frankly confess that I do not think it is satisfactory. We are all aware that the work of the Board is very varied and multitudinous in its aspects, but the Report this year—and I would ask my hon. Friends to re-read it—appears to me to be like the catalogue of an agriculturalist or a horticulturalist. The right hon. Gentleman sought to justify it upon the fertility of the hens of Tiree and Ordney. I quite agree that the right hon. Baronet who has just spoken was perfectly right in the line he took. He represents what he calls the main body of agriculture in Scotland, and a very adequate and worthy representative he is. He is out to make the Secretary for Scotland and the Board of
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        Agriculture realise that the agricultural industry is in the main in the South of Scotland. I take the other line. I say that the Board of Agriculture was primarily constituted for the settlement of men upon the land, and if in so doing it can train men to the use of that land effectively, good and well. It was not originally constituted for the assistance of the larger farmers, but it very wisely, in my judgment, has devoted a good deal of attention to scientific research in the best interests of agriculture as a whole.
        The first thing that I and my colleagues from the North of Scotland looked at was the question of land settlement, and we were deeply disappointed. Indeed, if there was one cry of despair in the speech of the Secretary for Scotland, it was when he was dealing with the question of land settlement. The Board of Agriculture is to-day the largest land owner in Scotland. He assumed a pride in the fact that at one time the Board had command and control of no less than 600,000 acres. When I read the Report I find that the Board to this day have still got unallotted 350,000 acres, of which 50,000 are arable. In the same paragraph I find that no fewer than 10,024 ex-service men are still on the list, and of these 2,534 are first preference ex-service men. How can the right hon. Gentleman stand at that Box and say things are satisfactory when you have these men demanding to be put on the land? I do not blame one party more than another. I blame my own party just as much as any other, but the Liberal party in the Coalition Government did a great deal. It settled more men upon the land than any Government for 50 years. I do not wish to enter into the realm of controversy at the moment, but I have to justify my own existence. When the Secretary for Scotland tells us the Board has all these acres at its disposal, and at the same time that there are 10,000 men who have made application and who, so far as I know, are not only first preference men, but men who could be suitably settled on the land, I was not at all surprised at the cry of despair to which he gave utterance. May I try to explain, as the right hon. Gentleman has not attempted to explain, why it is that there has been no greater settlement of ex-service men and others on the land? He said the time has now come when it might be necessary for the ex-service men to forego their preference. I should be

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        exceedingly sorry if that should be the case, but if there are civilians who are now more competent and more suitable, and who are exceedingly anxious to get possession of land, I should like men to be settled on the Board of Agriculture's land at all costs and as quickly as possibly.
        Why is it there has been such a deadlock, such a cry of failure and despair on the part of the Secretary for Scotland? I will give four reasons. First of all, after the land Setlement Act was passed in 1919 the cost of land, the cost of stock, the cost of housing and the cost of implements was enormous and many men were exceedingly chary, when they were asked their advice, to advise young ex-service men who had no knowledge of agriculture to settle upon the land at such an enormous cost. I have no doubt at all that that has kept a great many men, wisely in many ways, from settling upon the land. But there is a change in prices. There is a change in the value of stock, and I think, in view of the cheapness of agricultural conditions now, the Secretary for Scotland and the Board of Agriculture might have done much more than they have done to help these men to settle upon the land. I think the second reason is that the holdings are at present too small. It was the theory in the past that the crofter's land should be the most miserable in the whole country. He never in the past was offered good land. Everyone thought that if he was offered land at all the proper land to give him was a barren rock by the seashore or the most uncultivatable land in the whole district. I am glad to say that that sentiment has changed, and there has been an attempt to place upon the best land in the country ex-service men and other applicants for small holdings. But the fact remains that even on the good land the holdings are too small. I take the famous case of Arabella in Ross and Cromarty. There are 20 settlers on that particular farm. It is land of the very best type. I find in the report of the Board of Agriculture that no less than £7,500 of the capital for instituting these small holdings has had to be written off. I know the Land Court had to go round and re-fix valuations, and I found that there was one man upon those holdings who made his croft pay. It was under the regime of the late Secretary for
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        Scotland. The moment it was found that he was making it pay by the arduous labour of his wife and family, up the rent went. We thought we had abolished all that sort of thing by the establishment of the Land Court and of the Board of Agriculture. I tried to make inquiries about it, and I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether his predecessor in office has left any reason which would justify the increase in the rent of any smallholder placed there at the instance of the State whenever he improves the condition of the holding upon which he and his family work.
        Sir J. GILMOUR: Is it not the case that the question of the raising or lowering of the rent is purely a matter for the Land Court?
        Mr. MACPHERSON: It ought to be, but the fact remains that when I appealed against the decision I could get no assistance. It is obviously wrong. When the State establishes men upon the land in small holdings, if they improve their small holdings the Crown has no right to come in and increase the rent.
        Let me take another reason. I think the holdings are too small, because there is not sufficient grazing. In the ordinary small holdings in the Highlands you may have a few acres, but very often the rent is paid by the out-grazing for the cattle and sheep, and a great many people in the Highlands are deeply concerned that, while they are able to live and no more upon their crofts on the arable side, they have not sufficient outrun for the cattle and sheep, and the right hon. Gentleman might very well consider whether in practice the Board of Agriculture should not give out a far larger proportion of the land which they have at present got unallotted for the purpose of out-grazing and sheep runs for cattle and horses. But an even more important reason in my judgment is this: I have always held that the smallholder in the Highlands has been proud, poor as he was. I have always maintained that he could never expect any fortune at the end of his life because of his occupation of that holding. Furthermore, it was always a home to him, and has been to his family for generations, and therefore he has a sentimental pride in his occupation. But the smallholder in the North must of necessity, to make both ends meet—because

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        he has a good many months in the year when nothing is doing—have subsidiary occupation, and one part of the Report which pleased me more than any other was the fact that there was co-operation between the Forestry Commissioners and the Board of Agriculture. In many instances they had co-operated. The Commissioners own a large amount of land in Scotland, and the right hon. Gentleman has told us the Board of Agriculture is the largest landowner. Why cannot they co-operate and produce townships of smallholders on the most effective way by placing men upon the more arable parts of the land owned by either of these two bodies and using the less arable land higher up the hillside for the purpose of cultivation?
        Mr. T. JOHNSTON: Why should there be two authorities?
        Mr. MACPHERSON: I believe the Forestry Commissioners have done excellent work, but there is not a single Minister in the House who can speak for them authoritatively. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Acland) answers questions for them and has done a good deal of work on their behalf but the fact remains, now that afforestation has become not merely a national but an imperial industry, that we should have someone who is responsible to the House and can answer for it.
        5.0 P.M.
        If I have attacked the Board so far in my observations I must confess that they are owed a great debt of gratitude for one or two other aspects of their work. I am very glad they have been spending a good deal of money on agricultural research and I willingly subscribe to everything the right hon. Baronet has said with regard to that. I am also glad they are doing extension work. They have now experimental holdings. I have one in my own constituency which is doing admirable work, because the landholders can see how things in that locality ought to be done. But how can the right hon. Gentleman justify the so-called agricultural bias in the primary schools in Scotland when he himself has come forward and said that though there was land in abundance he could not settle any men upon it? The agricultural colleges are exceedingly useful for the higher class
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        work of research, but what we want more than anything else is not only a development of that but an extension of the training of ex-service men and others so that they may be able to occupy land not only at a profit to themselves but at a profit to the State as a whole.
        My right hon. Friend, if he is travelling through the main land of Scotland—I know that he has been enjoying a cruise on my old friend the "Minna" in various parts of the Western Isles—will come with me to the North of Scotland this summer and pay a visit to a cattle show, he will be greatly surprised to find the excellent work that the Board of Agriculture has been doing. The Board has not got sufficient credit for the work it has been doing in that respect. The breed of Highland ponies, of Highland cattle, and of Highland poultry, and the types of potatoes and oats have all been improved during recent years beyond all recognition. For that class of work the Board of Agriculture is deserving of all praise.
        There is a certain amount of money spent every year in the Highlands of Scotland under an item called Public Works in the Congested Districts. I know that Sir Robert Greig, for whom personally I have profound admiration, does everything he can to find out the best objects upon which to expend that money. I was astonished to hear the other day that only £10,000 per year is expended upon that particular object. I carefully perused the Report of the Board, and I find that they were able only to perform a very few of the highly necessary works which must in the course of time be performed in the Highlands of Scotland. That money can be very properly divided. It has gone this year almost all to one constituency. It is true that my constituency got a fair amount of it the year before, but I want the Board of Agriculture to divide it fairly among the districts.
        I have, for example, got an application, which has been passed by the county council, for a bridge for children over the river in the Parish of Strathcarron. The local authorities are not anxious to spend the money but they are quite willing, in the interests of the poor children who have to go to school over this marshy and difficult ground, that a certain amount of money should be spent. The Board has

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        money for this particular purpose. I put a question to the right hon. Gentleman on this subject and he said that the matter was receiving consideration. I am tired of a reply of that kind. It has been reverberating in this House for generations, and I thought that when the right hon Gentleman came into office he would see that speedy effect was given to what was regarded as a promise by the Board of Agriculture. Another road to which I would draw attention is the Drynie Road, in respect of which the same conditions prevail. I am quoting these instances as typical of what is taking place in the Highlands, and I ask my right hon. Friend to take a note of them and to give an assurance that he will consider the urgent advisability when works of great public utility of this kind have been passed of seeing that the works me proceeded with.
        I am glad that my right hon. Friend is paying attention to the question of ensilage. That is a matter of great importance in connection with the winter feeding, and if he will do that for agriculture in the Highlands, all concerned will be very pleased. I was astonished that he had no reference in his speech as to giving administrative effect to some of the recommendations contained in the report of the Deer Forest Commission. That report was not issued by the right hon. Gentleman's party, nor by my party, nor by the party opposite, but by men of all parties, deeply attached to the land in Scotland and deeply interested in the welfare of agriculture and of the people. The Commission came to certain conclusions, and it was expected over two years ago that those conclusions would be given effect to. I am not dealing with the conclusions which require legislative sanction, but with the conclusions to which administrative effect can be given. My right hon. Friend knows that this is one of the most important things in the history of agrarian life in Scotland, and yet he never mentioned it in his speech. I would ask him in his reply to tell us whether he is going to put into effect the administrative proposals of the Commission and whether he is going to attempt, in the course of giving effect to these proposals, by agreement or otherwise, to lower or wipe out the cost of proceedings. The enormous cost of
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        arbitration and the enormous cost of awards has practically prohibited any of the smallholders who are anxious to get extensions in the deer forests from asking for those extensions. If my right hon. Friend can perform anything in that respect administratively and quickly, he will be doing something that will be of great value to the community as a whole.
        I should like to say something about the alleged overlapping of the staff but I dealt with that last year, and I would only now, in conclusion, ask my right hon. Friend to be vigilant where money is concerned down here. If he is vigilant and he gets the amount that is necessary for the upkeep of all good institutions in the north, and for the settlement of an excellent type of man on the land, he should be equally vigilant in seeing that the money is properly and efficiently distributed in Scotland. If be does this he will be conferring a great good upon the country which he represents in this ancient House of Parliament, but if he fails to be vigilant and to give effect to necessary reforms he will find that he has no single supporter in any corner of the House.
        Mr. WRIGHT: I regret that although Scotland has over 70 Members of Parliament we are only allowed two or three days for discussion of Scottish affairs. I also regret the empty state of the benches opposite, considering the interest which the hon. Members opposite take in agricultural matters.
        I should like to say something with regard to the value of experimental work and the training, if not of children, at any rate of young people in this kind of work. Very valuable results are to be obtained from experimental stations. I do not confine my conception of experimental stations to the ordinary use of the term. I do not think we shall ever get the full value of experimental work until every farmstead in the land has an experimental part of its own where people who are actually cultivating the soil may experiment for themselves, and obtain also valuable information from the publication of literature respecting the various experiments which have been made in other parts. The experimental work which is going on in Canada is very valuable, although it is sometimes confined to very small areas. At Brandon experimental

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        station, in Western Canada, on a small area of four acres, 52 bushels of wheat to the acre have been produced. A one-fortieth of an acre plot at the Rosthern experimental station has produced 70 bushels, and a one-nineteenth part of an acre plot has produced at the rate of 81 bushels to the acre. If we had something like that on our farms we should get enormous value by that kind of experimental work, and very much greater results would follow as far as that kind of experimental work is concerned.
        There is a further aspect of the question. I do not think we shall ever be able to get the full value of our natural resources in this country so long as land is private property, owned and controlled as it is at the present time. I look forward to the day when the resources of the nation will be available to the nation. When that time comes we shall have much less difficulty in feeding our people than we have at the present time, and we shall be far less dependant upon foreign nations for our food supplies. This is a problem which concerns not merely agricultural areas but is closely bound up with the intimate life of great towns and cities. It also has a bearing upon the problem of unemployment.
        We have in Scotland at the present time a more acute form of destitution than exists in any other part of the land. The fact that in Glasgow itself for four years over 31,000 people sought the refuge of prison cells as a place, because they were absolutely destitute, for protection during a winter's night, is evidence of the very deplorable conditions prevailing. That is probably due to the gradual decline of agriculture in Scotland during the last 50 years. We do not realise to what a great extent that decline has taken place in Scotland. The area under wheat has fallen from 133,000 acres in 1871 to 65,000 acres in 1922, notwithstanding the fact that the population has very largely increased, if it is not actually doubled. There has been a heavier decline in barley. In 1871 the acreage of barley was 251,800, and in 1922 only 157,000 acres. There has been a decline from over 1,000,000 acres under oats to 988,000 acres in the same period. This is a very serious state of affairs, and it is partly responsible for the very great destitution which exists in that country.
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        I believe that there are very great latent possibilities in agriculture at the present time, and much greater than have yet been realised. There are people who imagine that there are certain types of land, grass lands, which cannot be greatly improved. In confirmation of the view which myself and other hon. Members from Scotland hold, I may say that the amount of grass land is out of proportion to the needs of the country, it is employing a much smaller number of people than the same proportion of tillage land would employ, and is producing a far smaller amount of foodstuffs. In 1916, at the economic proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society, Professor Thompson declared that, comparing grass lands with land under tillage, the value of wheat grown was 15 times greater in the terms of food supply as compared with land under grass. In addition to that, we should appreciate the value of experiments in regard to increasing the yield from the land, and experiments in improving the types of cattle and the quality of milk. We should also use the knowledge which we possess to better advantage. I have tried to conduct one or two small experiments of my own, and although I do not attach too much importance to them, they have a bearing upon these problems. Taking the ordinary yield of a grain of wheat in an average wheat field, I have been able to produce not merely 60 grains from a single seed, but from 1,000 to 1,500 grains from a single seed, and that is only one-fourth of what other men have produced. If we would cultivate the land on that scale we should be able to feed all our people without any great difficulty.
        What is called the growth of multiple wheat has existed for at least 60 or 70 years, yet no serious effort has been made to deal with the problem from that point of view. In addition we have also to realise that valuable experiments have been conducted in some other parts of the land. The late Marquis of Tweeddale experimented on a farm of over 1,000 acres, and at the end of three or four years of his experiments he was producing by the new method of cultivation over four times the average yield previously obtained from the same acreage. In Northumberland they have produced from grass land, which was formerly regarded as of no great value, not merely double, but in some eases quadruple the amount

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        of foodstuffs which they had obtained. Not merely is this a question of experimental stations, but I think we could put a very much larger number of men on the soil of Scotland, but if that is to be done we must introduce more of the co-operative spirit to enable men to do that kind of work.
        I would suggest, in conclusion, that there should be placed at the disposal of the House of Commons the results of various experiments which have been made, not merely in this country, but in some other parts of the world. For instance, the work of Luther Burbank in the United States with regard to the breeding of new types of plant life, and the work of the two Saunders, father and son, who have produced a type of wheat called the Marquis wheat which has a 20 per cent. higher yield than the Red Fife which is now being grown. They have in the United States this kind of information which, if placed at the disposal not merely of agricultural people in this country but of the community generally, would have a valuable effect in stimulating their energies and ideas upon similar lines. I want the time to come soon when the appalling amount of destitution which is a disgrace to our modern civilisation, as it exists in Scotland at present, can and will be remedied. It would be remedied if Ministers would regard themselves as being responsible for the well-being not merely of a few well-to-do people in this land but of the whole community. We have got to a stage of civilisation now in which in my opinion it is a monstrous disgrace that intelligent, capable and honourable workmen should be living in destibution as they are living at the present time.
        Mr. BARCLAY-HARVEY: The hon. Member who has just sat down has made a very interesting statement as to the future possibilities of agriculture. May I ask if I am correct in assuming that the happy state which he has outlined for us will be attained when his particular remedy of State ownership has also arrived? Personally I do not think that State ownership is going to offer any possible advantages under our present system. It is perhaps not a question which affects Scotland only, and I do not intend to pursue it further, but I should view with very great interest any proof by hon. Members opposite that
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        State ownership is going to produce an increase in the production of the land for which all of us in all parts of this House are looking so earnestly.
        There is one point, which was mentioned by the Secretary for Scotland, on which I would like to support him. That was the question of rural education. I am rather sorry, on looking through the Estimates, to see that the amount allocated for education is less than in the previous year. The hon. Member who opened the Debate on this side regretted to see an increase in the amount for salaries, and I join him in that regret. If that increase had not been shown, and if the same amount had been given for educational purposes it would have been a better arrangement. I am very glad that the Secretary for Scotland proposes to begin the education of people in agricultural matters when they are young. I do not intend to discuss the question of the desirability of introducing a bias into the elementary schools, but the younger you can begin to interest people in agriculture, and to show them its enormous possibilities, and also the great worth of agriculture, the better for this country.
        There is no doubt that at present a great number of young people of both sexes in the country are attracted by what they think are the superiorities of the town. By superiorities, I mean that a great many of them look upon clerkships, and what is known as the Civil Service and things of that sort, as occupations which are superior, from the social point of view, to occupations on the land. One of the ways of combating that tendency, and of keeping people on the land, is to teach them when they are very young that, after all, the production of food and the scientific production from the land of all that it can be made to yield is one of the highest social duties which a man can perform. That is a point which must be remembered, and I hope that the Secretary for Scotland, when he is introducing his scheme for improving education, will see that that side of it is brought out very plainly, because I think that our rural problems largely result from that kind of feeling which I have mentioned.
        We all know that agriculture in Scotland, though perhaps not in the terrible condition which it has reached in

        1555
        some parts of England, is at the same time passing through a period of very great difficulty, and, that being so, we should not miss any opportunity of improving the situation of agriculturists in general, farmers and farm servants, and crofters, and all those who are occupied in producing the food of the country. Even there we have to look to what may be considered the auxiliary sides of farming. Therefore, I welcome the statement as to the productivity of the hens of the Orkneys, and I hope that before the end of the year either the right hon. Gentleman or his successor will be able to tell us an equally encouraging tale of the activity of hens in other parts of Scotland as well. I was struck with the very curious fact that we should have to go abroad to such a very large extent for such a common necessary food as eggs, and everything that can be done ought to be done to encourage, not only farmers and crofters, but also cotters and anybody with even a small piece of land to go in for egg production and poultry farming. Anything which the Board of Agriculture can do towards assisting them in that respect will have my most hearty support.
        Another point to which attention might be paid is pig-breeding. Lately we have seen a tendency in Scotland to increase the number of co-operative bacon factories. That is a thing which the Board of Agriculture should watch and encourage. It has been suggested in very responsible quarters that the number of these factories may outrun the supply. It is said that only about three can be profitably run in the South and about two in the North-East. That is a wrong way of looking at it. I do not see why, with proper assistance and encouragement from headquarters, the number of pigs bred all over Scotland, and particularly perhaps in the North-East, which is already a very large pig-breeding district, should not be greatly increased. Everything which we can do to increase our food production at this moment should be encouraged. Pigs form a very important part of the food of the people. I think that the Secretary for Scotland might well increase the attention which his Department is giving to that particular matter.
        There is another small point which is mentioned in the Report of the Board of Agriculture, which I would like to see
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        mentioned at much greater length. There is a very large possibility in a great many districts in Scotland, where there is heather, or realising quite a considerable income by smallholders and others from the keeping of bees. I have seen myself very prosperous results coming from the keeping of hives. In heather countries there are masses and masses of honey to be collected. Heather honey is the finest honey which this country produces, and I hope that the sum of £50 which was given last year for the encouragement of bee-keeping may in future be increased. I hope that the Board of Agriculture will take such steps as they can to increase knowledge on this subject, and also to increase the desire among the people to keep bees. I know that a lot of people look upon them as terrible animals, if they can be called animals, and I am rather inclined that way myself, but I understand from people who handle them that they are very simple to deal with, and they certainly can be made to produce a large revenue from something which will cost nothing.
        Those are all small points which we might consider with a view to helping agriculture, but I am very glad that so many people have said that the Board of Agriculture should take a very wide view of its responsibilities. I happen to have the honour of representing a constituency which consists very largely of large farms. Some of the very best and largest farms are situated in that constituency, and there is no branch of the work of the Board of Agriculture which is more important than developing and assisting the best kind of agriculture. I hope that the Secretary for Scotland will do all he can to develop that research and experimental side which is so important from the point of view of the large as well as that of the small agriculturists. That brings me back to where I started. When you are increasing the amount of scientific research and increasing higher farming and a more scientific outlook, you will encourage young people of great intelligence to realise that there is, perhaps, more in it than they were inclined to think. That is a point of view which should be brought before young men and women when they are contemplating a future for themselves, and also before parents when they are contemplating a future for their children,

        1557
        and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give that point also his serious consideration.
        I do urge upon the right hon. Gentleman the desirability of doing all he can, even though it may be only a little, and even though he may have to tread a very difficult and stony path, to endeavour to get Scottish agriculturists to co-operate. I know that in this matter he is up against great difficulties, owing largely to the sturdy independence of the Scottish farmer, but personally I cannot help welcoming that independence from a certain point of view, for I think that it shows that the Scottish farmer is not likely to fall in with some of the views of the right hon. Gentleman and those who sit behind him, and I think that, perhaps, one of the greatest assets of our country is the fact that the farmers of Scotland are strong, sturdy, stout individualists. That has been very largely the cause of the strength in Scotland in the past of the party which sits below the Gangway opposite, and I am confident that it will be one of the greatest bulwarks against what appear to some of us to be the fallacies behind the policy of Members of the Labour party. However, I do not want to introduce any controversial topic. We are all here to do what we can for the improvement of agriculture, and it is on the lines that I have mentioned that I beg the Secretary for Scotland to continue in the excellent ways which he has described to us this afternoon.
        Sir ROBERT HAMILTON: I must confess that I did not understand how the Secretary for Scotland took credit to himself for the fertility of the Orkney hen. Orkney is a great place for producing hens, but where the Board of Agriculture should come in, in regard to Orkney, is in impressing on the people who own the hens the great value of the grading of their eggs, and of examining them and marketing them by up-to-date methods. In that direction there is a great opening for the work of the Board of Agriculture. The task has not been undertaken to the extent that it might have been. During the last General Election I had some difficulty in impressing on the electors there the great value of these methods, compared with the methods that are put forward under the guise of the Merchandise Marks Bill and similar Measures. I have to thank the
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        Secretary for Scotland for the reference which he made to the introduction of the Bill to deal with the distress that has been caused in the crofting counties over the matter of the resumption of small holdings. I am glad that the Bill has been introduced, but I would have been still more glad if the Secretary for Scotland could have said that it had reached its Second Reading. The sooner that Bill becomes an Act the better it will be for the Highlands of Scotland.
        I have also to thank the Secretary for Scotland for his declaration with regard to land settlement. It is most important that this question should be pressed forward. I have taken the trouble to analyse the figures that appear in the Report of the Board of Agriculture. From that analysis it appears that the length of time that has been taken to settle the number of people who have been settled on the land is out of all proportion to what should have been the case. I must apologise for troubling the Committee with a few figures which show what has been taking place during the last 10 years. The Report says that there were 3,631 applicants settled. That does not mean that those applicants were all settled on the land. It means that there were 3,631 applications dealt with. Many of them were for enlargements of holdings. The actual number of fresh settlers placed upon the land during the period was 2,275, of whom 1,570 were exservicemen and about 700 were civilians. That is to say that since 1912 the actual number of persons newly settled on the land is 2,275. Taking the whole number of applications, this means that an average of a little over 300 a year have been dealt with and that it would take over 30 years to deal with the list which is now before the Board. It will take something like 10 years at the present rate of progress to deal with the exservicemen's applications which arc ripe to be dealt with.
        The very important statement appears in the Report that the funds provided by the Acts of 1919–1921 are insufficient for suitable ex-service men being dealt with. If the funds are insufficient for settling the ex-service men who are ready to be dealt with, how much more insufficient are they to deal with the whole body of people who have made applications, and are waiting to be dealt with? I welcome

        1559
        the declaration of the Secretary for Scotland that more attention was to be given to this matter. But here we have the Board of Agriculture declaring that the fund is already insufficient for dealing with the ex-service men. If the matter is to receive the attention that it ought to receive, there shall be far more than an average of 300 men settled annually. We should not take 10 or 20 years to deal with the lists that are before the Board now. A great deal more vim should be put into the effort, and more money should be provided, if necessary. The matter has not been dealt with on the broad lines and with the vigour behind it that there ought to have been in the past. I hope that the Secretary for Scotland will translate his words into deeds, and that if he continues in office for the next 12 months, we shall be able to congratulate him at the end of that time on a very great improvement in this direction.
        There is one other point to which I wish to draw particular attention. Everyone who is engaged in agriculture is aware of the very great importance of fertilisers and feeding stuffs and of the purity of those things. It appears from the Report that we have before us, that of the samples examined in the various counties of Scotland during the past year, over 40 per cent. of the fertilisers and over 38 per cent. of the feeding stuffs were unsatisfactory. Those are most astounding figures. There is very little in the Report throwing light upon the figures, and I hope that the Secretary for Scotland will be able to give us some information as to what this statement really means. In answer to a question that I put the other day, in reference to prosecutions following the analysis of these unsatisfactory samples, I was informed that no prosecutions had taken place during the year. It seems to be a most extraordinary state of affairs that no less than 40 per cent. of fertilisers should be reported as unsatisfactory on official analysis. How unsatisfactory have they been? Does it mean that they deviated only slightly from the standard that they ought to have reached, or that they are of such a quality that the person who bought them was not receiving full value for his money and that the land was not receiving proper nutriment? In some counties the percentages
        1560
        were even worse. Aberdeen, I think, is about the worst, and it is a county from which a very large number of samples was taken. In Aberdeen 58 per cent. of the fertilisers and 51 per cent. of the feeding stuffs were unsatisfactory. Seeing of what very great importance fertilisers and feeding stuffs are to the industry, I hope that the Secretary for Scotland will be able to satisfy us on the point and let us know that in Scotland at least, we get what we expect when we pay money for these things.
        Mr. T. JOHNSTON: I was rather surprised that the hon. Member who has just spoken seemed rather to deprecate the value of agricultural co-operation.
        Sir R. HAMILTON: I am very far from deprecating what has been done. I merely said that a great deal more might be done by instruction and demonstration by the Board of Agriculture.
        Mr. JOHNSTON: I rather understood that the hon. Gentleman said that during the General Election campaign he found very great difficulty in getting his constituents to accept his point of view about the value of agricultural co-operation.
        Sir R. HAMILTON: Not the value of co-operation but the value of grading and marketing eggs by modern methods.
        Mr. JOHNSTON: I am glad that the hon. Member has not in any way deprecated what I regard as the most wonderful success of agricultural co-operation in Scotland. When I was in Orkney last year I found that there were 13 co-operative egg societies in the hon. Member's constituency and that one of them alone was selling 79,862 eggs. They were actual farmers, smallholders in the Island of Sanday, who were making £200 per annum from eggs alone. There are parishes in the Orkney Islands where there is actually no Poor Rate whatever. I am sure that that is entirely due to the acceptance of the idea of co-operation and the success with which the smallholders have pursued that idea. I listened with some dismay to the speech of the Secretary for Scotland. I do not think that he deserves any bouquets. He has done his best, and probably has done better than any of his predecessors, but it is not good enough for us. It is not good enough to come here and say that since the days of the Congested Districts Board there have been 4,500 men settled

        1561
        on the land. He forgot to tell us that during that period there was a decrease of not fewer than 45,000 in farm servants alone. With a decrease of 45,000 it is nothing to boast about that you have put one-tenth of that number back on the soil. From 1871 to 1911 there was a decrease of 55,859 male persons engaged in agriculture in Scotland.
        The Secretary for Scotland has to-day proposed nothing. He tells us that he is going to develop agriculture. Well and good; I hope he will. I hope he will go about with his propaganda to Tiree and the Orkneys and the rest of it. He will do good if he does that. Even if he goes ahead with his propaganda for co-operation in agriculture he will not touch the point. The right hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) knows the facts. He talked about Arabella. He might have said that this colony of small holdings in his constituency was the only place where they got baths in their houses. Part of the loss on those small holdings was due to the extraordinary cost of the houses which were built on the holdings. Even if you have all this propaganda for co-operation you have not touched the real essence of the trouble. The Game and Heather-burning Committee showed what was wrong. Scotland is being used as a game preserve and a playground for the rich A large part of my native land is under deer; more of it is used for grouse, and as parks. This question will have to be tackled and the recommendations of the Game and Heather-burning Committee will have to be put into operation. I know it will take legislation, but if the Secretary of Scotland were to state that he intended to ask for powers to deal with evils of the kind mentioned by this Committee——
        Mr. ADAMSON: I said so.
        Mr. JOHNSTON: I did not hear the right hon. Gentleman, but if he said so I withdraw. I wish, however, he would tell us exactly what is in his mind as to the Labour party's policy with regard to the re-peopling of rural Scotland. Is he going to deal with the problem as a whole? Is he going to have a re-survey made of every county from an agricultural point of view? He has already some of the figures in the Board of Agriculture Offices in Edinburgh, but he could make
        1562
        a survey of the various counties to see in a particular county for instance, how many small holdings could be allotted, how many acres of arable land were available and how many acres for grazing, and, in the less useful parts, how much land was available for afforestation. Afforestation schemes could be used with a view to providing 150 days' work in the year for the crofter, and crofting could thus be made an economic proposition. We could lift these people up from their position as a subservient class, barely getting a living, to the position of a class earning a decent livelihood. We must treat the problem of land settlement as a whole, and the powers and functions which are at present enjoyed by the Forestry Commission should be taken by the right hon. Gentleman's Department so far as Scotland is concerned. We should run this thing as a private business would be run. I notice in the report that the right hon. Gentleman is co-operating with the Forestry Commission, but that is not good enough. There should be a comprehensive scheme, and if the right hon. Gentleman were to approach the matter in that way, I believe it would be possible to put men back on the soil in Scotland, not at the rate of 300 per annum, but at the rate of over 10,000 per annum.
        The right hon. Gentleman should encourage local authorities to carry out afforestation schemes on the water catchment areas and give them money at a low rate of interest to do so. In that way it would be possible this winter to find economic and healthy employment for 50,000 men. That is something worth doing. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Pollok Division of Glasgow (John Gilmour) was speaking about co-operation and about the necessity for spending further money on propaganda, I had the temerity to interrupt him with a query as to what the society of which he is vice-president is doing at the moment. The right hon. Gentleman asks for more money, and I agree that more money should be spent on propaganda for co-operation, but I cannot understand why the right hon. Gentleman should ask for more money for his society. If I understand the balance sheet of that society, the total expenditure for last year is returned at £7,858, but of that sum £1,600 was lent to the Edinburgh Corporation and another £2,000 was also lent to the

        1563
        Edinburgh Corporation, making a total of £3,600, or almost half of what is returned as expenditure. Apparently they do not spend very much. I think they should be spending more money, and I am sure every Member in the Committee will support me in trying to induce the Secretary for Scotland to give larger grants, but I hope there will be a guarantee that money so granted will be spent, and not invested with the Edinburgh Corporation or anyone else.
        Sir J. GILMOUR: May I say the interest on that money is being used to the fullest extent. The money lent from time to time has to be shown in the balance sheet in this way.
        Mr. JOHNSTON: I do not profess to be able to explain balance sheets with the same perspicuity as the right hon. Gentleman, but when simple folk like myself are asked to give more money, and when we see that there is £3,600 in hand which has not been spent., we are entitled to ask for an explanation. I now wish to ask the Secretary for Scotland what he is going to do about MacBrayne's contract. We were told last year that MacBrayne's contract came up for signature this year.
        The CHAIRMAN: If the hon. Member is referring to the Hebridean steamer service he is out of order on this Vote. That matter is dealt with in Vote 35.
        Mr. JOHNSTON: I must depart from the subject in that case. If the Secretary for Scotland will be in order in doing so, I hope when winding up the Debate he will assure us that the money spent upon land settlement and agricultural development is not going to be thrown away into the maw of the great trust which is strangling the Western Highlands. I desire to call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that to-day in Prussia alone 87,701 people are employed in State forestry, and in Baden, 12,491. Will the right hon. Gentleman approach all the local authorities in Scotland by circular and invite them to prepare their water catchment areas for afforestation? Will he give them money at 1 per cent, or 2 per cent. interest to do the work. I know they get grants, but I want them to get money at a low rate of interest. Will he tell us approximately how many thousand acres are available which can be prepared this winter by drainage and
        1564
        fencing? I ask him to let his Department break out into something fresh. Do not let us have a stodgy repetition of the stodgy reports which we have had from the Board of Agriculture in past years. Let us have a real effort to prevent the decay of the Scottish nation; a real effort to stop emigration, a real effort to replant the people of Scotland and the soil of Scotland.
        The right hon. Gentleman has already told us that he is going to break up private landlordism, or, at any rate, is going to take another shot at it through the operation of the Report of the Game and Deer Forests Commission. Let him mark this as a new era; the Hegira of a new Mohamed setting out upon his march. I ask the right hon. Gentleman what he is going to do? I assure him that I, for one, and I speak for two or three dozen Members in this Committee, are not going to sit tamely year after year during these Debates on Scottish Estimates and allow the kind of thing to go on which has been going on. I feel I would be false to the history of my country and to the people who sent me here if I did not guarantee a thundering big row here 12 months from now unless the process of the decimation of the people of the countryside, the flooding of our slums, and the sending of our people across the seas is stopped and replaced by a process of repeopling the countryside. If the right hon. Gentleman sets his face towards that goal and sets out bravely, he will have the backing of nine-tenths of the people of Scotland, and he will be able to say, when his little day is over, that he tried to do something for his native land. The present Report from the Board of Agriculture is not an indication that they are trying to do anything at all.
        6.0 P.M.
        Earl of DALKEITH: I ask hon. Members to give me the indulgence which they always extend to one who is addressing them for the first time. We have listened with great interest to all that has been said about the crofters and about other subjects concerning the Highlands, both during this and during recent agricultural Debates, but I think it appropriate to remind the Committee that there are also large agricultural areas in the South of Scotland, in which many of us are interested, and which embrace all kinds of farming, principally of a very

        1565
        high standard. I trust the Scottish Board of Agriculture are not devoting their attention solely to subjects which affect the Highlands. I was surprised that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland in his opening remarks in regard to sheep only mentioned improvement of sheep in the crofting areas in the Highlands. Sheep farming and breeding is of the greatest interest to all agriculturists in my constituency, and the woollen trade is a matter of the highest importance to them and to everyone engaged in the manufactures for which the Border burghs are so famous. I will not go into a subject about which so much could be said, but in passing, I may refer to the way in which the importance of this industry is emphasised in another place by the Woolsack. It has been pointed out to me by friends of mine condemned to sit in that. House, and I understand it is there to remind us of the great value of wool in the past history of the country and incidentally of its present necessity in connection with many of our industries and manufactures. Anything which the Minister and the Board of Agriculture can do to assist sheep farming is for the benefit not only of agriculture, but of many allied industries. I hope the right hon. Gentleman is not only continuing, but is taking steps to see that there is an extension of the policy of agricultural education and research into diseases of animals, and that he is making ample provision for these purposes. I am glad of this opportunity of referring to a question concerning a sheep disease, which is of very great importance at this moment to all sheep farmers in Scotland, and especially in the border counties. I think it is necessary to bring this matter to the notice of the Secretary for Scotland, and to draw his attention to the great and unnecessary disadvantages with which all flockmasters, especially in the South of Scotland, are competing at the present time, owing to the Regulations with regard to sheep scab, about which they have frequently complained and offered alternative suggestions within the last 12 months. I believe that the Scottish Board of Agriculture have the greatest sympathy towards these proposals, and that they are agreed as to the advantages of their adoption. I would, therefore, like to ask the Minister whether this is
        1566
        not so, and whether he will use his influence with the Minister of Agriculture to see that these proposals can be carried out. If it is the case that the inspectors of the Scottish Board arc in touch with this matter and are in agreement with these proposals, I would like to know why it is that nothing so far has been done to remedy the situation. This disease is not as, serious as many others, but it is sufficiently serious to demand that adequate steps should be taken to stamp it out and prevent it from spreading. It is, however, most objectionable and unnecessary that nearly all the sheep trade in Scotland, especially in the southern counties, should be interfered with and handicapped to the extent that it is at the present time.
        Under the present system of the Department concerned, there is very considerable interference with trade, and there are very few adequate measures to deal with the disease. What is wanted is the absolute reverse, and by doing this the Department concerned can do a real, good, practical turn to one branch of agriculture. Owing to the present double dipping Regulations, much expense is caused to farmers, and often considerable loss in the value of sheep, owing to unnecessary dipping, and at the same time there is a prevention of the free movement of sheep, for no adequate reason. The new Order of the Department, commencing this week, is not strong enough to be effective, but at the same time it continues the handicapping of the market. I, therefore, ask the Minister to give effect to proposals both made in Scotland and by deputations to London that the areas where sheep scab originates or is prevalent should be scheduled and that unnecessary dipping of clean sheep should be done away with, and I would ask him to use his influence with the Minister of Agriculture to have these proposals carried out and action taken, if possible, before and not after the sheep and lamb sales of this year.
        While on this subject, I think the Scottish Board of Agriculture should help to safeguard Scottish interests in another way. I do not believe that the local authorities should be allowed to use such wide powers as they are doing in certain cases in making their own Regulations, especially with regard to the movement of animals, and that the Ministry of

        1567
        Agriculture should be asked to take the responsibility instead and see that there is more uniformity between the different districts. As a member of a county council where the agricultural representatives have been against the use of these powers by local authorities, and where such success has been met with up to the present time that there has been no foot-and-mouth disease or sheep scab disease, I think local authorities very often carry their protective measures too far. In the last few weeks, instances have come to my knowledge of local authorities putting these restrictions against other counties, including those counties in the South of Scotland, as a result of which normal trade in livestock in those counties has been seriously interfered with, and these instances to which I refer are chiefly from the English side of the Border. I think that too much is very often made of the Cheviots as a dividing line by those people south of it when putting on these restrictions, and that districts on each side of the Border carrying on similar kinds of farming should be on the same footing. I think the Scottish Board of Agriculture and the Minister himself might be asked to safeguard our interests on these occasions and to use their influence with the Ministry of Agriculture in London.
        I wish now to refer to one other point, on the subject of education and research. I notice, under Item M.1, a decrease of over £4,000 in the grants to agricultural and veterinary colleges in respect of maintenance expenditure, and under Item M.2 I am glad to see an increase of £1,649 for agricultural research. After listening to the Minister of Agriculture discussing the advantages of the extension of agricultural education, I was surprised to see that the first serious reduction in the Estimates occurs under this first heading, and I hope it means that the economy is effected owing to the money not being required, but I would strongly deprecate any stinting of the upkeep of any of our research colleges. For instance, we now have in Edinburgh the Royal Veterinary College, on which very large sums of money have been spent in recent years to provide adequate buildings, and which also possesses a hospital, with a large external and internal clinic, for the purposes of teaching. Moreover, this college has been built up
        1568
        for over 100 years, and careful study and the best brains have continually been improving it and bringing it up to date. Only recently the Animal Diseases Research Association have purchased a site near Edinburgh for a research station for the purpose of carrying out some of their work in this college. Rather than that the two colleges in Edinburgh and Glasgow should continue to exist in a state of semi-financial starvation, and neither of them able to advance in the way that is so desirable, I trust that the Ministry will see that a sufficient grant is made towards completing the equipment of the new buildings of the Royal Dick Veterinary College in Edinburgh.
        Owing to the heavy burdens of taxation and rating of agricultural land, and as almost all and in many cases the whole, of the net returns from land, equipment and buildings is required to be put back in upkeep and proper management, it is no longer possible, as formerly, for owners and occupiers to give what they would like to such valuable institutions. It is now, therefore, more than ever essential that the Board should take its part in seeing that this college has a sufficient grant to enable it to carry out its special purposes, especially the training of students for the future, and its valuable research work. In view of the fact that so much trouble and such a large amount of expense has been incurred in making the buildings as good as possible, the Ministry can do a real service to agricultural and veterinary education by giving any encouragement and necessary assistance. The research work of the Animal Diseases Research Association has already recently resulted in valuable discoveries in sheep diseases, and a substantial reduction in the death-rate from braxy, and I hope that the grants for this society may be maintained, or even increased, instead of being, as I see, slightly decreased. I hope this may also apply to the Scottish Society for Research in Plant Breeding, and I might add that both these institutions have been largely supported by private subscriptions from landowners and farmers, as the right hon. Gentleman said in his opening remarks.
        In conclusion, I should like to ask one or two further questions about land settlement. I did not quite understand what was the present policy of the

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        Minister in settling those applications which had been examined and found to be satisfactory and likely to succeed in small holdings, and I would like to ask if it is the intention of the Board to cooperate more than has been done with the Forestry Commission in forming small holdings. I would like to suggest that this kind of holding is more likely to succeed in districts remote from railways and markets than most other kinds would be. As an instance, I would like to ask if the Board are considering starting some small holdings on the Forestry Commission land in Liddesdale. In connection with this and with the training of ex-service men in agriculture and allied occupations, I should like to refer to the scarcity of skilled men at present as stone dykers, wire fencers, hedgers, and drainers in many districts, including the south of Scotland, and to the favourable openings for these people if they also occupied holdings which were not so large as to prevent them working for wages or on contract for a considerable part of the year. I thank hon. Members for the indulgence that they have given to me.
        Major DUDGEON: I am sure it is the wish of the Committee that I should congratulate my Noble Friend the Member for Roxburgh (Earl of Dalkeith) on his extremely interesting maiden speech. The Committee listened to the speech with added interest, because the representatives of Scotland, at any rate, know the great part that the family to which the Noble Lord belongs has played in Scottish agriculture. There are many points that were dealt with by the Secretary for Scotland to which I should like to allude, but I know that there are many Members who are anxious to take part in the Debate, and therefore I will touch on very few indeed. There was one point raised by my Noble Friend the Member for Roxburgh that I should like answered, and that is the great shortage that exists in the south of Scotland at the present moment in regard to skilled hedgers and drainers. These men—the old men—are practically dying out, and there are no young men coming forward to take their place. I believe that a scheme ought to be promoted whereby ex-service men who are out of employment at the present moment could be trained as expert hedgers and drainers. There is no doubt
        1570
        a great deal of land all over Scotland that requires draining, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to get skilled men to carry out this work, and I would suggest to my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland that the Board of Agriculture might take up this question of the training of skilled hedgers and drainers.
        I was greatly interested to hear what the Secretary for Scotland had to say with regard to the question of education. I think we all recognise to-day in the general sphere the great value of education, but, to come down to agriculture, it appears to me to be absolutely essential that we should have a more efficient system of agricultural education. I must say I have grave doubts about the advisability of introducing any sort of vocational education into our primary schools. There are a great many authorities in Scotland that are promoting advanced courses in the post-qualifying stages of our elementary schools. I think in these advanced courses, an element of rural industry might be introduced. I do not want to confine it to agriculture, but to get a rural atmosphere in these advanced courses would un-doubtedly be advantageous. I would, however, suggest that this question must be treated with extreme care, because the people of Scotland as a whole—and I have no doubt it is the same in other parts of the United Kingdom—have always been extremely suspicious of anything in the shape of vocational education entering our elementary schools.
        We hear a tremendous lot about cooperation in this House, and I am not going to minimise for one moment the importance of agricultural co-operation, but I would suggest that it is a thing that cannot be developed rapidly. It is an organisation of extremely slow growth. I am sure my right hon. Friend the Member for Pollok (Sir J. Gilmour) will agree with me that agricultural education in Scotland has moved very slowly indeed, and it has not been for the want of a thoroughly efficient organisation. My right hon. Friend the Member for Pollok referred to Dr. Douglas, who was chairman of that organisation for a number of years. I am sure all of us who have been identified with Scottish agriculture realise what a great amount of work Dr. Douglas threw into agricultural organisation, and how great is the

        1571
        loss Scottish agriculture has sustained through his untimely death. Although agricultural co-operation can undoubtedly do a great deal, it cannot accomplish a revolution in the agricultural world. It can put agriculture on a more satisfactory footing than it is on today, but I do not believe that even the most efficient co-operation can keep our third class land under cultivation, and that does appear to be the major problem, if we are going to keep even our existing population on the land.
        I would, therefore, suggest that we have arrived at a time when we want to have an inquiry into all the machinery dealing with agriculture in Scotland, not only on the educational side, but also on the scientific side. I am one of those who, in the days of my youth, was very enthusiastic about Scotland having a Board of Agriculture of its own, and many of us who supported very, very strongly the setting up of a Board of Agriculture for Scotland at that time had in our minds the great benefits that Ireland had received from a separate agricultural department, and we were hopeful that the same benefits would accrue to Scotland. I do not wish to criticise the Scottish Board of Agriculture unduly, but I do say that it has not retained the support that it should have done of the agricultural community in Scotland. All sections of agriculturists in Scotland are rather disappointed in the Scottish Board of Agriculture. I have no doubt that its difficulties may have been largely difficulties of finance, because those are the main difficulties of the present day, but I am inclined to think that the Board of Agriculture could gain the sympathy and the hearty co-operation of the agricultural world in Scotland if a thoroughly impartial and an expert inquiry were held as to the direction or directions in which we should endeavour to move in getting a higher state of efficiency in Scottish agriculture.
        It is always possible for first-class land to pay under nearly every condition we can imagine, and even second-class land, possibly, to yield a profit, but if we cannot bring science to our aid—and I am afraid it is the only thing we are likely to get—a great deal of this third-class land will go out of cultivation. I believe the solution with regard to land being
        1572
        kept under cultivation, which was brought forward by the National Farmers' Union of England and Scotland last year, was on the right lines, but that scheme has, I think, been definitely rejected, in the meantime at least, by the country, and has not undoubtedly a majority in this House. Therefore, I think we have got to try and get our Board of Agriculture in Scotland to develop along new lines—lines that are likely to maintain a larger population on the land.
        There is no doubt a great deal to be said for land settlement. I do not wish to be unduly critical, but I do say that there are a great many of us in Scotland to-day who think that the methods by which land settlement has been promoted since the War have not been the most satisfactory or the most economical, that we have not got value for money and that the smallholders, who have very expensive, though not very satisfactory, equipment placed upon their holdings. Will in years to come have increasing difficulty in getting profit out of those holdings. [An HON. MEMBER: "They are having it now."] Quite right; they are having it now. As I know from the small holding colonies in the part of the country I represent, they are having very great difficuties to make ends meet, and on all grounds, not least the ground of the smallholder, I think the Secretary for Scotland would be very well advised to set up a Departmental Committee, not for the purpose of unduly criticising the Board of Agriculture, but to assist them, and to show in what direction we can put Scottish agriculture on the high road to serve the Scottish people.
        I believe in Scotland, possibly, we have a higher standard of agriculture than South of the Border, but it is increasingly difficult to maintain that standard, and it is increasingly difficult to keep the rural population. Emigration is taking a great toll from our rural areas, and a toll of the most skilled men, the men who are absolutely essential if we are to keep even our present standard of Scottish agriculture. This can only be met by finding an outlet for these men, so that they will not be smallholders all their lives, but when they reach middle-age and their family grows up, and is able to assist them, they will be able to take a larger holding. Do not tie them down to a small holding all their

        1573
        days, I believe a man who can get a fair living on a small holding may be able to move on to a larger holding, and it is one of the great defects of the present system of small holdings that a man gets tied down the whole of his days to that small holding. There are many other reasons I should like to give the Secretary for Scotland for going into the question of a thorough re-organisation of Scottish agriculture, and I do trust he will give consideration to the matter. I can assure him that I come into contact with all sections of agricultural opinion in Scotland, and it is highly critical of many acts of administration of the Scottish Board of Agriculture. It would be beneficial to the Scottish Board of Agriculture, therefore, if an inquiry were held, to show in what directions the Scottish Board might be made really an efficient organisation to promote Scottish agriculture.
        Lieut.-General Sir Aylmer HUNTER- WESTON: I rejoice very greatly that on every side attention has been drawn to-day to the fact that the settlement of ex-soldiers on the land has in Scotland gone so very slowly. I say that, because I know the great difficulty the Board of Agriculture have in this matter lies really, not with the Secretary for Scotland, or his predecessor, who, we know, have been most sympathetic, but it lies in the difficulty of getting money from the Treasury, and it can only be that we can get money from the Treasury if there is a clear exposition in this House, by people of all shades of opinion, that it is necessary to get money for this very important object. But while agreeing that money should be spent on this, I would enter a, caveat. I am not at all persuaded that we are putting our ex-service men on the land in the right way. In Yorkshire some of the colonists put on the land have been a great success. In many parts of Scotland there has been, as we all know, a great failure. I would like to suggest to the Secretary for Scotland that he should have an inquiry made into what have been the conditions that have led to success in the one case and failure in the other. That is a concrete proposal. I have my own theory on the subject, but I do not propose to bore the Committee with it. All that I say is: Inquire into the subject to see where things have gone right, and where things have gone wrong. Then, having seen where are the good points,
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        let us develop that side of the settlement scheme in Scotland.
        There is another point—a small one, perhaps, but, I think, an important one—which has not been touched upon at all. We have talked, and talked rightly, of the importance of trying to increase production, but there is another side. We should try to prevent waste, and there is no greater pest and danger to a great number of our crops in many parts of the world than rats and mice. Parliament has rightly placed on the Statute Book an Act for the destruction of rats and mice and I rejoice to see on page 68 of the Report of the Board of Agriculture for Scotland that the Board have done what they can to get local authorities to take measures to carry out the provisions of that Act. I see that in some counties the Board's advice has been followed. I do not wish to enlarge on the subject, but I would ask the Secretary for Scotland to see how the rats' destruction has been carried on with advantage in one part, and try to get similar provisions made all over the country. There is no question that that is one of the most destructive agencies in the country at the present time. It is one which is not really recognised by most of us, and it certainly should have a good deal of attention devoted to it by those whose business it is to look after agriculture in Scotland, to wit, the Board of Agriculture.
        Another suggestion I would make is one which has been made by many other Members, and that is the necessity for increasing and perfecting research work for agriculture in Scotland. Most of us from agricultural counties have seen that the Board of Agriculture has been developing demonstration holdings. There is nothing, I think, that is so good for the development of agriculture. It is an axiom, I think, of all educationists that it is no use appealing only to one sense. It is no use merely talking and writing; you must appeal to the eye, so that you may see. Especially that is so in the case of the farmers who do not take in what you say to them, and do not care. Well, what they want to see is a delivery of the goods. Where you can get demonstration holdings, and can show by the demonstrations that you are getting a better crop by a particular system or by a particular form of seed or a par-

        1575
        ticular manure, then you are going to get some real good out of the work that is done.
        Furthermore, I would suggest that where you have these demonstration holdings more use could be made of them by trying to get into connection with the farmers, and getting them shown over at some favourable time. One of the inspectors of the Board of Agriculture, who is gifted with the "gift of the gab"—and many are—should accompany the party and should be able in a persuasive and eloquent way to put before the assembled farmers the particular points that are of value in that particular part of the country. It is quite useless, as we all know, to say that agriculture is being developed in England on certain lines. We will not have anything to do with it in Scotland if talked at in that way. I say the same thing applies in relation to, say, the South-East of Scotland. What may be done there does not particularly interest those of us who live in the South-West. What has to be done is to give the particular information and instruction necessary for our own particular part of the land. We do not believe it will succeed if we do not see it with our own eyes. These, then, are the particular constructive points that I desire to put before the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland to-day.
        Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: I do not wish to follow the right hon. Gentleman in his very interesting remarks about the wisdom of co-operation, research, and agricultural education, partly because I think that, in the opinion of the whole House, that part of his statement was extremely satisfactory, and because many hon. Members who have better qualifications than I, have been making constructive suggestions. I am sure, however, that the Secretary for Scotland will not think me ungrateful or ungenerous, but merely businesslike, if I concentrate on that part of his speech which seemed to be more unsatisfactory. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Clackmannan (Mr. Johnson) in his remarks on land settlement that the programme the right hon. Gentleman sketched of land settlement is in many respects unsatisfactory. The urgency of this question does not seem to be fully appreciated
        1576
        by the Secretary for Scotland, or that in the last two generations in nearly every Highland county, if you look at the Census figures, you will find that there has been a decreasing population in the Highland counties. That decrease has been between 30 per cent and 40 per cent and in some counties more than 40 per cent. That is a process we want to stop. That is a process we want to reverse. It seems to me, therefore, to be one of the most vital questions which we have to discuss on this Vote, and I was all the more disappointed that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Pollok Division (Lieut.-Colonel Sir J.Gilmour), in the course of his extremely interesting and eloquent speech to-day, referred somewhat slightingly to the question of land settlement, and especially to the question of land settlement in the Highlands.
        Sir J. GILMOUR: If I gave an impression of that kind it is an entirely erroneous one, and I did not certainly mean to so express myself. What I was suggesting was that on the estimating the balance of the importance of the work in Scotland there ought to be taken into consideration the interests, the larger interests of agriculture as a whole. Consideration ought not to be confined to definite areas.
        Sir A. SINCLAIR: But my point was that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman did specially mention in a somewhat deprecating way the interests of the Highlands. He said in the matter of land settlement that large holdings of a more economic size were of greater interest to the people in the towns than smallholdings in the Highlands.
        Sir J. GILMOUR: Certainly, a greater production of food.
        Sir A. SINCLAIR: From that point of view I venture to say that land settlement in the Highlands, and from the point of view of the race, is a far more important problem than land settlement in the Lowlands of Scotland. Not only that, but in the Highlands this is the most economic way of using the land, whereas, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman said in his argument, perhaps in the Lowlands it is more economic to use the land for large farming. The first point with which I shall deal of the ex-service men is in regard to land settlement

        1577
        is the treatment of ex-service men. I would refer to what the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Ayr and Bute (Lieut.-General Sir A. Hunter-Weston) referred to, and that is the chance that has already been given to these ex-service men. They have not had a fair chance. The whole matter has been put to the Secretary for Scotland before, but I should like to associate myself with the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite in regard to a possible inquiry into the causes which are at the root of the success, on the one hand, of small holdings in Yorkshire, and their failure in parts of Scotland. I hope he will take that suggestion into very careful consideration.
        The first thing with regard to small holdings in Scotland to which I would refer is the exaggerated promises that were made in many cases by the officials of the Board at the time when the holdings were constituted. Large farms were bought and there were a certain number of applicants for these holdings. The officials of the Department, anxious to fill up these farms, went around promising in the most exaggerated way to these smallholders that every kind of attention would be given to them, to the house, that the drains would be cleaned, the fences put in order, and so forth. Everywhere you go now in Scotland into these colonies of smallholders you are up against the promises then made. You ask, "Where are the promises? Have you anything in writing?" and the answer you get in case after case is "No, but the officials of the Board have been around and have promised us this, that and the other!" It has all had a very bad effect upon the confidence which ought to exist between the smallholders and the Board of Agriculture.
        The next thing to which I should like to refer is the tremendous burden put upon these holders that have entered into the holdings since the war in respect to housing and other capital charges. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for East Fife (Mr. D. Millar) and I in the last Parliament particularly pressed that these holdings should be revalued. That was done last year, and the effect has been that in many cases, in the case of, say, Shinness, nearly half the holdings were reduced to a fifth of their previous value, which had been put upon them in the first case. In many other cases
        1578
        they were reduced to a half, a third, or a quarter of the whole. That shows how heavily burdened were these small holdings, and, when they were taken over, what a poor chance these men had who were put into these holdings. We had to win other concessions from the Board. There was the ingoing obligations for payments of crops which were reduced, and limited to seed and labour. There were difficulties over drains and fences—these great burdens were put upon these smallholders. It is only gradually and after tremendous effort that we have got some of these things remedied.
        There is one point I wish particularly to put to the Secretary for Scotland, and that is in regard to the corn subsidy. In recent months we have got the corn subsidy for the smallholders, but it has been paid in such a way that the subsidy has only been given in full to those holders on whose land corn happened to be growing when they entered on the holding. Other holders who took over, perhaps, a field of turnips or of grass, and had no corn on it, are getting the full subsidy, it is true, but only on condition that they pay back £l per acre in respect of corn grown and 10s. per acre accommodation rent to the Board of Agriculture. 90·1 of the ex-service smallholders of Caithness are opposed to this method of payment including many men on whose land corn was growing when they entered, and every man ought to get payment, irrespective of whether corn was growing or not on his land.
        The next question I want to raise is that of housing. On the estates which are actually owned by the Board they should bear the responsibility for the housing. The housing in many of these places with which I am acquainted is bad. In one particular instance I know of, in Caithness, the housing is appallingly bad. It is much worse than the average housing in the country. We are not now looking forward in the matter of housing, because you have gone back 20 or 30 years in putting up the wooden huts in which these men have now been housed. There is one case I know of where the man has been living for three years, and the water was coming in so badly that, when his wife was ill, the bed had to be covered specially—with an umbrella—to keep the rain off, and he had to spend £18 on repairing that house in the third year of his living there.

        1579
        There are three or four others of which I could speak in Watten where men are living in houses with cattle under the same roof, and these houses have been put up in the last three years by the Board of Agriculture! The men live with the cattle, without even a wall or a stone partition between them, nothing but a small double wooden partition. Therefore I do suggest that the Board of Agriculture must take up this question of the housing of these ex-service men, for it is not good enough. It is up to the Board of Agriculture, who owns these estates, to see that the housing is what it ought to be. The least they can do, in relation to, the Housing Bill which is now before the House, is to see what new powers they have under that Bill as landlords, and to put up decent houses for these men on their property. There is another point in regard to land settlement that has been suggested to the Secretary for Scotland, and that is that the existing townships should have the first claim on such grazing as the Board may acquire. The important thing is to put the existing township on an economic basis. I shall be glad to hear what the right hon. Gentleman has to say from that point of view. I feel sure that he will always keep the claims of the ex-service men first, and give them full preference though he will not entirely ignore the claims of the townships if they have not got a majority of ex-service men in them. It has happened that a number of ex-service men have been unable to get the grazing land required because in the township in which they lived they did not happen to be in a majority. I hope that will now come to an end. For instance, in a certain place with which I am acquainted there is an improvement scheme which I should like the Secretary for Scotland to know is hung up by the Board of Agriculture merely on this ground that there is not a majority of ex-service men amongst the applicants. I hope that that will now be put through at the earliest possible moment. Two or three of the neighbouring townships were concerned in this. In the ease of Camster, for example, those concerned felt unable last year to take the matter over because there was not a majority of ex-service men amongst the applicants, and a golden opportunity of taking over a very good farm in a congested district was thereby lost, and at Lairo there is
        1580
        an opportunity which ought not to be lost of taking over a farm, the grazing of which would put 3 or 4 townships on an economic basis.
        Finally, I also want to put this point, in connection with land settlement. I refer to the importance of ancillary occupations. I put fishing first. If there is no improvement in the fishing prospects of these men who spend part of their time on their crofts and part of the time fishing, large numbers of families will find themselves without adequate means of support. It is the one thing which will make a success of the holding, if at the same time help is given to the men in the matter of ancillary occupation, and protection given them from the depredations of the trawlers and others when they are fishing off the coast. If they are not helped, in this and similar ways, if they feel they have nothing to fall back on, and are not given the protection they need from trawlers and Seine net fishermen, these people will have to remove from places like the island of Stroma, and you will have to take over farms on the mainland for the purpose of settling them on the land in holdings of an economic size.
        I associate myself with what has been said about the importance of associating afforestation with land settlement. We are all glad that the Secretary for Scotland is going to bring in a Bill to deal with the resumption of small holdings, but I am disappointed that he did not take up the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir R. Hamilton). I would like to ask what chance has the Secretary for Scotland s Bill of passing this Session. If the right hon. Gentleman had taken up the Bill I have mentioned three or four months ago, when it was first introduced, it would have had a good chance of passing into law this Session. With regard to the amount allotted for seed oats and seed potatoes, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what proportion of that money has already been spent? We have heard with pleasure the announcement that the Secretary for Scotland proposes to set up a Commission to inquire into economic development of the Highlands of Scotland. The money available for that purpose is now being paid away in excessive rates and burdens of taxation, and the right

        1581
        hon. Gentleman must either substantially relieve the rates in some way or other, or else lend money for such purposes as housing, water supply, drainage and fencing at low rates of interest.
        In France the small cultivators are able to borrow money at 2 per cent., and I should like to know why Scottish cultivators have to pay 4 per cent for their loan. There is a scheme for loans for crofter housing which is administered by the Board of Agriculture, and the crofters have to pay a flat rate of 4 per cent. There are scores of holdings on which they only pay £3 in rent, and, if a crofter wants to borrow £200 or £300 to develop his holding, he has to pay 4 per cent. interest, which trebles or quadruples his rent. No flat rate scheme having such a high rate of interest has any chance of success in the High, lands, where it has only been able to produce 96 houses, and only three of them in Caithness. I urge the right hoe. Gentleman to press upon the Treasury the desirability of lending money at a lower rate of interest, and even at the same rate as it is lent to small cultivators in France. No land should be entirely reserved for sport, and it should all be made available for grazing and agricultural development. I know that in Caithness the tendency is all that way, and a large amount of land which was deer forest a few years ago has now been put back to grazing. I hope this practice will be made compulsory all over Scotland until we are sure that the land of the Highlands is put to the best and most productive use. That will not exclude sport, but the productivity of the soil must come first.
        Something has been said about there being a subservient class in Scotland, but there is no such class in the Highlands. We want every man to have a chance of making his living independently by cultivating the soil. We want everything removed that hinders the progress of agriculture in the North of Scotland, and I hope the Secretary for Scotland will use his influence to get the Safeguarding of Industries Act repealed, because it only makes it more expensive for the farmers to buy what they require. The hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. T. Johnston) referred to the development of water power, and I hope that matter will be considered. Better communication, railways, and roads are all important for
        1582
        the development of small holdings and the fishing industry. I am sure, if the right hon. Gentleman will come forward with a bold scheme for developing the national resources of the Highlands of Scotland, he will have the support from all quarters of the House. Even if it requires a bold and resolute effort to hack through the obstacles erected by vested or sectional interests, he will at any rate have the whole-hearted support of Scottish Liberal Members.
        Mr. ADAMSON: I think I had better reply now to a number of points which have been put to me by Members in all parts of the House. I hope we shall now be able to draw the discussion on agricultural matters to a close, because we have already taken up half the time allotted to this Vote and we have still five other subjects set down for discussion. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Pollok Division of Glasgow (Sir J. Gilmour) said he hoped that the Board of Agriculture would take a broad general view of agriculture and that we should not confine our energies too largely to one part of the country. I can assure my right hon. Friend that the Board of Agriculture and myself have no intention of doing anything but take a broad general view of agriculture. It is at the same time true that there are parts of Scotland where the difficulties are greater than in some other parts, and these difficulties have to be examined and considered. With regard to what has been said about grants to the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society, already by Supplementary Estimates we have been able to increase the amount which for some years past has been granted to this society.
        The grant was limited to 2½ times the amount raised by the society from other sources, but the Supplementary Estimate which i got through the House removes that embargo and places us in the position of being able to give the full amount to the society of which I have spoken. All I would like to add is that I think it would be better for me more closely to examine the work of this society with a view to finding out whether we are getting full value for the money spent in this direction. It it be true, as the hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. T. Johnston) says, that the society has considerable funds invested in various ways, that is a

        1583
        question which we may have to discuss very seriously with the society. A number of points were put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson). He said he was not satisfied with the Report of the Board of Agriculture in certain respects and that the Board had 350,370 acres of land unallotted. I do not know where the right hon. Gentleman got his figures.
        Mr. MACPHERSON: May I read that part of the Report where I got my information On page 14 of the Twelfth Report of the Board of Agriculture for Scotland there appears the following paragraph:
        "Excluding estates taken over from the Congested Districts Board, 51 separate properties are now owned by the Board, their total area being 350,370 acres, including 32,513 acres of arable land."
        Mr. ADAMSON: That does not say that there are 350,370 acres unallotted.
        Mr. MACPHERSON: The Report goes on to say:
        "The development of subdivision schemes on estates previously acquired has proceeded throughout the year, entry being given to 209 new holdings and 48 enlargements of existing holdings."
        Obviously, there is a distinction between the amount previously owned and the amount now owned, and the subdivisions have been going on in regard to the land previously owned.
        Mr. ADAMSON: If the right hon. Gentleman will examine the districts mentioned, he will find that he was wrong in stating that there are 350,370 acres of land unallotted.
        Mr. MACPHERSON: I am sorry again to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but what does the Report mean when it states that
        "51 separate properties are now owned by the Board, their total area being 350,370 acres?"
        What does the word "owned" mean?
        Mr. ADAMSON: The right hon. Gentleman is now speaking of 350,370 acres "owned" by the Board, but what he actually said was, that that number of acres were "unallotted," and the right hon. Gentleman cannot find inside this Report any figures to justify that statement. I was going on to say that the proportion of land unallotted is less than
        1584
        one-third of the figure named by the right hon. Gentleman, and holdings are being arranged for on the unallotted ground. Consequently, as far as that part of the right hon. Gentleman's criticism is concerned, he is entirely wrong.
        Sir A. SINCLAIR: There are between 50,000 and 60,000 acres for which no arrangements have been made.
        Mr. ADAMSON: Almost a half of the unallotted land is being arranged into holdings at the moment. With regard to the other half, there is a 7.0 P.M. part of that land that the Board cannot get occupation of until a certain date, and there are other difficulties in the way.
        Mr. MACPHERSON: If I am wrong I will confess it. My right hon. Friend referred just now to a certain portion, a third, I think, and I want to know where information in this Report can be found about it. I can imagine it might be in Appendix 3, but I have carefully studied the Report. I want to know exactly what number of acres is now owned by the Board, and the proportion not allotted. My right hon. Friend refers to something not now in the posses0073ion of the Board. I want to know the proportion now owned by the Board, which is available now.
        Mr. ADAMSON: Only 102,452 acres remain unallotted. If the right hon Gentleman will look at Appendix 3 he will find the information. I have already explained to the Committee that almost a half of that is being arranged for small holdings.
        Mr. MACPHERSON: It is all owned by the Board?
        Mr. ADAMSON: I think we had better leave that point awhile. I would refer to a comment of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir R. Hamilton) He said——
        Sir R. HAMILTON: What I said was that I was surprised the right hon. Gentleman was taking credit to himself for the fertility of the hen.
        Mr. ADAMSON: If the hon. Member will look at the Report tomorrow morning of what I said, and if other hon. Members will look too, they will find that I am not trying to take credit for the fertility of the hen. I pointed out that the

        1585
        co-operative method of agriculture in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, as well as in other parts of the area, had been a huge success, and I drew the attention of the Committee to this with the view of showing the great advantage of the application of co-operation in agriculture. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) also drew my attention to the question of the crofters. No one appreciates more clearly than I the difficulty imposed on the crofter in many instances by the smallness of the croft. My hon. Friend the Member for West Stirling (Mr. T. Johnston) discussed some very important points. He pointed out that he was disappointed by the statement that I put forward with regard to the numbers that have been put upon the land. But I may remind him that I had no responsibility for that period I want to assure him that if I am responsible for agriculture any longer, I will do my best to reduce any disparity. Another point was raised with the object of discovering what use could be made of the arable lands in Scotland. I was also asked to give a promise that afforestation of water catchment areas should be proceeded with at the earliest possible date, and the hon. Member assured us that if that were proceeded with, it would provide work for 50,000 men—taken together with the other scheme for afforestation. What I want to say is that I am not responsible for forestry. As a matter of fact, this House dealt with forestry in 1919, and took the power of dealing with it out of my office and put it into the hands of a Forestry Commission. I will see that the hon. Member's representation is put forward in the proper quarter. I am anxious, indeed, that we should have as many unemployed men as possible put to useful and I believe profitable work.
        Another question was put by my hon. Friend the Member for West Stirling which concerned economic development. All I want to say is that, so far as I have looked at it, the possibility of development, of economic development, of that part of the country includes the problem of transport. The problem of transport has an important bearing on the development of the Highlands, and I shall certainly look carefully into this matter. Another point was raised by the Noble Lord the Member
        1586
        for Roxburgh and Selkirk (Earl of Dalkeith), and, in passing, may I compliment him on his first effort in the House? He put to me one particular point, asking me if I would speak and use my influence with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture on the question of diseases of animals. I must remind the Noble Lord that it was his party who took this very matter about which he is so much concerned out of the hands of the Secretary for Scotland and placed it in the hands of the Minister of Agriculture. That plan, evidently, is not working well, and I would recommend him to discuss it with his friends.
        Another point was raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North Ayr (Lieut.-General Sir A. Hunter-Weston), who asked me if I could tell why, in certain areas, they were very successful in exterminating rats, and in others they were not. I understand that that is more a question for the county council than for me, and I would advise the hon. and gallant Member to get into touch with the county council. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland spoke about fertilisers, and asked if 40 per cent. of certain fertilisers analysed in Scotland were unsatisfactory. That is rather a serious thing, and one I can assure him I will take an early opportunity of inquiring into. We want the land to be of full value—to give full value for the money spent. [Sir A. SINCLAIR: "Can the right hon. Gentleman reply on the corn subsidy to ex-Service smallholders?"] That is one of the points I do not want raised, not for the reason that I object to giving information to hon. Members, but because in this matter the Board of Agriculture are in a difficult position. I have made very close inquiries into the circumstances referred to by nay hon. and gallant Friend, and I think the Board of Agriculture has been very generous in its dealings with these people. If I did not believe that, I would have a meeting between the men and the Board of Agriculture, but I repeat, I think the Board has dealt very generously with the men as a body. I have covered nearly all the points raised, and I hope the Committee will now be prepared to pass the second Order on the Paper.
        Major DUDGEON: I would like to get some assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that he will take into con-

        1587
        sideration the setting up of some Tribunal or Departmental Committee to ensure that the Scottish Board of Agriculture shall be of real use to Scottish agriculture. I think it is of extreme importance that the Board of Agriculture in Scotland should have some extended policy on agricultural matters We do not want merely to criticise the Board, we want to be of use to it; we want to bring it more into sympathy with agricultural thought throughout the country.
        Mr. ADAMSON: I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that, as far as the present Government is concerned, they are giving close attention to an extended agricultural policy because they want to make the agricultural industry as prosperous as it is possible for it to be.
        Question put, and agreed to.

      (Class IV.)

        PUBLIC EDUCATION, SCOTLAND.
        Motion made, and Question proposed.
        "That a sum, not exceeding £2,023,495, 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, 1925, for Public Education in Scotland, and for Science and Art in Scotland, including a Grant-in-Aid."—[Note: £2,750,000 has been voted on account.]
        Mr. WESTWOOD: When the Scottish Estimates, particularly in relation to education, were discussed last year, most of our criticisms were directed against Circulars 44 and 51. Those criticisms cannot apply this year in connection with the Scottish Board of Education so far at least as Circular 51 is concerned, but so far as the relationship of Circular 44 to the new Circular which has been issued—Circular 60—is concerned there is still cause for very serious objection being lodged by educationists in Scotland. I may point out that when we raised our objections last year, it was because of the laying on the Table of the new Code and because of the attempt to change the method of granting intermediate certificates. Those of us who have been connected with Scottish education administration admitted that there were difficulties in the way so far as the continuance of that particular certificate was concerned. We were anxious that any certificate which was to take its place should be a
        1588
        certificate with a national significance. We have to admit that the Scottish Board of Education has conceded that point by arranging for a certificate which has a national significance, but we are not satisfied, and I believe in this I am expressing the opinion of the majority of the education authorities and of the overwhelming majority of Scottish public opinion when I say that we still demand that the certificate instead of being a day school certificate shall be continued as an intermediate certificate.
        I know there may be a minority of opinion in favour of it being called a day school certificate, and the Education Department, when it has discussed this matter with us, has argued that there is very little in a name, but. if that be so, why should the Department hold out against the expressed opinion of Scottish educationists? Surely there can be no good result in seeking, against expressed Scottish opinion, to issue a certificate that shall be called a day school higher certificate in place of retaining the certificate with its Scottish characteristic and its Scottish significance, the intermediate certificate, which has been granted so long in connection with intermediate schools in Scotland. When we launched our criticisms last year on the attempt under the new code to change our system in Scotland of having primary schools which at the same time provide for higher classes of instruction, we prophesied that if we had secondary and non-secondary schools, it would ultimately lead to disaster so far as Scottish education is concerned. I want to give an instance to prove that, unfortunately, we have been justified in our objection. Let me take the case of one school authority of which I happen to be a member. That school last year, under the old regulations, had 152 entrants. My figures are brought up to the 20th June, and I think I may suggest that both my figures and my facts are more up to date than those supplied by the Board of Education. Under the new Regulations under which parents are compelled to give a guarantee for five or six years—and many of them find that they cannot give that guarantee—the total number of entrants for 1924 was only 109. That is one instance which proves the need for going back to our old system of having, not secondary and non-secondary schools, but a primary

        1589
        department, an intermediate department and a secondary department. For the purpose of emphasising my point I may quote from a letter, under date 24th June, by the headmaster of one of our finest schools in the county of Fife, in which he says:
        "Many parents are loth to undertake at the very beginning of the Poet-Primary Course to keep their children at school for five years; for five years is a considerable period and the parents are uncertain how their children will shape at Post-Primary subjects. Many of these parents, however, would be willing at the end of the second year of the Post-Primary Course to undertake three more years if their children had shown ability and diligence in the first two years. At the beginning of the third year secondary pupils will as a rule specialise along a particular line, e.g., Classics, Science, Modern Languages, Art, and Music; and at this point the children whose parents are willing to allow their children to go on for three more years can be definitely enrolled in a full Secondary Course."
        My purpose in giving that quotation is to further strengthen the arguments we advanced last year, and which I am using again to-night, calling on the Secretary for Scotland to go back to our old system and let us have that which we in Scotland are satisfied is the finest system in the world in connection with education. We are not prepared to allow our system to be changed merely for the purpose of trying to get into line with an antiquated English system. The second point I want to call attention to is the new regulation issued in connection with the training of teachers. There is room for improvement in connection with this regulation. I suggest that the demand which has been made by the teachers for equality under the training regulations, and their application to those who have to train our children, is justified. We are net entitled to be satisfied with a regulation which provides that, so far as the female staff is concerned, they shall have only two years' training. We are demanding that there shall be a graduate course so far as the male teachers are concerned, and we are demanding something quite legitimate when we say there should be a three years' course. If the Secretary for Scotland cannot concede our demand for a full graduate course for male and female teachers alike, I suggest he might concede the demand for three years' training for teachers, so far as the female teaching staff is concerned.
        1590
        There is one point in the regulations that I do think ought to be amended before the final regulations are placed on the Table, and that is the section dealing with Article 55 classes. The very reason why the provincial colleges hold these Article 55 classes is because teachers are turned out of the training colleges not fully trained to deal with all the subjects with which they will have to deal in primary schools. I will give the Secretary for Scotland the actual figures in connection with the local authority of which I have the honour to be a member, namely, the Education Authority of Fifershire. That is the county from which the right hon. Gentleman himself comes, and where many of his constituents are proud that he has attained his present position. [Interniption.] I agree that, good as any of the other Secretaries for Scotland may have been, and bad as our present Secretary may be at his worst, he is better than they ever were at their best. Out of 138 non-graduate probationary teachers in the service of the Fife Education Authority in primary departments, 63 have received no training in the teaching of drawing, and 72 have received no training in the teaching of educational handiwork, while 56 female teachers have received no training in the teaching of needlework. Yet there is no provision in the new Regulations for the provision of Article 55 classes at the expense of the training colleges themselves, in order to complete the training which has not been given in the training colleges. The authority to which I belong has had to fight on more than one occasion in connection with this question. Desirous as they were that these classes should be run, they have had to fight for their being run, not at the expense of the local ratepayers or of the authority, but at the expense of the training colleges, so that the expense of training teachers for national work shall be a national burden and not a local one.
        I want also to appeal to the Secretary for Scotland to impress upon his Department the need, in connection with our continuation classes, for speeding up the arrangements whereby the continuation classes may be real continuation classes. We have at the present time a tremendous number of classes that are really evening classes. I am glad to know that, as a result of Circular 60, one of the things

        1591
        for which I have been fighting for many years, and in regard to which I have the whole-hearted support of the Executive of the Education authorities and of the Noble Lady the Member for Kinross (Duchess of Atholl)—namely, that certificates should be granted and should be available for a student or a pupil in accordance with the ability of the pupil, and not merely because of the place in which the student had received that particular education—has been arranged for under Circular 60, and, accordingly, pupils who have continued their day school course in evening classes, having bad to leave school for economic or any other reasons, will, if they complete their education in the evening school, be entitled to sit for the certificate, and, if they are able to earn it, it will be granted. I do not, however, know of any education authority that has yet prepared a scheme and submitted it to the Department, and I am desirous that the Secretary for Scotland should press the Education Department, and that they in turn should press the Education authorities, to speed up their schemes, so that, in the continuation classes, the third year's course of the day school shall be the first year's course in connection with these evening continuation classes.
        Another point which I desire to press upon the attention of the Secretary for Scotland is the need for a better system in connection with agricultural education, so far as our rural districts are concerned. I know that, in the course of the statement which the Secretary for Scotland made in introducing the vote for the Board of Agriculture, certain objections were alleged against the proposal for giving in our agricultural areas education with a rural bias; but I suggest that the Secretary for Scotland did not, in introducing that Vote, say that he intended to have an educational system in our rural districts that would turn out ploughmen—that he would have an educational system merely for the purpose of turning out agricultural workers. Surely, however, no one will dispute the need in our rural areas for education with a rural bias.
        Mr. MAXTON: If my hon. Friend will allow me, I interrupted the right hon. Gentleman at that point because it seemed to me that this was wrong, and
        1592
        that it would be very much better to give our town dwellers an education with a rural bias, and vice versa.
        Mr. WESTWOOD: It comes to the same thing, so that we are now both agreed so far as that system is concerned. I will quote from a Circular—or shall I say a Report?—that was issued by the East of Scotland Agricultural College. That Report states:
        "All education authorities are experiencing considerable difficulty in providing for a great many post-primary pupils, especially those who do not wish to enter our secondary or intermediate courses of instruction, as well as those who are not fitted to benefit from higher instruction."
        The Report goes on to set out the arguments in favour of a rural bias for education in our primary schools, and I would remind those Who object to that suggestion that, in pressing upon Scottish educationists the new Code, all pupils who are not secondary pupils have been made primary pupils up to the age of 15. Will anyone argue against having, in what used to be our supplementary courses, which are now known as our advanced division, science in its application to plant life, science in its application to agriculture, giving to these older children a chance to understand the science of the industry in which they are most likely to be engaged in after life? Then, having get, the central county schools on these lines, I want to press upon the Secretary for Scotland the need for having, in each of our counties, courses of instruction in the agricultural knowledge that is necessary in each county—it may be that the knowledge required in one county is entirely different from the knowledge required in another county—and for having experimental farms. The County of Fife has been pleading for a long time for such a system, and we are prepared to spend up to a, sum of not less than £5,000, if we can only get the necessary assistance from the State, for the purpose of having an experimental farm and a school in connection with that farm.
        The executive of the education authorities submitted a questionnaire to the various education authorities, asking what they were doing in connection with agricultural education, and I think the Noble Lady the Member for Kinross, who, I understand, will be speaking after me, will admit that the replies to that questionnaire were far from satisfactory. They

        1593
        did not show that agriculture was getting its fair share, so far as education was concerned, in Scotland. I suggest to the Secretary for Scotland that more money ought to be available to the education authorities for the purpose of having these experimental farms and central schools connected with each county, from Which schools and farms the students could be sent to fill our agricultural colleges in the various areas of Scotland.
        These are the main points to which I want to draw the attention of the Secretary for Scotland, but I would also appeal to him to press upon the education authorities and the executive of the education authorities in Scotland the need that more justice should be done by our aged retired teachers. I am anxious that the respective education authorities in Scotland should be empowered to exercise even greater generosity than they have up to the present time, and to see that this rapidly disappearing body of deserving men and women, who did splendid yeoman service during the most difficult period in connection with education, just after the system of free education was applied, shall at least have better terms than have been theirs up to the present. I would ask that the sympathetic spirit and the expressions of sympathy which the Secretary of Scotland is always so ready to extend to everyone shall be extended in the direction of making that appeal to the executive of the education authorities, and to the various authorities themselves, that greater justice in the way of increased pensions shall be allowed to these deserving members of our teaching staff who have retired.
        I want also to suggest to the Committee that a very noble heritage has been handed on generation after generation to the people of Scotland—the heritage of one of the finest systems, if not the finest system, of education; and it is our duty, irrespective of creed or political party—and I believe we shall carry out that duty irrespective of creed or political party—to see that that heritage, which is ours, shall, by legislative effort and administrative efficiency, be materially added to, so that, great as our heritage is, a still nobler heritage shall be passed on to our children and our children's children. Towards that end, which I believe all parties in the House, and certainly the people of Scotland, desire to see achieved,
        1594
        there are certain essential features to which effect must be given from the administrative side of the educational system of Scotland.
        We must see that no child attends school without every effort being made to provide that the physical needs of every child shall be attended to, if it is to benefit spiritually, intellectually and morally by our educational efforts. I have read somewhere that, in order that knowledge may be properly digested, it must be swallowed with a good appetite. I believe that the intellectual appetite can be made more keen if the physical appetite of the children has been attended to. That is my reason for appealing to the Secretary for Scotland to call upon his Department to give the very widest interpretation to Circular 67, which has destroyed that misinterpretation of the law, Circular 51. It has been said that an education which does not cultivate the will is an education which depraves the mind, and that all real education will train our people to enjoy what is beautiful and good, and to do things that arc noble, intelligent and generous. That training can best be given by a well-trained, well-educated, and decently paid staff of men and women, and I would urge the Secretary for Scotland to resist any and every effort, even on the part of the Education Authorities and of the Executive of the Education Authorities, if necessary, to reduce the national minimum scale of salaries so far as Scotland is concerned.
        I would also plead with him to speed up the negotiations and the work necessary for giving us a real Scottish superannuation scheme acceptable to the Department, the teaching staff, and the public generally. There must ho the best of buildings, equipped with the best of apparatus and material, and no system can be defended which allows any barrier to stand in the way of the progress and advancement of any child, no matter how poor, if that child has the ability and the will to succeed. If I have detained the Committee longer than I intended I have only one excuse, and that is my enthusiasm for this subject, to which I have devoted the best part of my life One of the reasons why we on these benches are so enthusiastic for higher education—and I believe the Secretary for Scotland is as enthusiastic as I am—is that we realise the disadvantages of not having had a higher education.

        1595
        That, I believe, is the main reason why we are so enthusiastic for higher education. What little education we have had—and the Secretary for Scotland is in the same position as myself—has only been got by many weary nights of work with a tired brain, when we have been tired out after our work in the mines. That was our heritage, because of our economic conditions. We are determined—and I hope the Secretary for Scotland will agree with all that I have said—that that heritage is not good enough to pass on to our children, but that we are going to pass on a nobler heritage than that in connection with our education in Scotland.
        Duchess of ATHOLL: I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £100.
        I move this reduction in no carping spirit. I recognise that in the main the Secretary for Scotland has been carrying on what the hon. Member who has just sat down has rightly described as our great heritage of education in Scotland mainly on the lines followed by his predecessors, but there are two or three respects in which his administration is differing from that of his predecessor, and I move this reduction in order to draw attention to them. The first point on which I wish to criticise his administration is the basis of the allocation of the grant made to the education authorities this year. For the last four years this grant has fallen under four heads. There has been a grant for each child in attendance at school, a grant for each qualified teacher employed by the authorities, a grant in addition for every teacher employed by an education authority in excess of the ratio of one teacher to 36 children, and, finally, there have been special grants allowed for very small schools, grants which vary inversely with the number of children in these small single-teacher schools. This scheme was agreed on, I think, in 1921–2 by the Education Department after consultation with a Committee of the Association of Education Authorities, and figures were fixed for each of these various heads. In the two years that followed, owing to the decrease in the grant from the Education Fund, it was necessary to make the amounts given under each head—the amount given per child and the amount per teacher and so on—smaller. But the decrease was spread
        1596
        over three of these four heads, that is to say, the grant given for each scholar, for each teacher and for each excess teacher all suffered alike. The only exception to the general reduction was in the special grant for the small schools. I think that meant to say that the reduction was made in what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Aberdeen (Mr. F. C. Thomson) described last year as the spirit of even-handed justice which the Department was endeavouring to mete out to rural and urban authorities alike, because it is generally recognised that the grant per scholar favours the large cities—the scheduled burghs—whereas the grants per teacher benefit chiefly the rural authorities, as owing to the scattered nature of the school population, they have to employ a much larger proportion of teachers than the large cities are obliged to do.
        So that when the grant is falling, the reductions were made equally over these three grants into those that benefited the rural areas and those that benefited the scheduled burghs. The balance was allowed to swing over a little in favour of the scheduled burghs when two years ago the authorities were allowed to include in their scholar grants the number of children in attendance at these schools, because everyone who lives in a rural area knows how difficult it is to get a good attendance at continuation classes. At the beginning of the autumn session school management committees strain feverishly to get these young people into classes, but we all know how very difficult it is to get a really good attendance throughout the winter. and how very often classes have to be abandoned in rural areas because the attendance has not been sufficient to justify the continued appointment of the teachers. It was recognised that when attendance at continuation classes was included in the scholar grant, that was giving some advantage to the scheduled burghs, and there was rather a feeling among some representatives of rural authorities at that time that, seeing it takes so many children in attendance at a continuation class to count as a scholar towards the grant—the attendance of a child has to be multiplied by 800 before it can count as one in a continuation class—it was rather hard on the rural authorities that the basis of calculation for the attendance of children at continua-

        1597
        tion classes to rank for grants was the same both for rural areas and for large cities. This year, as I understand, finances are in a better position than was the case last year. Owing to various reasons—one of which, I understand, is the fact that there is a decrease in the money which it is necessary to provide for the ex-service officers and men—there has been a windfall to the authorities of a considerable sum. I understand the sum they have had placed at their disposal from one source or another is £400,000 more than last year. It seems to me a very comforting reflection, after all the animadversions we have heard made, particularly last year, on the system by which Scotland receives her education grants, to know that these windfalls have arrived without depending on any increased expenditure by education authorities in England.
        How has this very gratifying surplus been utilised? It seems to me that if the Secretary for Scotland desired to continue to dispense that even-handed justice which was the aim of his predecessor, he should have endeavoured to see that these various grants—the scholar grants, the teacher grants and the excess teacher grants—benefited in corresponding proportions, and if it is not possible to see that both burghs and rural areas benefited alike, he should have been particularly careful to see that no arrangement was carried out which was likely to prejudice the rural areas. It is perhaps unnecessary to emphasise it, but we can never afford to lose sight of the great expense which is necessarily incurred in carrying on education in these very scattered areas in Scotland. It is not only that they require to employ more teachers, because they get a special grant for every teacher, but they have to keep up more school buildings. That means more equipment and more fuel, and that is a costly item when you have a great many small schools. If you come to medical service, you not only have to supply the salaries of your school doctor and school dentist, but you have to pay for the travelling of these officers over large areas, and that is a considerable addition to the expense. Then when you wish to send on your children of ability to the secondary school or university, you have to give them maintenance
        1598
        allowances in many cases in addition to some allowance towards books. That maintenance allowance is an expense which does not have to be met by the scheduled burghs, each of which has its own secondary school and a university in its midst. Finally, there is also such an extra expense as is involved in the payment of the travelling of members. That is not a serious item in my county, but in other larger counties further north it amounts to quite a considerable item in the course of a year. The difficulties I have mentioned are difficulties which are inevitable in carrying on education in these scattered areas, which will be found at any time without any regard to any, special circumstances.
        Then the rural areas have found their difficulties increased by the extensive amalgamation of areas under the Education Act of 1918. It is only necessary to refer the Committee to the Report of the Departmental Committee presided over by Lord Dunedin two years ago. Hon. Members who have studied the Committee's Report will remember how strongly it emphasised the very great and alarming increase which has occurred in the rates in many rural parishes, and the figures which were given to illustrate the findings of the Committee. In the Appendix to that Report you will find there were many rural parishes where the amount required to be provided by the parish for education had increased by 200, 300 or 400 per cent over the amount which had to be found in the year before the authorities came into existence, and that, in fact, these amounts rose as high as an increase of 900 per cent. Some relief to the agricultural ratepayer was indeed given by the Unionist Government of last year, but the main defects and inequalities pointed out by the Dunedin Committee two years ago still remain unremedied. For the last three or four years I have felt, in common, I am sure, with many other people who have studied the subject, that the rating machine in the rural areas of Scotland is really out of gear, and it is therefore very difficult to bring the pressure on it that one would like to do in the interests of education. That being the condition of matters, surely it was to be expected that the Education Department would wish to see that in the dispensing of this gratifying increase due regard should

        1599
        be had to the difficulties in which the rural areas find themselves. What do we find has been, in fact, the allocation of this grant? We find that whereas the grant given per teacher has risen form £123 to £126 10s., and the grant per excess teacher from £75 to £77, these two sums still remain far below the sums at which they were originally fixed, whereas the grant per scholar, which had been reduced from the original figure of, I think, £3 18s. 6d. per child, has now been increased to £4 2s. per child. That figure is considerably higher than it has ever before reached. The result of so increasing that grant per scholar is that out of this total increase of £400,000 which has been available for the education authorities no less than £262,000 has been credited to the scholar's grant. That distribution of the fund presses very hardly on the rural authorities. It presses particularly hardly on them in view of this fact that, in addition to the circumstances I have enumerated, which have been for the last two years causing considerable difficulty, they are faced with the necessity for further expenditure in consequence of the code of last year. I am frankly surprised that anyone who values efficient education, as I know the hon. Member for Midlothian and Peebles (Mr. Westwood) does, should express himself as entirely satisfied with the system of supplementary and intermediate education which was in existence before this code was issued.
        Mr. WESTWOOD: I did not express satisfaction with the conditions as they were.
        8.0 P.M.
        Duchess of ATHOLL: I think after the hon. Member passed on from what he had to say about names—I think a rose smells as sweet by any other name, and he might keep in mind that in regard to the intermediate certificate, the great point is that after some pressure the last Secretary for Scotland agreed to continue the giving of a certificate which should be equivalent in value to the old intermediate certificate—when the hon. Member had dealt with the question of names and certificates, I think he went on to say that he was quite satisfied with the system of supplementary education. I am sorry if I misunderstood the hon. Member. Any-
        1600
        how, I say quite frankly that, whatever his view may be, I am not satisfied with the system of supplementary education as too often it is found in rural areas.
        Mr. NICHOL: Even when it is called an advanced course? Is the Noble Lady making any distinction between the supplementary departments that were in existence and the new supplementary departments under another name as advanced courses?
        Duchess of ATHOLL: I am speaking of the supplementary departments as they exist to-day before it has been decided to give effect to the Regulations laid down in the code of last year. Too often that supplementary education has not been efficient or has not been well enough staffed or well enough equipped to give to children of from 12 to 14 the education that we wish them to have. The aim of the new code, as I understand it, and as it is being given effect to in counties with which I have been in communication, is to provide a very much more efficient education for the children than in many cases has been available.
        Something was said last year in the Debates on this code as to its creating class distinction, or something of that kind, and reducing educational opportunities. If any hon. Member opposite holds that view, I would like him to see the difference between the staffing and equipment of an intermediate school in a typical rural area and a supplementary school a few miles from that intermediate school. The distinction is there, and the aim of the code has been to level things up and remove that distinction and to give to all children an opportunity of an equally efficient course with a common core of instruction and allowing them to specialise at the fringe of the instruction according to their various gifts and capacities. What is very important to remember in regard to the code and in regard to the arrangements which have now been made in areas that are putting the code into force is this, that not only in these advanced divisions are you going to get courses which are better staffed and better equipped—if my hon. Friend doubts it, I can show him particulars of the arrangements in several counties which show improvement in staff, equipment and improved accommodation—and not only are you getting everything that makes towards better and higher

        1601
        efficiency, but you are going to get a closer co-ordination between the various types of advanced division courses which will make it very much easier for a child Who, perhaps, at first is put into a course which does not seem to lead direct to the University, to change over, if in the course of time it appears that he has ability to profit by a secondary school and university education. That is a very important point.
        To-day there is too little co-ordination between supplementary and intermediate classes. They are carried on often in different schools, by different teachers, and if a child goes into a supplementary department to-day and develops abilities later on which are unexpected, it is difficult for him to pass into an intermediate school—very much more difficult than it should be in the new advanced divisions. We find where this system is in operation as it is in full operation in Aberdeen—a city always in the forefront of educational progress—[HON. MEMBERS:"Oh!"] I do not say that other parts of Scotland are not in the forefront of educational progress, but we all have a very genuine respect for Aberdeen in these matters.
        Mr. MAXTON: It is the only Scottish constituency that sends an Englishman here. [HON. MEMBERS:"He is a Labour Member!"]
        Duchess of ATHOLL: We are not concerned at the moment with Parliamentary representation, but with education. Where that system is actually in full operation in Aberdeen—Aberdeen had anticipated the policy of last year's code by a year or two—I have had the strongest possible testimony from someone who is keenly interested in this question and who has had the best possible opportunities for judging. My informant says that the road to-day from the secondary school to the University is open in Aberdeen as never before, and that every child is being given an opportunity for a sounder and more extensive education. Finally, what is extremely interesting and satisfactory, it is found that in these new schools, with their varied alternative courses, many more children are staying after the age of 14.
        From the schemes I have seen, there is no question that the bringing into operation of this code means in those counties where it has been adopted increased staff,
        1602
        increased equipment, improved accommodation, and in scattered areas where a certain amount of centralisation is necessary, a charge for travelling allowances for the children going from their homes to the centralised schools. Therefore, the introduction of the code of last year is putting considerable additional expense on the rural parishes, but I think there is no expense that is so well worth while incurring in Scottish education as the improvement of the alternatives to what we know as the intermediate course. In the cities I submit that the bringing into operation of the code should mean very little additional expense, because their supplementary courses have been more efficient. Probably all that will be necessary will be a closer co-ordination of supplementary courses and intermediate courses, so that there may be, as in all advanced courses there should be, a common core of English subjects, mathematics and science.
        Does this seem the moment at which to make a change in the allocation of the grant which, it is quite obvious to anyone who studies the subject, must seriously prejudice the nasal areas? I can imagine that the right hon. Gentleman has been subjected to some pressure on this point. He has behind him many hon. Members interested in the largest of our cities, and I know that those specially concerned with education in the largest of our cities have been anxious that a special grant should be given for the schools provided for children suffering from mental and physical defects. I yield to no one in my recognition of the urgency of making better provision in Scotland as a whole for the mental defectives. I have been doing what I can in my small way, though I fear not with great success, in my own county, and I desire to pay tribute to the work which Glasgow has clone in that respect. But, as I understand it, the reply of the Department to the request of Glasgow for special services was in the negative. The Department did not wish to give a grant for special purposes. They may have refused in appearance but they have given the substance, in giving this additional amount per scholar.
        It would have been much better for the mentally defective child if a grant had been given openly as a grant for special services, because then there would have been some inducement to the other

        1603
        authorities in Scotland to do what they could for their own mental defectives. Here again, we have an example of the rural authorities lagging behind the cities, because if the rural authorities have a mentally defective child it is not a case, as in a city, of just sending that child to a day school, but it is a case of getting the consent of the parent for the child to go away from home, and paying for the board and maintenance of the child. In the action that the Department have taken they have, in a back-handed way, given Glasgow what Glasgow was asking for in respect to its special services.
        Scottish education is costly and always will be costly, for three reasons. In the first place, it is costly because of the scattered nature of the population in so many parts of Scotland. Secondly, a fact on which we may congratulate ourselves, we have so very few uncertificated teachers in the service of the authorities. Thirdly, we have a more developed system of bursaries than in England.Reasons two and three press hardly on the areas which come under reason one, namely, the scattered nature of the population. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman how it was that when the Association of Education Authorities was consulted on the allocation of this grant, as I understand it was consulted, that it was not found possible to give the association a clear indication of what the grant per scholar was likely to be. As far as my information goes, the highest likely figure mentioned to the association for the grant per scholar was a figure, the difference between which and the £4 2s. per head represents a difference of £56,000 in the aggregatee. If hon. Members representing rural authorities on the association had known what the figure per scholar was likely to be, I believe they would have criticised the proposal as I am doing now.
        The right hon. Gentleman may tell us that this proposal for the allocation of the grant has been before the House. I only learned after I came here to-day that it was embodied in a Minute of his Department which, I understand, has been laid on the Table of the House in the usual way. I was entirely unaware that any Minute on this subject had gone through. I should like to ask the right
        1604
        hon. Gentleman to reflect on the fact that this Minute appears to have gone through the House without being noticed by any Scottish Member, and to bear that in mind when we consider upstairs some proposals of his own in regard to another subject for increasing the powers of another Department for which he is responsible in Parliament. That is the first criticism that I wish to level at the right hon. Gentleman's administration, namely, the allocation of the grant.
        Mr. ADAMSON: I should like to remind the. Noble Lady that the Minute is still lying on the Table, and if there be anything to which she objects there may be power to put it right.
        Duchess of ATHOLL: I am glad for that assurance, and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for telling me that the situation is not without hope.
        Mr. MAXTON: Do not take any money away from Glasgow.
        Duchess of ATHOLL: My second criticism is in regard to facilitating authorities giving travelling allowances to children in rural areas. On this question of making it easier for education authorities to send children to the rural schools, no doubt the right hon. Gentleman remembers that his predecessor introduced a Bill which would have enabled education authorities to drive children to school if it could be shown that by doing so that meant greater economy in education by the closing of schools. I am certain that those of us who live in very scattered areas realise that there are some localities in which, if a tiny school could be closed, and the children driven to another school in some conveyance which could be closed on a wet day, it would be a great benefit to the children educationally, and an economy to the education authorities. As matters stand, education authorities really have no power to drive children to a school, and obviously if they close a school, and the children have to go further away beyond the three-mile limit to another school, education authorities must be prepared to spend some of the money, which they save by closing the school, on driving the children to another school.
        This question has become one of greater urgency because of the coming into operation of the new code. It does mean the improvement of certain schools in

        1605
        rural areas in what they offer to the older children, and if these improved facilities are to be brought within reach of all the children there must be more facilities for driving them to school. In my own county we have had £400 expenditure sanctioned for driving children to the new advanced divisional courses, but I believe, as matters stand, that that expenditure might be questioned, and I understand that the attitude of the Department is that it is just closing its eyes to what the authorities are doing in this matter.That is not a very satisfactory position for a Department administering a great and very necessary public service, and I am disappointed that the right hon. Gentleman has not seen his way to re-introduce, with such modifications as might appear to him to be necessary, the Bill which was introduced by his predecessor, but which was lost owing to the General Election.
        Finally I wish to express a disappointment that the right hon. Gentleman has not been able to see his way to do anything for the street-trading child. I am sure that he cannot forget that some years ago a Departmental Committee which inquired into this subject, was emphatic as to the evil effects on the character and habits of the children caused by street trading, and a Clause was inserted in the Act of 1918 expressly designed to make street trading impossible by young persons under 17, but the right hon. Gentleman must know that it has been found that the Clause was not sufficiently carefully drafted, and that while it makes it impossible for a young person under 17 to be employed by somebody else in street trading, it does not prevent the street trading entirely on his own account; and that means that, while at the present moment the less objectionable form of street trading is not permitted, the form in which the young person is responsible to somebody else and, therefore, subject to a certain measure, however small, of discipline and control, the right hon. Gentleman is to-day obliged to allow street trading, which is subject to no control or discipline whatever.
        The predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman two years ago introduced a Bill to give effect to what was the obvious intention of the Education Act in this respect, but that Bill was lost owing to the General Election of 1922. Then his immediate predecessor was ready to in-
        1606
        troduce a Bill, provided that he was assured of support for it from all quarters of the House, and as the indications were that such a Bill would have support from ell quarters of the House, and certainly from these benches, there was every reason to hope and believe that, had the late Government remained in office, before long we should have had a Bill such as that presented to the House. But the only reply which the right hon. Gentleman has made to inquiry on this subject—and he has been pressed on this subject, not only by questions in this House, but by representations from the Council of Juvenile Organisations in Scotland, which I may remind him is intended to help to keep his conscience on matters concerning juveniles—has been to return nothing more than a blank negative. It seems strange to me that a member of a Ministry representing a party which is not without a very real and genuine interest in the slum child, and which is rather wont to proclaim itself as the only champion of the shun child, has shown such a lack of interest, in the slum child when he becomes a street trader. I do not wish to detain the Committee. It is therefore on those three counts, but more particularly on the first question of the allocation of the grant, which I do feel is going to cause real difficulties, and will not afford the help which rural authorities had the right to expect in view of their great difficulty, and of the increased expenditure entailed on them this year, that I have moved the reduction of this Vote.
        Mr. D. M. COWAN: I think it rather unfortunate that Scottish education always comes on for discussion at the dinner hour, when it, is impossible, apparently, for English Members to be present to hear what is said in the House, and it is doubly unfortunate because under the present régime England very largely sets the pace for Scotland. Scotland does not get treated in educational matters according to her merits, but merely in accordance with the demerits of the sister country. But that being so, and it being impossible to remedy it just now, I think that, I am safe in saying that every Member of the Committee has listened with the keenest interest and the greatest pleasure to the two speeches which we have heard already. I join heartily with my hon. Friend the Member for Peebles

        1607
        (Mr. Westwood) in what he has said with regard to the position which we took up last year in the Debate on Scottish Estimates. I still think that the Education Department made an unwarrantable and uncalled for mistake in changing the name of the certificate which had gained for itself respect in commercial and other quarters. It was one of those things done by a Department when it finds itself in the position that it must do something to show that it is there. The change of name means no advantage whatever.
        Then he has spoken about the advanced department not being quite what it ought to be. The children of the country ought to have a fair chance all round, but to demand as a condition of making the grant a, guarantee that the child should be continued at school for five years is, as the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, impossible as far as the majority of parents are concerned, and, apart from that, it seems antagonistic to the Department's own policy. In a few minutes I shall say something with regard to the regulations for the training of teachers. There, in order I suppose to support their own position, the Department made a strong point by saying the two years' teaching should be on such lines that the student will be able to continue and to take a degree later on. That is exactly what we are asking with regard to the schools of the country, that the school for the child up to 15 should be such a school as would enable that child to go further if opportunity and ability warrant.
        On one other point raised by my hon. Friend I would like to say that the time has come when we ought to have from the Secretary for Scotland a definite answer, yes, or no. We have put before successive Secretaries for Scotland the claims of the retired teachers, and the time has come when the Secretary for Scotland should be able to say whether he is going to do anything in the matter or not. The teachers have been hoping against hope long enough. If the right hon. Gentleman will at once say "No" we will understand exactly where we are, but it will be unworthy of him and of his past record if he once more puts off with doubtful words the claim which has been urged on him more than once already. I appreciate keenly the speech of the Noble Lady
        1608
        who has just spoken. She speaks not only with knowledge of administration but with knowledge of the great principles which must underlie all educational systems. Practical experience gives to her words an authority which very few of the Scottish Members can claim. I do not enter into the contest between the urban and the rural districts for a larger proportion of the money. I confine myself entirely to the battle ground of the subject which has been chosen by the Department itself. The Department has issued a memorandum explaining its policy in the past and seeking to justify it for the future. The first sentence in the memorandum makes a not inconsiderable claim. It says:
        "The regulations now presented to Parliament constitute the most important advance that has been made in connection with the training of teachers since the introduction of the existing system in 1906."
        The point is this: Advance may be actual and positive or it may be only relative If the Department claims that these Regulations mark the greatest advance that has been made, it by no means follows that that advance is in itself great. I say that the Regulations do not in any essential particular mark any advance worthy of the name with regard to the training of teachers in Scotland. Take the points as they arise in these Regulations. We have first the claim that the standard of entrants to the profession is being raised. I do not like to weary hon. Members by quoting technical terms, but in these Regulations, or in the memorandum, we have a strong point made that by the setting down of the leaving certificate as the entrance to the profession, as against the old junior student's certificate, a very great advance has been made. If the Department had made that Regulation 10 years ago it could have claimed an advance. But the Department is coming forward now and claiming merit after the thing had really solved itself. The entrants to the teaching profession in Scotland, without the assistance of the Department, and almost with the opposition of the Department, have proved themselves equal to the winning of the leaving certificate.
        The next claim is that the Department has made it essential for every man who enters the teaching profession to be a graduate or to have some equivalent qualification. That might be regarded

        1609
        in itself as good, but there again the Department is coming in long after the question has solved itself. The men teachers of Scotland are graduating. They would all graduate, with one or two exceptions, without these Regulations. This is again a matter where the Department is not marking an advance, but simply recording the advance which has already been made. I take very strong exception to these Regulations. I would like to see them withdrawn entirely. They are not essential in any way to secure an improvement in Scottish education, but they bring up a very vexed question which will trouble Scotland for many a long day to come. We are living in an era of equality between the sexes. There is before the House a Bill, which will probably be passed, adding 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 voters to the electorate in the name of sex equality, At a time when all the professions have been thrown open on equal terms to the two sexes, we have the Scottish Education Department coming forward and quite unnecessarily introducing a discordant note into the teaching profession. The Department is claiming as an advance that the men teachers are all to be graduates. But the women teachers are to have a two years' course, as before. The men teachers were becoming graduates, but now we have the one sex stamped as inferior to the other.
        The Regulations, in essence, say to the teachers and people of Scotland, "We have no room in our primary schools for one man teacher unless he has graduated, but we allow an unlimited percentage of women who have had only a two years' course." The women are to be placed in a false and invidious and inferior position by these Regulations It has been done without the slightest necessity for it, and without the hope that the Regulations will do anything to advance the best interests of Scottish education. I challenge the claim that these two things mark any advance. There is another point on which the Memorandum prefacing the Regulations claims an advance, and that is in regard to the size of classes. The proposals of the Department are retrograde. Last year we had a keen discussion in the House on the question of the size of classes. We wanted equality between the classes in the advanced departments and the intermediate or secondary schools. We
        1610
        get that equality. How? Not by lowering the number in the one, but by raising the number in the other, a thing that no Scotsman ever expected the Department to be a party to. More than 10 years ago the Scottish Education Department put forward a scheme whereby the maximum number in a class was to be 50. School Boards were to be encouraged and rewarded in proportion as they brought that number down to 40. What is the position to-day? The legal number of pupils in a class is 60, a larger number than in almost any other civilised country. We are to have that stereotyped for at least four years. Even then the Department is not free from blame.
        I am not criticising the Department unfairly, but merely dealing with the Memorandum issued by the Department to justify its policy and possibly to gain confidence for carrying on that policy in the future. They say that for four years at least to come the legal number of pupils in a class is to be 60, going back upon the proposals of more than 10 years ago, when the number was to be very considerably reduced and very possibly to 40 as a maximum. I hope the Secretary for Scotland or his advisers will be able to give a definite answer to the question which I am about to put, We have in the Memorandum reference to the fact that 60 is to continue to be the legal number of pupils in a class, but even then people do not know where they are in regard to this matter. It would have been easy for the Department to have said that there were to be 60 pupils on the rolls or 60 pupils in average attendance, and there would have been no mistake as to their meaning, but in the code we have these words:
        "There shall not be more than 60 pupils habitually under the charge of any teacher.
        What does that mean? Does the right hon. Gentleman mean by the notices which he is giving to the authorities that there are to be 60 pupils on the roll or 60 in average attendance? I am sorry to say that so far as the Scottish Education Department have been called upon to interpret their own words, they have interpreted those words as meaning 60 pupils in average attendance. That means that the over-driven teachers of Scotland may be called upon to teach practically all through the year classes of between 65 and 70. I wish a definite answer to the

        1611
        question: Is the maximum number to be 60 on the rolls or an average attendance of 60? This whole system is wrong. The time has come, and is years overdue, when those numbers should have been reduced, and the policy which I suggest to my right hon. Friend is that he should, from now onwards, lay it down that the maximum number is to be 50, not to be exceeded unless in very exceptional eases, owing to the structure of the buildings or something of that sort. It should be made perfectly clear that no authority was to be allowed to ask its teachers to teach the classes which are possible under the Regulations at the present time.
        The Memorandum also mentions the question of raising the school age. We are told the Department is sympathetic to that proposal, and I am sure the Secretary for Scotland is personally sympathetic, but, even here, the Department have not made their position quite clear. They say there are two great obstacles to the raising of the school age at present, one being the question of accommodation and the other the question of proper staff. They have left, out one of the most important considerations, namely, the question of finance. It would be, almost impossible for Scotland to raise the age unless England did the same, otherwise the whole expense would fall upon Scotland and not in any way upon the Treasury. Therefore I suggest that my right hon. Friend should consider the whole matter of grants for education to Scotland, in order to see if he cannot devise some system whereby Scotland will be encouraged to go on and raise the age. I may have appeared to criticise rather severely some of the statements in the Memorandum, but, unfortunately, we have not time to pay the compliments to the Department which we might otherwise be inclined to pay. I do not question, and I am sure no one questions, my right hon. Friend's enthusiasm, his zeal and his good wishes for the success of Scottish education. I have heard him speak with most convincing eloquence on what has been done in Scotland and what would still be done but I would remind him that he now occupies a different position from that which he occupied in the old days. We now look to him not merely for words, but for deeds, and at the end of his term in his present office—which
        1612
        we hope he, will only vacate in order to take up a higher office—we are not going to be content with mere words, but we shall look for performance as well. We have had many professions of good intentions. I hope my right hon. Friends will not go to pave a certain place which might well be left unpaved
        Mr. NICHOL: I should like to call the attention of the Committee to another aspect of educational administration in Scotland. I do not wish to traverse the arguments of previous speakers but, in passing, I should like to say that, if the Noble Lady the Member for Kinross (Duchess of Atholl) instead of devoting her speech to the question of the sharing out of the Education (Scotland) Fund and to demanding a bigger share for Perthshire at the expense of other parts, had made a proposal that another million should be spent on education in Scotland I should have been very pleased to support that proposal. I feel we do not expend very much money on education in Scotland. I was speaking to a Glasgow ratepayer last evening and I asked him what he paid in rates for education. The cost, in rates to him as a householder worked out at 2d. per child per week and the national contribution works out at about 2½d. per child per week and if we are spending 4½d. per child per week on education in Scotland we are not doing anything about Which we can crow very loudly.
        With regard to the proposed advanced courses which gained such laudatory notice in the Memorandum to the Report, I call the attention of the Noble Lady to the fact that the very Regulations which were laid on the Table and issued from the Vote Office to-day draw a distinction between the new advanced courses and the intermediate and secondary schools. If she cares to look at Article 39, on page 16 of the draft Regulations issued to-day, and presently lying on the Table of the House for approval, she will discover that it is there very clearly laid down that it will he a teacher with much lower qualifications who is responsible for the education in these advanced courses as compared with Chapter V teachers, which are demanded for intermediate and secondary schools, and if it is the case in Perthshire that she can instance two schools, one an intermediate, very poorly staffed school, and the other an advanced,

        1613
        but rather better staffed school, all that I can say is that there must be a great deal of meanness on the part of the Perthshire authorities, because it means that they are breaking the Regulations so far as their intermediate school is concerned. I should say, also, that every promise that is being made at present about the correlation of the new advanced course, so that a child can move into an intermediate school and go on to a secondary school, was made when the now discredited supplementary course was put forward in this House, but everyone who knows anything about the subject knows quite well that, although these promises are made by Departmental officials or by responsible Ministers in this House, the inherent qualities of the problem itself are going to make these new advanced courses an inferior substitute for secondary education, which is going to be foisted on the working classes in Scotland. I think it could be described in even stronger terms, but I will leave it at that in the meantime.
        I want to call attention to the only line of advance in Scottish education on which I think it is worth while this Committee spending time. So far as Scotland is concerned, it is an administrative point, although it would require new legislation if it were attempted to apply it to England, I refer to the Section in the 1918 Scotland Act by which the school-leaving age in Scotland at the present moment is, legally, 15 years, but what has happened since 1918 is that we have not had a head of the Scottish Education Department, a Secretary for Scotland, who has had the courage to put the law into force. The Act 1ays down that the Secretary for Scotland shall name an appointed date on which that Section of the Act shall come into force, and we have not yet had a Secretary for Scotland who has done so. I feel very much disappointed that this thing has not been done. It was approved by every section of the House when the matter was fully discussed, and I felt that when we did come to the point of having the first Labour Secretary for Scotland, he would have taken this necessary step. I appeal to him to take this step, and I will put forward one or two grounds why he should name the appointed day, and why it should be named as some time soon—I would suggest the 1st January, 1925. The plight of the children who leave
        1614
        school is a subject that was under discussion in this House only a few weeks ago, and by one of the most unanimous votes—I think the whole House who voted, against three or four—it was decided by every party in the House that we would not, by bringing them under the Unemployment Insurance Act at 14 years of age, label every boy and girl in the country as being a part of the industrial machine. Every argument put forward then was an argument for an advance in the school-leaving age.
        What is the actual position? We find it extremely difficult to get accurate statistics about children between 14 and 16. Up to 14, we get the information from the Education Department, and after is we get it from the Ministry of Labour, but between these two ages the thing is very largely a blank. A very interesting private inquiry was made in Cardiff two weeks ago, which showed a very grave state of affairs as far as the children of these ages are concerned, but I want to give one more instance that has already been refereed to in another Debate by one of my hon. Friends on these benches. Last winter the headmaster of one of the continuation schools in an industrial town in Lanarkshire made an investigation of every child who came to the evening continuation classes, a total of about 500, who had not left the school for more than 12 months; that is, roughly speaking, the boys and girls between 14 and 15. He inquired as to how they were employed, where they were employed, and what they were employed at, and he discovered that only 13 per cent of these children between 14 and 15 were in employment at all. When they were asked what they were doing, they said they were knocking about looking for a job. So far as the actual type of employment is concerned, even of the 13 per cent. who were employed, most of them were employed in stop-gap, blind alley ways, which they had no intention of following up, and, indeed, they came to the continuation classes so that they could throw them overboard as soon as possible. This matter, therefore, is really a question of the tragic plight of the children themselves.
        I am afraid I feel that this Debate has been too much about administration and too much—if I may say so, as a teacher myself—about teachers. I think we ought to get back again to the condition of the children themselves, and, so

        1615
        far as these children are concerned, I am making this plea to the Secretary for Scotland, that on his shoulders lies this problem and the correct solution of the problem. He does not need to come and ask us to pass a one-Clause Bill, and use up Parliamentary time in doing it, for he could settle the point to-morrow with a stroke of the pen and his own signature. I have tried to show that these children are being wasted at present. The custom in skilled trades, at least, in the West of Scotland, is that the employers in the big industries, and especially in the heavy steel and iron industries, refuse to accept apprentices until they are 16 years of age. It has been found that the very young apprentice is a danger to the other workmen in the works, and that he is not a very economic instrument so far as the employers are concerned, and in some places it is a rule, but all over Scotland it is a very general custom, that nobody is apprenticed in the skilled trades until 16 years of age, so that there again is another argument for putting forward the school-leaving age to some extent—I am only suggesting to 15 in the meantime.
        From the point of view of employment, I am going to assert that no time is more opportune for making this real educational advance than the present moment. I would ask hon. Members who have the Report to look at page 1 of the Report on Education in Scotland, and they will see there that the number of pupils recorded as attending the Scottish schools is the lowest recorded since 1908 in absolute numbers, but we have to go back to the year 1902 to find any similar low number so far as the children under 14 are concerned. If hon. Members look at page 6, they will see emphasised the reason for the low numbers in the schools at present—and this deals with the chief objection against raising the school age, which has been the question of the supply of teachers and the question of school accommodation. There is going to be less pressure under these two heads for the next six years than there has been at any time since the educational advance has been made in Scotland. Most Members of the Committee are quite well aware of what has happened, and they will find it very neatly detailed in an Appendix which shows the birth rates back to 1908 and the children attending
        1616
        school. It is in Table 2, Appendix V, but it is very aptly summed up in a sentence on page 6 of the Education Department's own Report. It points out that the decline is due to the low birth-rate during the War years, and while the War babies, as we might call them, will be starting to come into the schools, the cumulative effect of the years of low birth-rate is such, that there is going to be a steady decline in the number of children from 5 to 14 up to the year 1930. The actual words of the Report are:
        "The decline is unlikely to be appreciably arrested before 1930, when the lean generations of the war period will have begun to pass out and to be replaced by what should, in normal circumstances, be a more abundant succession of new entrants."
        9.0 P.M.
        As that barrier, which has always stood in the way, owing to constant pressure of school population, is removed for the next six years, I do put forward the plea that was put forward by Parliament in 1918. The difficulties, I have said, are mainly those of school accommodation and the supply of teachers. So far as the supply of teachers is concerned, I think one method that might be used for the first few years, and used quite successfully, would be that the superannuation age for teachers should not be enforced. I do not think that anyone would suggest, that the hon. Member for Partick (Mr. A. Young) is not a very fit and proper person still to have carried on the Canongatē School in Edinburgh. I suggest he is a fairly healthy specimen, and that there are many such who are fit and willing. That, then, is one method of getting rid of the difficulty. So far as school accommodation is concerned, the pressure will not be so great, but in the past we have been up against this difficulty. I have taught in a tin hall, and all sorts of buildings, but I do not think the teaching there was very much poorer than it was in any other school, although I admit that a properly equipped building is very much to be preferred. I suggest that at this time the difficulties are fewer than they are likely to be in the future. Appendix No. 5 of the Report shows that the problem we are up against is in the provision of accommodation for 90,000 children who are between 13 and 14, and who would be the children who would stay on at school. Looking at Table I, it will be seen that 20,000 are already accommodated in

        1617
        primary schools, that 4,000, roughly, are accommodated in the primary departments of intermediate schools, and 3,400 in the preparatory departments of secondary schools. In the intermediate and secondary departments of these schools, we have another 17,000 accommodated. I admit that of the 20,000 in primary schools, some are probably waiting for a leaving date, but the accommodation for that number exists, and we have only got to provide for rather more than 50,000 new pupils, and I am told that many of the education authorities have accommodation in their secondary schools and in their intermediate schools, that is in no way overcrowded or even adequately filled. From that point of view, again, I suggest the time is now ripe for the enacting of this advance. I disagree entirely with the policy of the Government in this matter. I think it is a policy—and this applies to both countries—which is—I can hardly say more cowardly but which is less courageous than any educational reform since the year 1870. Instead of the Government taking the onus of raising the school age, they are leaving it to the local authorities, with the result that in this country, after five months, as I was informed in reply to a question I put to the Minister of Education to-day, only two local authorities have proposed bye-laws to put up the age to 15. That is a policy of running away from the problem. The whole educational problem of the present Government ought to be revised. Instead of publishing pamphlets about what they are going to do, they ought to do something. I think it is a quite unfair, undemocratic policy to put the onus of the decision on the local authorities, because if one local authority raises the age to 15, and a neighbouring borough keeps to 14, the children in the neighbouring borough feel a grievance. They do not mind going on till 15, but they object to one getting different treatment from the other. The question of grants will arise in the same way.
        There is one last point in connection with the raising of the school age to which I should like to draw attention. It. is not so much the technical difficulties of the school accommodation, or of the supply of teachers, or anything of that kind, but it is a question of the parent of the child, because, undoubtedly, in
        1618
        these days of low wages, when in many of the industrial districts the labourer's wage is round about 32s. or 33s. a week, the question of keeping children for another year at school is a handicap. There is not much chance of the child at 14 getting a job, but even the meagre chance it has of earning 2s. or 3s. a week is a bait which a parent, who is only bringing in 30s. or 35s. a week, feels is something he must get, merely to relieve their physical wants. Under the Insurance Bill introduced into the House, and now departed from, there was an allowance of 5s in the case of boys and 4s. in the case of girls if unemployed. I suggest that some such allowance should be paid. We have the power to make these maintenance allowances. At present, for instance, the Bute and Ayr education authorities give an average rate of £10 per annum to every pupil who has to travel to a central school. The £10 can be spent either in the purchase of a bicycle, a railway ticket, or in any way they care, but is an allowance by which the family is relieved to a very considerable extent. We might provide maintenance allowances of £9 or £10 a year which would be rather less than was proposed under the Insurance Act as insurance benefit. We can help to relieve the necessitous cases likely to arise by putting up the school age. If we were to give to the children the 1s to which reference has been made for attending school, there would be absolutely no difficulty in the case of even the worst slum regions of our great towns of having a very good school attendance. If people object to that method all I can say is that the children have to be kept alive somehow, and if wages are going to be forced down to the present low levels, so far as the labouring population is concerned, we have got to see the children are looked after in other ways.
        The Labour party maintains that it believes in education. I have been disappointed, as I have said, bitterly disappointed, with its educational programme during this last five or six months But I am also disappointed with its prospective programme—a programme looking forward at the outside to certain regulations such as are to be put forward, and which everyone who is connected with educational machinery knows are merely stereotyping what has come

        1619
        about from natural causes, and the proposal that the wildest limits of idealism will perhaps get 50 in a class, instead of 60 or 70 in the year 1928. If that is what we are going to get as the Labour programme for education I am going to be against it. I do feel that, so far as this Debate is concerned, that on this occasion the Scottish position is unique. The power of the Secretary for Scotland is unique. But we seem to know how he will meet us in this matter. With one of his beautiful smiles he will read to us what has been prepared and will tell us that he is dependent upon the English precedent for getting us the equivalent grant. I would only remind the right hon. Gentleman that we passed from that position in 1918 when the House passed a law raising the leaving age of the children in England from 13 to 14, and in Scotland from 14 to 15. That was one of the disabilities we knew we were going to be under. I have always contended it was an unfair disability. I am not going to contend though, that because the disability is unfair, that the people who are going to suffer under it are the children. I suggest that even with the rating difficulty, with educational rates, that now we can go ahead if we have the courage. I would appeal to the Secretary for Scotland, and remind him that he will get the full support of everybody who is interested in unemployment, and everybody who is interested in the welfare of the children, and if he gets these two forces behind him in working for the children I am perfectly certain he will go clown in Scottish history as the most successful Scottish Secretary we have had.
        Sir H. CRAIK: I most sincerely and honestly offer the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down my warmest thanks for the speech that he has just made, for though on many of the points on which he has spoken I disagree with him very markedly, yet from the beginning to the end of his speech he has spoken words of sympathy in this work which come from his heart. I do not know whether it is failing of intellect that makes me on these occasions of educational debate feel rather as if I were going back to the terrible strain of school drudgery that we used to have in our early days. We may talk of those days as pleasant days but they were burdensome and boring. The debates in this House are very apt to my
        1620
        mind to be exactly of the same nature. I look back upon what may be thought by seine to be an ill-spent life because I myself was responsible as head of the Department for 20 years for many of these things which have been criticised. I suppose I had a good deal to do in the way of giving forth circulars, regulations, codes, statistics and all that sort of thing. I got through it some how, but there are some heavy tomes in the library of the House for which I am responsible and which I sometimes read with some misgiving.
        There is something, however, after all, in the subject which we call education and the human interest in it may surely make it something brighter than it appears in our debates. We have surely heard too much to-night as to the character of the circulars or methods, and attacks upon regulations about minor matters. We had an eloquent speech from the hon. Member for Peebles and Southern (Mr. Westwood). He told us that his aim was to get back to the old times and to that which savoured of the national traditions of Scotland. But how does he, propose to do this? He spoke a great deal about an intermediate certificate, the disappearance of which he laments. But really does the hon. Member realise what this intermediate certificate is? It is after all a mushroom invention and has no connection with any old Scottish tradition. Of late years we have worked hard at inventing new certificates. I did a good deal that way myself and I have sometimes doubted whether I did not deserve to have been shot from behind a hedge for the torture I caused to hundreds of thousands by these examinations. Mercifully they spared me. But really we need something else to talk about when we speak of the great work that we have to do, beyond endless party criticism about whether this or that draft is or is not to the point. I have no prejudice in favour of a Department which has changed many of my own customs and traditions into what they conceive to be something better. But in their new scheme of abandoning this mushroom certificate I see an attempt to get back to the real spirit of what we tried to do in the old days for Scotland for our younger generation. I would beseech hon. Members who take part in these Debates long after I am gone never to forget the

        1621
        tradition of the old parochial school of Scotland. I am not fond of the word "democracy" and I do not know exactly what it expresses, but if it means popular advance, full liberty, and equality of opportunity and a sense of innate responsibility, I say never was there a more popular, a more free or a more equal institution in any country than the old parish school of Scotland. That school solved many of the great social problems of Scotland. Through the parish school system the lowest may rise to the highest if he only has the grit in him to try to rise. That was the solution of the great social difficulty of the past in Scotland.
        Over and over again I have seen in my own experience in England men checked at every turn of their career, for whom if they had had the opportunity of the old parish school system there would have been a comparatively easy passage, and no friction would have occurred. That is what the Department are trying to get. We do not want these intermediate certificates, and secondary and other departments. Do let us forget these distinctions. There should he in every school an opportunity for a boy testing his ability and catching on to something higher if he has the ability, and we should open the door as widely as possible to all these boys. I east to the wind all these petty objections that have been raised because we are trying to get back into our school the real spirit of the old parish school, where all were equal and where all had equal opportunity.
        The hon. Member who has just sat down (Mr. Nichol) spoke with great force upon the question of continuing the attendance of children up to the age of 15. He gave striking reasons in pointing out that in certain skilled employments apprentices of an earlier age were not taken. I agree that we should do everything in our power to induce these children to stay on at school. I agree with him entirely that there are or ought to be quite enough teachers and accommodation, and neither of those causes would make me hesitate to support the hue Member. If we have not enough school accommodation we ought to have, and if we have not enough teachers we ought to provide them, but do not bother too much about drawing very clear distinctions as to exactly the number of children a teacher can take. I was
        1622
        brought up in the pre-educational era in the High School of Glasgow, and it was a most excellent but certainly not a stimulating institution. There a great deal of my time was spent nominally in listening to class work, and really in reading a great many of Scott's novels. I remember going to Glasgow University at the age of 14, and entering into a class of 150 students of all ages and drawn from all ranks of life. The very size of that class was an influence that brought us into an atmosphere of energy and emulation.
        Mr. NICHOL: Is it not the practice at the Glasgow University to have classes of 200 or 300 students? It. is, however, quite a different matter when you are dealing with infants of five or six years of age and children up to the age of 13.
        Sir H. CRAIK: I went to Glasgow University at the age of 14.
        Mr. STEPHEN: You were a prodigy.
        Sir H. CRAIK: No, T was not, but an extremely backward school boy. In these large classes you have an advantage of emulation amongst people of all classes and stages of intellectual development. We should remember that part of education which is very useful to boys and girls is the little wholesome neglect where they left you to your own devices. Do not think that you inquire the immediate attention of the teacher at every moment because that is not the very best way of developing your character or your advancing education. It is most desirable that these boys—who ought certainly, instead of being idle, to be kept on at school—should be kept on at school until they are fit to enter a high sort of employment and not merely blind alleys. I agree that no difficulty of accommodation and no difficulty as to the number of teachers should put a stop to it. But I think there is one method of doing it which we have pursued almost to death, that of compulsion. When compulsion was established by the Act of 1872, I remember sitting under the gallery—the "dovecot" that an hon Member referred to—helping the Minister in charge to the best of my limited power and I knew what was in the thoughts of the leaders in that effort. They thought that compulsion, which had its faults, would prove its usefulness by making itself unnecessary. They knew its dis-

        1623
        advantages. Surely, now, after 50 years or more, if it were so inefficacious, that people cannot now learn the advantages of education for their children, it is time that we should try to see whether we cannot get on with a little less of compulsion. Compel people, and you stir up that innate tendency which is in human nature to dislike doing what they are forced to do. Are you sure that you will not destroy that first-help and first motive power in education—enthusiasm for the subject? If you compel big boys and girls of 15, 16 or 17 years of age, take care you do not produce a powerful reaction in their minds.
        I do not want to indulge my own interest in the subject and in my own reminiscences by speaking at undue length. Points have been referred to on the question of the training of teachers. Can we lay down one hard and fast rule for all? Are there not faculties to differentiate? I am not sure, but I think that of all infant school teachers the best is the best class of woman teacher. She has tact and insight, and intuition which is far superior, in an infant school, to anything which can be found in our sex. Would you try these teachers, after all, by the certificates they have obtained, and the schedules of work they have done? Many of these teachers we are told come out not fully trained in all the specific subjects in which they might have been trained. Does any one of us want to be trained in every possible subject? Cannot we make ourselves fit, with ordinary intelligence, in the ordinary subjects of an elementary school, without being specially trained—and these have been mentioned—in handiwork, in music, in sewing, and in some other miscellaneous matters? Was the old parochial teacher an expert in handiwork? Did he know how to sew? What he did was to know something about all the subjects that his pupils had to learn. He would not have liked any specially-qualified person to come in and take out of his hands a certain part of the teaching. He knew where he was defective, and he know where he could remedy his defects, but he took care to have the whole intellectual guidance of his pupils in his own hands, and that was what made him a creator and a builder-up of character, and
        1624
        that was far more. The old parochial teacher knew every intellectual interest and every trait in the character of his pupils, and that was what made him useful, Do not let us forget that teacher's tradition, and do not let us enslave ourselves by rules and schedules, made hide-bound, when considering the real essence of the work we have to do for the younger generation.
        Sir MURDOCH MACDONALD: I would call attention to a Minute of the Scottish Education Department, providing for the payment of grants from the Education Fund for the coming year. It is made up on the attendance sheets of scholars on the 31st July of this year, but as this subject has already been referred to, I do not propose, except in a small particular, to deal further with the matter. The Noble Lady the Member for Kinross (Duchess of Atholl) has spoken in regard to this particular matter. The point was that the rural areas in Scotland were likely, under this Minute, to be prejudicially affected in so far as the division of money between the rural and the urban areas was made under the Minute—that a less sum would be given to the rural areas now, than was given in former years. An interjection was made in the course of the Noble Lady's speech to the effect that nothing should be taken from Glasgow. I am sure, speaking for myself, no one would wish to take anything from Glasgow or any other urban area. This is not a question of taking anything away. It is a question of not giving what Glasgow or any other area is not entitled to. Last year the figures under the main headings were £3 15s. for scholars and £123 for teachers. Some short time ago the education authorities were enabled to increase the amount for scholars from £3 15s. to £3 17s., and thence to £4 0s. 6d. and the teachers' grant was increased by £3 10s. to £126 10s. The relative percentages of increase on these figures is not the same, and the Noble Lady pointed that fact out. But further money has since become available, and the grant for scholars has been increased from £4 0s. 6d. to £4 2s. without any corresponding grant being made on the teachers' side, and as the rural areas depend on the teachers' grant to balance the amount that they get as compared with urban areas, undoubtedly hardship

        1625
        will be inflicted on them unless this matter can be put right. The extra 2s. for 750,000 scholars in Scotland represents a sum of £75,000 in excess; that £75,000 really ought not to be given under that particular heading; it ought to be distributed among the others, and mainly under the teachers' heading, increasing their grant from £126 10s. to £130. It would not take anything away from any urban areas if this amount were properly allocated. The Secretary for Scotland said that this Minute was still lying on the Table, and I was very glad to hear it, but when I took the Minute up again I found the words:
        "This Minute, having been presented to Parliament on the sixth May, nineteen twenty-four, and having laid for not less than one month on the Table of both Houses of Parliament in accordance with Section 21 of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1918, has duly come into force."
        I am glad indeed to know that that is really not correct and that the Secretary for Scotland is still entitled to revise the figures as he promised the Noble Lady he would do. I do not say that he promised he would actually change the figures; what he did promise was that he would fully consider the matter, and I do not wish to imply that he went to the length of saying that he would change the figures. I suggest that an error has been made in dealing with that extra 2s. It was found, I conceive, after the original figures were produced that there were fewer scholars to be paid for than had been imagined to be in existence, and that left a balance of money unallocated. That balance was allocated to the scholars' side instead of being divided proportionately between the scholars and the teachers' sides. Of course, the whole of the money goes to the education authorities in each area, to be divided equally, and I hope, therefore, that the Secretary for Scotland, when he implements his promise to the Noble Lady the Member for Perthshire to reconsider this matter, will see his way to increase the amount for teachers from £126 10s. to £130, which, I respectfully suggest, the amount ought to be.
        Mr. F. C. THOMSON: I will not detain the right hon. Gentleman for more than a minute or two. I remember that last year I was responsible for making a speech on education, and I got into rather hot water for the extreme length of my remarks. I shall now be as brief
        1626
        as I can. Will the right hon. Gentleman clear up the mystery with regard to this Minute dealing with the allocation of the grant. Has the time for the Minute to lie on the Table expired, or is it possible for the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider the question? He will be expected to reply to that when he answers on the general Debate. I am sorry the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for the Scottish Universities (Sir H. Craik) has left the House, because I wanted to refer to something he said. His speeches on education are always interesting, and it is somewhat remarkable that he who has been addressing us to-day sat in what is known as "the dove cot" when Lord Advocate Young was piloting the Education Bill of 1872 through the House.
        I was very much interested in what the right hon. Gentleman said about the size of classes. Sixty years ago in Scotland classes of 100 were quite common and it seems remarkable that boys learnt as much as they did. I am perfectly certain there was a great mass to whom very little instruction was imparted, but it is certainly true there were always at the top of the class 10 or 12 boys whose attainments were very high and the competition amongst whom was very keen. I remember looking at a prize list dated 100 years ago of my old school the Edinburgh Academy, and I was struck by the extraordinary excellence of the compositions and prize poems written by the boys in classes of over 100. While that system was of great value to those boys, I cannot help thinking that the boys in the middle of the classy—like Sir Walter Scott and others—did not get a great deal of instruction in their school days. Sir Walter Scott made good use of his opportunities, as did my right hon. Friend, by reading all sorts of literature surreptitiously under the desk. As we know very well, it is a, most remarkable thing that Scott, in writing in his journal, for instance, could not make the smallest entry, even one of three or four lines, without quoting some bit of poetry, sometimes from an obscure and sometimes from a well-known author. His mind was stored in a phenomenal way, and no doubt a great deal of that knowledge he acquired while sitting in his class at the High School at Edinburgh.
        I think that, as my right hon. Friend has said, the old parish school in Scot

        1627
        land was one of the most marvelous educational institutions the world has ever seen. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Partick (Mr. A. Young), who has had a great deal of experience in primary school work, will agree with me, but I think the Code which was put into force last summer does really do something to help to restore the parish school in the country districts to some-think like its old position. It is provided, as indicated on page 4 of the Report, that advanced divisions may be conducted in any school where the education authority decides to institute them, provided that the curriculum, staffing, accommodation, and so on, are approved by the Department. There is a desire, and a possibility under the new arrangements of the Code, that, if a master is a good man, he will be able to carry a boy or girl with great advantage and profit much further than is possible under the old Regulations. I think the hon. Member for Peebles (Mr. Westwood) disputed the fact, but I think it is quite certain that the new advanced divisions are a very great improvement on the old supplementary courses which prevailed before the Code came into force. There is much greater flexibility and variety of curriculum, and I think it can be hardly denied that they are in every way a vast improvement. The Noble Lady the Member for Kinross (the Duchess of Atholl) referred with very just appreciation to the work performed by the education authority in my constituency in Aberdeen, and pointed out—and I think it is quite apposite to this Debate to refer to it—that they are the first to have worked out a scheme under the new system. They have a number of elementary schools which together feed an intermediate school—they still call it intermediate, but there is no virtue in the name one way or the other——
        Sir H. CRAIK: And the University of Aberdeen is the nursing mother of them all.
        Mr. THOMSON: That is so. As a matter of fact, the City had two Universities until the year 1860, when they were united, and it has now only one. That system has been worked out there, and I quote it, not from any desire to talk about my own constituency, but because it is the first place in Scotland where the
        1628
        system has been fully worked out, of these primary schools feeding one school which consists entirely of advanced divisions, the whole town being covered in this way. It has been found already that a boy can pass, after having been one year in the advanced division, into the secondary school and carry on there with adequate success. Moreover, if he has taken French, which is provided for in the advanced division, he can go through the whole three years' advanced course, and then pass into the secondary school, complete two years there, and take the leaving certificate after five years. Those are arrangements which make for flexibility. It is difficult to tell, when a boy or girl is starting in the advanced division, whether they are likely to wish to go on, possibly to the University; and it is quite right that there should be an easy way of getting from the advanced division into the secondary school.
        As worked in Aberdeen, these three years' advanced courses are practically the same as the three junior years in the secondary school. In the secondary school there is more language training, but, as I have pointed out, if a boy takes French in his advanced course, he can pass into the secondary school after three years, complete two years there, and sit for the leaving certificate. As the representative a year ago of the Scottish Education Department in this House, hon. Members will recollect that I was fiercely attacked because of the introduction of this new Code and Regulations, but I submit that, after a year's experience, it has been found that it does represent a very substantial educational advance in Scotland. It is a great advance in the rural districts, and also in the towns, and, as more towns work out the scheme which is now operating in Aberdeen, it will be found that Scotland owes a great deal to the distinguished head of the Scottish Education Department for the great part that he had in getting the arrangements for the code successfully negotiated. Of course, there was trouble about the certificates, but, as the Noble Lady the Member for Kinross pointed out, a rose by any other name smells just as sweet, and now the Department have come to an agreement, and we have the senior day-school certificate after three years' training, and the junior certificate after two years.

        1629
        It is very important—and this is really the underlying idea in the Code—to revivify the personal relationship between master and pupil, to which reference was made by my right hon. Friend. What we have to look to in the future is the development of the teacher's interest in the pupil, and the desire that, so far as possible and under careful inspection, his verdict on the pupil shall be accepted. Such difficulties as arise are being surmounted, and I am not at all ashamed of the humble part I took in being responsible for the introduction of the Code into the House a year ago. Of course, any new thing must be exposed to criticism, and it is right that it should be. The fierce criticism of the proposals in the Code has resulted in many improvements. I hope my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland, in his reply, will admit that the Code and the secondary school regulations are really a great advance on the system to which the hon. Member for Peebles would like again to return.
        Mr. ADAMSON: In rising for the purpose of suggesting to the Members of the Committee that we should now finish the Debate on the Education Vote, I would point out that we have five Votes on the Paper, and are still discussing the second of them. I was hopeful that before 11 o'clock we should have been able to get at least four of those Votes, but evidently that is not to be the case. Not only do I rise to suggest that we should finish this discussion, but I want to reply, as briefly as I can, to a number of points which have been put by hon. Members to the Department and myself in the course of an interesting discussion. I cannot remember a more interesting discussion on the Scottish Education Estimates since I became a Member of the House. In the course of it, a number of problems have been raised by the various Members who have spoken. Some of them have been mentioned by more than one speaker, and, while I may use the name of one particular hon. Member in replying to certain of the matters that have been dealt with, I shall reply at the same time to all those who have taken part in the discussion and have mentioned the particular matter in question. In his very eloquent address my hon. Friend the Member for Peebles (Mr. Westwood) urged that no child should be allowed to attend school without his
        1630
        physical needs being supplied. With that sentiment I am in complete agreement. To such an extent is that the ease that one of the first jobs I took in hand was the withdrawal of Circular 51 and the issue of Circular 57, with the object in view of seeing that the children attending school are placed in a position of being able to take advantage of the large sums of money we arc spending on education. My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Cowan) mentioned, in rather regretful tones, the disappearance of the intermediate certificate. They evidently thought there was no necessity for its withdrawal, and that certain changes which have been made could have been made, at the same time retaining the certificate. Like them, I regret its disappearance on sentimental grounds.
        Sir H. CRAIK: Does the right hon. Gentleman know that the intermediate certificate to which he attaches such deep sentimental and traditional affection is mere mushroom matter not 15 years old?
        Mr. ADAMSON: We are evidently getting side-tracked on to an interesting discussion on sentiment. From the sentimental side I have much sympathy with my hon. Friend, but I am assured that in the development of our educational system we have reached a time when it is absolutely necessary that the change which has been made should be made. Much as we may regret the disappearance of certain things, if they have served their generation they have to disappear and others take their place.
        Sir H. CRAIK: Really, does the right hon. Gentleman know that this intermediate certificate is not 10 years old
        Mr. ADAMSON: Really, we cannot waste any more time over it. The hon. Member for Peebles dealt with the question of the superannuation 10.0 P.M. of teachers, and expressed the hope that I should be in a position to give a more definite reply than on the last occasion when we discussed it. I regret that I am not in a position to give a definite reply at the moment, but I am even more hopeful than I was on that occasion that the present arrangement is of a temporary character and will come to an end in a much shorter time than many hon. Members were inclined to

        1631
        think the last time we discussed the matter.
        Mr. D. M. COWAN: We are not dealing with the whole question of superannuation. We are asking that an increased allowance shall be given to men and women who are already 70 years old.
        Mr. ADAMSON: I am dealing with a point put not by the hon. Member but by my hon. Friend the Member for Peebles. On the last occasion we discussed it the hon. Member for the Universities put a very straight question on the point I am now dealing with. In these days he takes up a rather different attitude towards the present holder of the office I hold from that which he was accustomed to do towards a previous holder.
        Mr. COWAN: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. I have never said anything to him that I have not said to his predecessor. I should be glad if he would give me any instance. It is the most absurd statement that could possibly be made. The right hon. Gentleman could not say that from anything he himself has heard.
        The DEPUTY - CHAIRMAN (Mr. Entwistle): The hon. Member must not get up and speak unless the right hon. Gentleman gives way.
        Mr. ADAMSON: On the last occasion on which we were discussing the point I am now dealing with the hon. Member used almost the same language that he has used to-night in relation to another problem, and he said we ought to get a definite reply from the Secretary for Scotland to-night as to what is to be done with regard to superannuation. That is putting it in a different way from what I ever heard him put it to the late Secretary for Scotland. The last time we discussed the point I told the hon. Member that if I was to go into the point he was putting regarding superannuation, I would take it up with the teachers' representatives themselves, and I am glad to tell him I have arranged to meet the representatives of the teachers next week on these points. That is as definite a reply as I can give him. The teachers who retired prior to 1919 and who have not the same superannuation terms as those who have retired
        1632
        since that date, naturally feel that they are being very unfairly treated because their superannuation is fixed at a much lower figure. I have arranged to meet their representatives next week also and to discuss the matter with them. The hon. Member for Peebles (Mr. Westwood) and the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Cowan) know that already in order to provide superannuation for the teacher who retired before 1919, the Education (Scotland) Fund has been raided to a certain extent, and it would be difficult either from the Education Department or myself to raid it further without the consent of the education authorities, because the education authorities have a considerable amount of interest in the Education (Scotland) Fund. Arrangements have been made for discussing that matter next week
        Another point raised by the hon. Member for Peebles was the question of the training of teachers. In the case of men a four years' course is demanded as against a two years' course for women, and the hon. Member expressed the hope that even yet I should he able to make it at least three years in the case of the women. I have gone very closely into that matter with the Education Department, and I regret that it is impossible to make the course four years for both men and women, or to make it a three years' course in the case of women. I do not take this course, as some hon. Members seem to suggest, because I am attempting to set up a distinction between men and women. That would be against all that I have done in my public career. I have been fighting all along to get the women treated on an equality with the men, and because I happen to-day to hold my present office I am not going to begin to undo the work of my lifetime. The reason why I have come, very reluctantly, to this decision is because I feel that if such an arrangement were made under present conditions there would be such a scarcity of teachers that we should have to employ uncertificated teachers. I have gone as Closely as my hon. Friend into that question, and I can assure him that that is the danger I fear, and rather than run the risk of that danger I have decided, much to my regret, to keep the training course of the women to two years.
        Another point, which has been raised deals with the question of the size of

        1633
        classes. The hon. Member for the Universities (Mr. Cowan) said that the present proposals of the Education Department were worse than the proposals of the Education Department 10 years ago. He pointed out that 10 years ago there was a proposal to reduce the size of the classes to a maximum of 50, but what he did not tell the Committee was that there was such a strong opposition from the education authorities and others that the proposal had to be departed from and could not be carried out.
        Mr. COWAN: It could have been carried out, but it was not carried out because of the opposition.
        Mr. ADAMSON: It could not be carried out because of the opposition that developed against the proposal. I hope that our proposal to-day to reduce the maximum size of classes ultimately to 50 will meet with a better fate. I hope we shall get the consent of all parties and the good will of all parties to our proposal to reduce the size of the classes to a maximum of 60 for the next four years, and thereafter to a maximum of 50.
        The hon. Member for East Renfrew (Mr. Nichol) dealt with the question of raising the school age to 15. He said that he was disappointed with the educational policy of the Labour Government and that the Labour Government would be well advised to accept the responsibility of raising the school age from 12, instead of putting it on the education authorities, as is being done in England. He went on to say that in Scotland the case was different, and that it only requires a stroke of the pen; or that the Secretary for Scotland only requires to say that it was to be done, and it would be done. If I was as sure that it could be safely done as is the hon. Member, I have sufficient courage to do it, and I should be as ready to do it as it is possible for him to be, because I claim to be as much interested in education as my hon. Friend or any other hon. Members who have taken part in the discussion. The reason why I have refrained from doing it up to the present time is because I feel that there is not sufficient school accommodation. I think that when the education authorities——
        Mr. MAXTON: The education authorities got fair warning in the 1918 Education (Scotland) Act and in the Code
        1634
        previous to that, and there is still a tremendous scarcity of decent schools in Scotland.
        Mr. ADAMSON: I was giving the reasons why I refrained from naming the date that would raise the school age to 15. It is because I believe that there is not sufficient school accommodation, and because I believe that we have not a sufficient number of teachers, and because there is still a considerable number of parents of children who are opposed to a change of this kind.
        Mr. NICHOL: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to say that, as far as the supply of teachers is concerned, this reform will not be granted until we have thousands of unemployed teachers? Is he going to create teachers and keep them standing unemployed? That would be quite a new proposition.
        Mr. ADAMSON: I would regret, as much ac it is possible for my right hon. Friend to regret, the existence of unemployed teachers, but, as he knows, there has been far less unemployment among teachers than there has been among any other section of the community, and at the moment there are very few unemployed teachers in Scotland. There were two other points mentioned by the Noble Lady the Member for Kinross (Duchess of Atholl), to which I ought to reply. She referred to the desire of the rural areas to obtain larger grants than have been provided for in the estimates of the present year. With her knowledge of the position she will agree that the Board of Education has been very good to the rural areas. If one took time to go into detail on this question it would not be very difficult to prove that the Board has been very good to rural areas. It is true that there has been a larger grant made to the burghs and to the big industrial areas this year than was made last year, but we must not be unmindful of the fact that within recent years the burghs have complained that too much was being done for the rural areas.
        Another point which she put was in connection with the circular which had been put on the Table in May last. Frankly, I misunderstood the point which the Noble Lady was raising when I gave the reply which I did. I thought that she was referring to the Regulations that had been laid on the Table, and that there

        1635
        was plenty of time if she desired to protest against them, and to take the necessary steps to prevent them coming into operation. It was purely and simply a misapprehension on my part. I hope that the Committee will now see its way to give me the Estimate on the assurance that the points which have been put to me in the course of the Debate will receive the closest consideration with the view of seeing whether they can be put into operation or not.
        Duchess of ATHOLL: As it is clear from the statement which has just been made that the Minute to which I drew attention, which explains the allocation of the grant, has passed through tin; House, and as, in any case, the education authorities have been notified of what they are to receive under the Minute, I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
        Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
        Original Question put, and agreed to.

      CLASS VII.

        SCOTTISH BOARD OF HEALTH.
        Motion made, and Question proposed,
        "That a sum, not exceeding £1,897,832, 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, 1925, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Scottish Board of Health, including Grants and other Expenses in connection with Housing, Grants to Local Authorities, etc.. sundry Grants in respect of Benefits and Expenses of Administration under the? National Health Insurance Acts, 1911 to 1922, certain Grants in Aid, and certain Special Services arising out of the War."—[Note: £600,000 has been voted on account.]
        Mr. JAMES STEWART (Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health, Scotland): As regards the work of the Scottish Board of Health, it is a source of gratification that, I am able to report that the year 1923, measured by the death-rate, was the healthiest year on record. The general death rate fell to the low figure of 129 per 1,000 of the population, the lowest previous rate being 13·6 per 1,000 in the year 1921. The result is the more satisfactory when account is taken of the long continued period of unemployment and its accompanying distress on an unparalleled scale. Satisfactory as the mortality figures
        1636
        may be, we must not rest content with what has been done. Development, of the health services is of prime importance to the physical and industrial well-being of the nation if the people of this country are to maintain their place in competition with other countries. Realising the importance of this, one of the first actions of the Government on assuming office was to remove the embargo which had been placed on the development of these services by the late Government, and I am glad to say that the local authorities have responded to our action by submitting for the approval of the Board of Health developments and extensions of schemes with which they were anxious to proceed, but which were being hung up because of the embargo. It is our duty to prevent ill-health as well as to cure it, and to that end it must be our aim to use to the fullest extent the resources of medical and sanitary science, in diminishing the heavy burden of sickness, a large part of which is capable of being treated on preventive lines.
        In the all-important matter of providing the people with decent and healthy homes, we have, unfortunately, done little more than make a beginning, but, as the question has been so fully debated on two separate occasions in the House it is, perhaps, unnecessary that I should take up time to-night by giving details of the position. There is, however, one other matter calling for reform, which I would like to mention in passing. It is the need for additional measures being taken to prevent the pollution of the atmosphere by smoke. We have made great progress in such matters as the provision of pure water, but, in my opinion, we have in the past devoted far too little attention to the question of maintaining the purity of the air that we breathe. I hope that a Bill dealing with smoke abatement in Scotland will be introduced at an early date, There is increasing evidence that the shortage of hospital accommodation in Scotland is a serious gap in the community's protective organisation against disease, and that some steps must be taken to repair it by the provision of further hospital accommodation and by securing closer co-operation between the voluntary hospitals and the Poor Law and public health hospitals. Impressed with the importance of the subject, the Board of Health have recently appointed a

        1637
        Departmental Committee, presided over by Lord Mackenzie
        "to inquire into and to report upon the extent and nature of the inadequacy of the present hospital and ancillary services in Scotland, and to make recommendations for the development and maintenance of these services to meet the needs of the community."
        The campaign against tuberculosis goes on. It is a grim fight, but ground is being won. Slowly but steadily the mortality from the disease is lessening. Thus in 1914 the deaths from tuberculosis in its various forms numbered 7,696, whereas in 1923 that had fallen to 5,786. Within a period of 10 years, therefore there has been a decrease of 1,910, or, in round figures, nearly 2,000, in the number of persons who have succumbed to the disease. That a systematic attempt to deal with the disease is of value, is illustrated by a comparison of the death-rates over a considerable period, say, the last 30 years. Thus in 1894 the death-rate in Scotland from pulmonary tuberculosis was 172 per 100,000 of the population. In 1914 the corresponding rate had fallen to 104, and in 1923 it had been still further reduced to 81. In other words, the death-rate from this form of the disease is less than half what it was 30 years ago, and it has been reduced by 22 per cent. since 1914. In respect of pulmonary tuberculosis, Scotland has now a lower death-rate than England and Ireland. In the same period the death-rate from non pulmonary tuberculosis has fallen from 63 per 100,000 of the population in 1894 to 58 in 1914 and 36 in 1923. The fall in the death-rate from this form of the disease—a fall of 38 per cent.—since 1914, is even more marked than the fall in the case of pulmonary tuberculosis. Not-withstanding this fact, Scotland occupies the unenviable position of having the highest death-rate of any of the three countries from non-pulmonary tuber culosis. It is only within recent years that the Scottish local authorities have been turning their attention to the treatment of non-pulmonary tuberculosis and I have great hopes that these efforts will soon produce beneficial results which will be reflected in a further substantial diminution of the death-rate. There has been a substantial addition to the number of sanatorium and hospital beds reserved for the treatment of this disease In 1918, at the close of the War, the num
        1638
        ber of such beds was 2,590. To-day there are 3,953 beds and when we are finished the extensions which are taking place, particularly in connection with Glasgow, we will have over 4,800 beds reserved for the treatment of this disease. The local authorities who, with the aid of the State grant, bear the financial brunt of the campaign, must be encouraged to carry on and to extend their activities where necessary. The special restrictions which were imposed in 1923–24 were removed by the present Government, along with the embargo on the development of health services to which I have already referred. The local authorities will now receive in grant 50 per cent of all reasonable expenditure in connection with the treatment of this disease. With regard to maternity and child welfare, in the year 1923 the deaths of children under one year numbered 80,825, which is equivalent to a death rate of 78·9 per thousand births. This is the lowest infantile death-rate ever recorded for Scotland. The deaths for 1923 among children over one year and under five years of age numbered 4,926, which is equivalent to 12·3 per 1,000 children within those ages. Here again the death-rate is the lowest on record.
        Mr. MAXTON: The lowest recorded in Scotland, but not the lowest in England—considerably higher!
        Mr. STEWART: Considerably higher. These figures may be contrasted with those for 1915, in which year 14,441 infants died under one year of age, equivalent to a death-rate of 126·5 per thousand births, and 9,120 children from one year to five years died, equal to a death-rate of 22·5 per thousand of the children of these ages. Unfortunately, while the process of reducing the mortality among infants and children has been continuous, it is far from being a steady progress. In the first quarter of 1924 the infantile mortality rate in Scotland rose to 132 per 1,000 births, against 98 for the corresponding quarter in 1923. Only in June did the death-rate among children return to a less alarming level. In large measure this high mortality was due to a widespread epidemic of measles and whooping cough and to the other diseases, such as pneumonia, that follow these infections. The Scottish Board of Health have discussed with local authorities the various steps that might be taken for the further control and treatment of

        1639
        these epidemic diseases, and the conferences on the subject have been followed up by the issue of a circular to all local authorities. A special sum of £10,000 has also been set aside as part of the maternity and child welfare grant, which will be distributed in a manner designed to encourage local authorities to institute further measures for the preservation of child life from the ravages of these very deadly diseases.
        That is not all. We have had this tremendous epidemic of measles and whooping cough, that has been wiping our children out like flies are wiped out at the end of the summer, and the necessity of something being done to prevent this tremendous death-rate will be apparent to every Member of the Committee if they will just for a brief moment pay attention to the statement, which I think is of the utmost importance, that I am about to read. I have taken Glasgow, where the epidemic of both measles and whooping cough has been of a somewhat alarming nature, and I have taken four wards—the Dalmarnock ward, with a density of 147 to the acre; the Mile End ward, with a density of 140; the Kelvinside ward, with a density of 19; and the Whiteinch ward, with a density of 23. I am not going to give the figures for 1921 or 1922, but in 1923 the deaths from measles per million of these children were 1,118 in Dalmarnock, an industrial, labour, working-class ward; in Mile End there died at the same rate, 1,173; in Kelvinside, where the children get a decent opportunity for life, there were no cases and no deaths; and in Whiteinch, partly industrial and partly well-to-do, the rate was 104. A special inquiry in 1908 revealed the following general facts regarding measles, which is, like tuberculosis itself, a poverty disease, that the death-rate in one-roomed houses from measles alone was 92; in two-roomed houses, it was half, down to 46; in three-roomed houses, it was nearly half, down to 25; in four rooms and over, it was down to 15, showing, if hon. Members of the House will take the lesson, that you can provide hospitals and medical attention, but until you have dealt with the root causes of ill-health, such as housing, combined with general poverty, but
        1640
        mainly housing, all the other efforts will be minimized to a considerable degree. What we propose to do by additional administrative Measures is to make the disease notifiable, appoint a special adhoc staff of visiting nurses for infectious diseases, increased hospital facilities, and an increased service of health visitors. In. 1923 a Committee was appointed to inquire into puerperal morbidity and mortality. The deaths of women in childbirth in Scotland number over 700 annually, and the amount of sickness and disablement that does not result in death is very great, if it cannot accurately be measured. The Committee have now issued their Report, in which they express with confidence the view that puerperal morbidity and mortality are largely avoidable, and can be reduced by improvement of the midwifery service, and by the provision of skilled antenatal care for the expectant mother. The Board have communicated to local authorities the recommendations of the Committee in so far as these come within the field of the public health authority, and have invited them to submit detailed proposals on the lines suggested.
        On the development of maternity service and child welfare schemes otherwise, no restriction will be placed, provided the Board of Health are satisfied with proposals on the merits. The rationing scheme for calculating grant on food and milk expenditure has now been withdrawn, and grant is paid at the full rate of 10s. per £on expenditure supported by the certificate of a responsible medical officer that he considers, after examination, that additional nourishment is necessary for the maintenance of health. The Board do not ask that additional nourishment should be withheld unless there are definite signs of physical deterioration. It is in the discretion of a medical officer to authorise a supply wherever, as I have just indicated, he regards it as necessary for the maintenance of health.
        With regard to venereal diseases, the opening of new centres for the treatment of the disease to meet the needs of districts not yet provided for is proceeding steadily but there are still several towns where centres are required. It is disquieting to observe that no less than 53 per cent. of patients discontinued treatment without the sanction of the medical officer. This fact makes it necessary to

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        consider whether local authorities do not require further powers to enable them to deal more effectively with venereal disease. The obscure disease known as "sleeping sickness" is increasing. Full reports of a number of these cases have been received from Medical Officers of Health, but it has generally been found impossible to trace any source of infection, or to discover any connection between the different cases. It is hoped that investigations which are being made into the origin and nature of this disease will before long lead to the discovery of an effective method of treatment. During 1923 and the current year a number of cases of infective jaundice have occurred in East Lothian and Midlothian. The majority of those affected were miners, and all worked in the neighbourhood of two contiguous pits There have been 15 cases in all, and four deaths. The disease is associated with a disease of rats, which is due to the same organism, and though it has not been definitely settled how the disease is conveyed from rat to man, it is necessary that these animals should, as far as possible, be trapped and killed and their access to the pits prevented. Steps have been taken in this matter——
        Mr. H. H. SPENCER: On a point of Order. Is it in order for a Minister to read his speech?
        The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The Rule of the House is that Members ought not to read their speeches, but that they may refresh their memories. I hope that the Minister will try to keep within that Rule.
        Mr. JOHNSTON: Is it not in order for an hon. Member on the Front Bench to give figures from the City of Glasgow which disprove the statement made at Bradford and elsewhere by hon. Members that poverty is due to drink?
        The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: An hon. Member may refer to his notes quite liberally for figures and for the purpose of making his speech, but he ought not to read his speech.
        Mr. MAXTON: Is it in order for an hon. Member who has just refreshed his body to interfere with another hon. Member who is refreshing his memory?
        Mr. KIRKWOOD: On that same point of Order. Is it in order for Members on the Front Bench of the Liberal party to wait till another Liberal Member comes in, and suggest to him that he should protest against what is taking place?
        Mr. SPENCER: May I say that no such suggestion was made to me by the Front Bench?
        Mr. KIRKWOOD: I will never again believe these Liberals after to-night. The truth is not in them.
        Mr. STEWART: I regret very much if I have transgressed the Rules of the House, but I was giving what I thought were interesting figures with regard to health matters, as I have been mainly quoting figures in the course of my remarks that I got from———
        Mr. KIRKWOOD: It is most unkind to interfere.
        Mr. STEWART: The hon. Gentleman who called attention to this matter that I was refreshing my memory may not know that I was not refreshing it more frequently than he refreshes himself in other ways. Part of this statement is in regard to infective jaundice—a matter that has been causing us some concern. We do not yet know what the disease really is. The matter is being dealt with by the Medical Research Department, and has now been referred to the Mines Department. We are awaiting the result, and are not taking action until we get some definite information in regard to what this really is, and what position is occupied by the Mines Department. With regard to poor relief, during 1924 the number of poor persons who have been relieved—the ordinary poor, not the able-bodied unemployed—has increased by 4,500, a 3½ per cent. increase on the figures for 1923. On the other hand, the able-bodied unemployed figures have fallen very considerably. At the end of 1923 there were 33,520 unemployed persons with between 84,000 and 8·5,000 dependants. The abolition of the unemployment gap has tended to minimise the numbers who were applying for able-bodied relief. Since the beginning of the year there has been a decrease of 16 per cent., and the expenditure has fallen from £18,000 to slightly over £14,000.

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        With regard to the Highlands and islands, we have had a considerable amount of distress there, and we have spent there over £100,000 which Parliament has voted in providing relief in the Highlands and the Western Isles. Besides that there was a fund raised through the instigation of the Lord Provosts of Edinburgh and Glasgow. A committee has been in charge of that fund, and it has done exceedingly good work in conjunction with local relief committees in meeting the distress in those areas, and on behalf of the Government I wish to tender to those Lord Provosts and those who have co-operated with them, and given so much of their valuable time in raising the money necessary for the valuable assistance which they have been able to give to those distressed areas.
        The distress in the Highlands and Islands seems to be much more serious than the economic possibilities of those areas could cope with, and as a master of fact we are paying attention to this matter in the hope that in the near future we may be able to make recommendations dealing with the general health of the community in the direction of solving this problem. I am glad that I am able to report that the health of the people of Scotland is, on the whole, improving, although there is a large portion of the people in the industrial areas requiring considerable attention and something must be done to bring about a better state of things.
        Captain ELLIOT: It would scarcely be courteous if we did not make some short reference to the long and interesting statement which the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health has made, although it is not possible to review at this hour the position which he has sketched out, consequently we are hopeful that at some future date we shall have a chance of discussing at some length the position of public health in Scotland. The silent fact which stands out is that in the fourth winter of unemployment the health of the people of Scotland has been better than it has ever been before. That in an extraordinary fact, and one which is worth while taking note of. In several different ways we get a cross-section showing this improved health. It has been shown that with regard to the general death rate the figures in the
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        previous year were 13·6, and this year it is 12·4. In regard to tuberculosis it is shown that the ground which was lost last year has been recovered, and infantile mortality is the lowest on record.
        Another interesting figure was given in regard to sickness benefit paid by the insurance societies, and we have been told that the figures with regard to sickness benefit will register a slight decrease. I may say that these figures relate to the year in which we on this side of the House had charge of the health of Scotland, and they relate to the period when the Conservative party were in office. Therefore, I do think that we are entitled to claim that we were not unfaithful stewards of the health of the people during the time it was entrusted to us. The Minister has also pointed out that in spite of his efforts it is not certain whether he will be able to maintain that standard, and certainly nobody would claim the merit for one party or another of being able to register these striking advantages, because they are the accumulative effect of a long and patient struggle, not by politicians, but by officials and other people in every walk of human life. There is an effort, not in one section or in another section, but a general movement of social conscience towards seeing that for all grades of society there are made available the discoveries of modern science which were at first available only to a few.
        The immediate problem in front of us in Scotland is the problem of infantile mortality. There is no doubt that infantile mortality in Scotland is one of the things of which we have the most reason to feel ashamed. We shall not improve that by wild talk from any section of the people, but by solid co-operation towards improving the conditions, which all admit should be improved. I would like to ask the Minister, in particular, when he gets a chance to reply—let us hope, at some future date—what progress is being made with the scheme of dealing with measles? We were last year impressed, although it was a year in which the measles epidemic was modified, and we took steps to have a survey of the situation and to obtain from the Treasury a grant of £10,000 towards a campaign against measles. To this the Minister referred in his speech, and there was frequent reference to it in the body of the Report.

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        We should like to know what progress is being made in the measles campaign.
        We should also like to know if any steps have been taken to bring into practice the Report of the Committee on Maternal Mortality, and we should like to impress on the Minister the necessity of ensuring that the Departmental Committee in Scotland is marching hand in hand with a Committee which is making a similar inquiry, the Hospitals Committee in England. In the matter of hospitals, we in Scotland are superior to England. We have a smaller deficit, and a greater provision of beds, I think, but we should see that there are not two inquiries, one in Edinburgh and another in London, with divergent reports, and leading to a holdup of action while these reports are being brought to correspond. We should see that the Committees are marching in step, and it should be realised that the problem is not one for Scotland, or one for England, but one for Great Britain as a whole.
        If there are any other hon. Members who would like to speak even for the short time at their disposal, I shall be ready to give way to them. I suffered very acutely when I found on the Housing Bill that there was a certain amount of friction, not entirely among the Members opposite, but even among Members on this side, because of the time that hon. Members had been speaking.
        Mr. SPENCE: In taking part in the discussion on public health I regret that the time of my disposal is so limited, I have given some consideration to this matter and I am convinced it is associated with the question of the general death rate, the medical services and institutional demands, and when one seeks for avenues for establishing good health I find the principle requirement is the maintenance of an adequate standard of living, which implies the necessary food, clothing and shelter; and then there is the question of sanitation and improved workshop conditions necessary to be borne in mind. As the figures relating to the general death rate and infantile mortality have already been given, I shall not repeat them. But coming to the question of the work accomplished in connection with the report rendered by the Minister, I noticed that both he and the hon. and gallant Member who spoke last (Captain Elliot),
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        in expressing appreciation of that work, implied that the improvement in the health of Scotland is due entirely to legislative procedure or administrative measures. That I deny. The improvement of health in Scotland at this moment is not due to either of those factors but is simply due to the awakened social conscience towards health in the general community. As the result of this permeating society we have discovered still further the value of voluntary organisation, and we know that large-minded administrators in Scotland have burdened themselves with the object of improving the health of the people in Scotland. If we turn to the question of infantile mortality we discover that the great or chief cause of that mortality in Scotland is due to premature births. In 1918 the infantile death rate was 19·3 per thousand, in 1921 it was 20·9 per thousand, thus showing that it is on the upward grade. Then you have congenital debility which is responsible for a very large percentage indeed of infantile mortality. Further you have diarrhœal diseases also responsible for a considerable percentage of death amongst infants. When we come to discuss this question of infantile mortality and probe it from these points relative to the figures given, one discovers that there is an accumulation of causes to be found in the antiquated standards of life of the people. The measures that were adopted in 1921 brought our people of that day into a very bad state indeed. The House of Commons adopted a line of procedure in seeking to conduct the affairs of State which reduced the standard of living of our people, and depleted——
        It being Eleven, of the Clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
        Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next.
        Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next (7th July).

    BRITISH MUSEUM (No. 2) BILL.
    Considered in Committee, and reported without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed.
    The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

  WAR. CHARGES (VALIDITY-NO. 2) BILL.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Kennedy.]
  The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Mr. Clynes): After Questions to-day, I announced the business of the House for next week, with certain qualifications. With respect to the business announced for Wednesday, it has been represented to us that the subject of the Address for the appointment of two Judges in the King's Bench Division is too contentious a matter to be taken on that day, and we accept that view, as, indeed, it could not very well be completed before the House has to rise, without a very large measure of agreement.
  With respect to the business on Monday, it is to remain as announced, that is to say, the Foreign Office Vote. The Government have reached the conclusion that it would not be possible to deal on Monday next with the rejection in another place of the War Charges (Validity—No 2) Bill. The Government took over from their predecessors the obligation of validating the charges incurred during the course of the War under the Defence of the Realm Act. The Commons are the supreme authority on questions of finance. Technically that Bill may not be regarded as a Money Bill, but so many questions of finance are involved in relation to it that it is a subject in regard to which the will of this House ought to prevail. The Third Reading of that Bill passed this House without a Division, and a good deal of our time was devoted to the completion of its different stages. We look now with complete disapproval and with some disappointment upon the state of wreckage to which the decision in another place has reduced the labours of the House of Commons. We hope therefore, to receive later in our labours the support and general approval of all sections of the House in taking such steps as we are able to assert the will of the House over the decision recently reached in another place. The Bill to which I refer was entirely a non-party Bill and treated of questions which we think lie, or ought to lie, solely within the sphere of the House of Commons.
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  For the present we are disabled from moving in the matter but will take an early opportunity, should it present itself or we be able to make it, of making the will of the House of Commons prevail.

  WOOLWICH ARSENAL (WAGES).
  Sir K. WOOD: I rise for the purpose of inviting a statement from the War Office with regard to a dispute which has been pending now for some little time and in which 7,000 employés of the Arsenal are involved. It affects an application for an increase in the wages of the unskilled and semi-skilled employés in the London area. A short time ago the skilled craftsmen who are employed at the Arsenal went to an arbitration tribunal and received, as the result of their application, an increase of 6s. in their wages. Since that decision has been made it has certainly increased, and I think with justice, the request of the semi-skilled and unskilled employés there to have the question of their wages reconsidered, and as the result of that application the Secretary of State for War a few days ago, in a communication to myself and other Members who are interested, said he was prepared to make a further offer, and that offer practically amounted to a levelling up of the 3s. increase which he had made some little time ago. I need hardly tell the Financial Secretary that that suggestion has by no means been received with satisfaction by the men concerned. I think there is a good deal to be said from their point of view because all the unskilled and semi-skilled men throughout the country received the same rises and took the same cuts in their wages as the skilled men did. In fact, there was one occasion when there was a cut of 12s. in two months, and these semi-skilled and unskilled men had to suffer in exactly the same way. Therefore, there is little wonder that they are dissatisfied with the present conditions of affairs. I understand, however, that in connection with the demand they have made the union concerned have advised the men that they could not sanction a strike, and if they did strike would give them no strike pay. In these circumstances, I hope the Financial Secretary to the War Office will be able to announce this evening that the sugges-

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  tion that has been made, that the matter should go to arbitration—I hope to the same Court—has been received favourably by the Government, and that the matter may be satisfactorily adjusted in that way.
  There is a further matter which is causing considerable discontent and anxiety, and that is the discharges which
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  I regret to say are still continuing at the Arsenal——
  Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,
  The House was adjourned at Fourteen Minutes after Eleven o'clock until To-morrow.
  The SPEAKER has appointed Mr. Valentine La Touche McEntee to serve on the Ecclesiastical Committee, in the room of Mr. William Stapleton Royce, deceased.