SUPERANNUATION (DIPLOMATIC SERVICE) [MONEY].

HC Deb 20 November 1928 vol 222 cc1581-629

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 71A.

[Mr. JAMES HOPE in the Chair.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, That it is expedient to provide for the application to persons in the Diplomatic Service of the Superannuation Acts, 1834 to 1919, and to authorise in the case of such persons the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of allowances and gratuities under those Acts as so applied "—(King's Recommendation signified).—[Mr. A. M. Samuel.]

4.0 p.m.

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Arthur Michael Samuel)

The reason why I am asking the Committee to pass this Resolution is in order that the Government may have authority to bring in a Bill to place all officers of the Diplomatic and Foreign Office Services on the same basis so far as pensions are concerned. I think hon. Members have in their hands a White Paper which we have prepared, number 3224, which will give them all information needed about the proposal which I shall lay before them. I think it is within the knowledge of the Committee that the Diplomatic Service and the Foreign Office Service were amalgamated into one Service in 1919. The duties of the services are now interchange able. The personnel are regarded as liable to take duty at home or abroad in any country as His Majesty may require. But the result of this amalgamation has been that the pension arrangements both of the Diplomatic Service and Foreign Office, which have always been difficult to work, have now become unworkable. I would like to show the Committee how difficult the position has become. Members of the Foreign Office appointed before 1919 are pensionable under the ordinary Civil Service Superannuation Acts as long as they remain at work in the Foreign Office, but if they go abroad permanently they come under the 1869 Act, and the result is if they should unfortunately die abroad on service, they lose the benefits of all their service in the Foreign Office.

On the other hand, let us take the other branch of the amalgamated service—the Diplomatic Service. Members of the Diplomatic Service, old as well as new, are pensionable under the old 1869 Act. All officers appointed to the combined services since 1919 are legally members of the Diplomatic Service, and for that reason come under the 1869 Act. Under that Act, which now covers the appointment of all officers since 1919, the only thing which counts for pension is service abroad. We desire to straighten out the difficulties, and put pensionable diplomatic service and Foreign Office service on one and the same basis, namely, on the basis of the Civil Service Superannuation Acts. There is no compulsion with regard to old servants in the Diplomatic Service. They can, if they like, remain as before under the 1869 Act.

All Officers appointed, as I have just said, in the combined services since 1919 come for pension under the Act of 1869. Let me show how unfairly that operates. Under the 1869 Act the only service which counts for pension is service abroad. If they have any service in the Foreign Office at home, it does not count at all for pension, even though an officer may be required to spend a great part of his total service in the Foreign Office. If he has been appointed to this service since 1919, he may be prevented from obtaining sufficient service abroad to qualify for pension, and this wholly unfair and unreasonable result arises, that after a lifetime in the service of the State, he may not get any pension at all. Of course, hon. Members will perceive that that is an intolerable position, and this hardship will fall particularly severely upon those officers who have entered the Service after 1919 when the means qualification was abolished.

I will state another difficulty of the way in which this operates. Let us suppose that an officer appointed to the Foreign Office before 1919 dies on service. If he dies while on service at home, his widow and family will be eligible for a gratuity under the Civil Service Superannuation Acts. But if he has been sent abroad permanently and dies on service abroad, he will then come under the Act of 1869, and no gratuity will be payable to his dependants. That is a grave injustice, and it is a state of affairs which, I think, the Committee will assist me to remedy. We are, therefore, seeking by this Resolution to place all officers in the combined services under the Civil Service Superannuation Acts.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

I ask the Committee to reject this Financial Resolution. I really do not know how my hon. Friend can stand at the Treasury Box and make such an eloquent appeal on behalf of the widows of civil servants of this character, because of the straits in which they may be left. The hon. Gentleman comes here and asks for pensions for the Diplomatic Service, for individuals who have far more wages than the miners or engineers. I want the country to understand that we are going to express our point of view, no matter what it costs us. Here we are asked to give pensions to people who have never paid a penny for those pensions. No contributory scheme is suggested here. It would be a different thing if it were members of my class. This is proof again that there are two nations in this country—the rich and the poor, those who have and those who have not. The Diplomatic Service comes under the category of those who have, because we are told on all hands—some tell us with tears in their eyes, and a tremendous halt in their voice—how those individuals who go out to represent this, the most wonderful Empire on which the sun ever shone, away in foreign parts they are stripped bare as the result of the lavish expenditure that that service entails upon them. We say that if there is expenditure of that character, it should be borne by the State, and not by individuals. Until that is done, then those services never can he carried out by anybody else than those who have money.

We on these benches are representing the working classes. Many of us represent thousands who have never known what it is to have a square meal this year, and the year is about finished. If everybody in this country was well, was comfortable, I would be the last man to raise my voice against anybody getting anything, but we are here representing the workers who, at the moment, are being driven from pillar to post. There is a great agitation in Scotland at the moment over the standard on black, the background yellow, with rampant lion. The rampant lion of Scotland to-day is poverty. The fiercest lion that ever was in Scotland is abroad to-day, and we here, representing those poor folk, are being asked in cold blood, quite calmly, by a distinguished Member of this House, who commands the respect of this House, to agree to pension off individuals who have reached the age of 60 years—I am bordering on that myself. We are being asked to give them £1,700 a year pension by the same Government who forced the miners of this country, at the point of starvation, to accept a reduction in wages and increased hours.

The CHAIRMAN

This really cannot be gone into on this Resolution. The hon. Member is not in order now.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

I am very sorry you have risen to bring me to order at this point, because that is exactly the point I covered last time, and was complimented because you did not pull me down.

The CHAIRMAN

It is hardly a compliment to suggest I was guilty of negligence on the last occasion.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

No, it was simply that you were more tolerant than you are to-day. I am going to discuss this with you, Mr. Hope. The point I am raising is this—and I have as good a right to raise it on the Floor of the House of Commons as anybody else in the House. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury says that the country can afford £1,700 per annum as a pension. I say it cannot, on their own showing, and I am trying to show you why. Surely that is in order. Sir Douglas Hogg, before he was created a Peer, stood at the Treasury Box in my hearing, and said on behalf of the Government, that after careful consideration and much deliberation the Government had come to the conclusion that the country could not afford to support the mining industry any further, and he said that they would require the miners to work longer hours.

The CHAIRMAN

I think the hon. Member will see, that, if he were allowed to proceed on those lines, it would be possible to raise the whole question of the controversy of 1926, and he must confine himself to the question of pensions to persons in the Diplomatic Ser- vice. The hon. Member may embark upon an illustration, but, if he is going to raise the whole of the mining controversy, he will not be in order.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

I have no desire to follow that line of argument any further, and I was only using it as an illustration. I have been told by those who claim to be the greatest authorities in this House on procedure that to do what I have done would always be in order. Hon. Members belonging to every section of this House will have to face this question in the country whether they are Tories, Liberals or Labour representatives. What is now being proposed represents a state of things which no man can justify. I am not a better man now that I am getting £400 a year as a Member of Parliament than I was when I was working as an engineer on the Clyde. I claim that I am as good a man as any other man in this House, and I render service to my country to the best of my ability.

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is now advocating an increase in the salaries of Members of the House of Commons. The question we are discussing is whether some civil servants should receive the same pension rates as other civil servants. The Members of the House of Commons are not civil servants, and, therefore, that question cannot be relevant to the subject which we are discussing.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

If £400 a year is enough for me, it is enough for the best man who ever left these shores. I am well-fed, well-clothed and well-housed, and I am as healthy looking as anybody in this House. What more does a man want? The proposal which we are discussing is one to enable these officials in the Diplomatic Service to get more than their fellows in order that they may get control over other people. We are being asked to give these individuals an allowance of £1,700 a year, and I wish to ask hon. Members why it is, after all our enlightenment, and remembering that Socialists proclaim the equity of man, the brotherhood of man, and the fatherhood of God, that they come hero and attempt to justify a proposal giving these civil servants £1,700 a year as a pension, and at the same time do nothing for the men who do the absolutely necessary work for the community, and are able to obtain for that work only the barest possible pittance.

The class I represent do the most onerous work under the most uncomfortable circumstances, and they get the least possible wages, and when an opportunity presents itself for stating their case, we are not allowed to do so. A section of the community have set up a certain standard of living for themselves, and we on these benches are here to protest against that. We are here to prove that that particular section of the community is not at all superior to us, or superior to the working-classes whom we represent. We do not see why a miner or an engineer should be asked to work a whole week for under £3 a week and no pension. What about their widows and dependants? What about the shipyard worker? What about the position of the working-class in general upon whom this country entirely depends?

The CHAIRMAN

This is entirely a question of civil servants. Some of them receive a certain pension and some do not, and it is now proposed that those who do not receive pensions should receive the same scale of pensions as that which is enjoyed by those who do now receive pensions. This is not a question of a general rate of wages and that subject is out of order.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

My point is that those civil servants have no right to any special treatment. In our view, those officials have been getting special treatment all along, and they have been getting more than the working-classes. This is the only opportunity which presents itself to us when we can explain our point of view and express the sentiments which are surging through the lives of the working-classes, but which are not articulate. We are free from the shackles of wage slavery, and we have been sent here to express the sentiments of the workers and the views of those men who have to work for their daily bread. We have had frequent discussions in this House relating to unemployment. There are large numbers of workers in the country who are unemployed through no fault of their own, and they have contributed to a fund to stave off starvation. They have made those contributions from their meagre in- come in order to safeguard their loved ones from starvation. I am speaking of the state of things not in Russia or China but here in our native land where women and children are existing on about 17s. a week; and yet these civil servants who contribute nothing towards the pension scheme, who have "cushy" jobs, are going to have these large pensions.

I am told that some of these civil servants are individuals related to the Government of the day and particular friends of the Government who have been given jobs. If this had occurred in Chester-le-Street it would have been held up as graft, but it is eternally going an. I do not wish to pursue this discussion any further, because there are other hon. Friends of mine who wish to speak from the same point of view. I may say that we intend to divide the House on this question, because we think it is a very serious business. This is a question upon which we are in real earnest, and we make a distinct challenge to the ruling class. When the Labour party come into power, we are going to do what we have been putting forward for the last 30 years. When we get the opportunity, we are going to overturn the whole of your system, and this proposal is one of the chances which we have of overturning your rule without shedding any blood. When we come into power, we shall change all those things. Only look at that joker Thomson from Aberdeen, walking down the floor of the House in all his gold braid representing the King. The whole thing is humbug, and we are going to alter it.

Mr. CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member has committed a serious breach of order in his reference to an hon. Member. I must ask him not to do it again, or I shall be obliged to take more serious notice of it.

Mr. TINKER

I oppose this Resolution. Before I come to the main point, I want to commend the Financial Secretary for having brought the Resolution before the Committee at a reasonable hour. On the previous occasion he brought it in at midnight. We opposed it then, and also on another occasion when it was brought in late at night. We are anxious that this Resolution should have the full light of day, so that people outside may know what is taking place. My object in rising is to draw comparisons and point out what this means. It may not be known to the Committee that the present cost of diplomatic pensions is £50,000 per annum, and this Resolution is going to increase that amount. I put down a question with reference to ex-members of the Diplomatic Service who were on pension, and was told that there were 44 of them, receiving on an average £1,093 per annum. That was the statement made by the Financial Secretary last July, and we are now being asked to increase that amount.

If hon. Members have an idea of what this means in effect, they may agree with Members on these benches that it is unfair, at a time like this, to talk about increasing pensions. I have heard it said that it does not mean any extra cost to the Exchequer, and I would like to know about that before this Debate is over, because, according to my figures, it means an increase for the first five years of 23 per cent., then a further increase of 11 per cent., and then a further increase of 6 per cent., gradually settling down to 4 per cent., or an annual expenditure, after 10 years, of £2,000. Therefore, putting the three figures together, that is to say, the 23 per cent., which represents £11,500, the 11 per cent., which represents £5,500, and t5e 6 per cent., which represents £3,000, we get a total, after 10 years, of £20,000, and the average, which I am trying to arrive at now, is £6,000 for each year. That is for the first 10 years, and it will settle down, as I have said, to an average expenditure of £2,000 per annum.

I want, in opposing this grant, to draw the attention of the Committee to these matters. I contend that, at a time like this, when we are in such financial difficulties, we have no right in the House of Commons to grant any further pensions or increases of pensions while these people are doing so well. If the amount were small, I would not argue as my hon. Friend has argued, and, indeed, I could not very well argue that everyone must be treated on equal lines. I realise that that cannot be done. I could not argue that these people are not deserving of some kind of pension, but it is wrong to come forward at this time to increase pensions which are already so very big. If I may be allowed to draw the comparison, only last Session I asked a question of the Minister of Pensions in regard to need pensions being taken into consideration when the old age pension was being paid, and I was told then that they had to have regard to the amount of money coming in when the old age pension was being paid, and, therefore, the thing had to be equalised.

These are points which cause us to rise on occasions such as the present and point out to the House of Commons that, when there is the opportunity of doing something for the very poor people, we are always met by the statement from speakers on the other side that the financial position will not allow it to be done; and, when we are asked to grant big increases to a number of people who, to my way of thinking, are certainly not in need, these matters strike us very keenly, and we are anxious that everyone, should be aware of what is being done. If the Tory party or the Government seek to justify this kind of thing, I, for one, will do all I can to try and show our people that, in my view at least, it cannot be justified while so many people are suffering as they are. I trust that, as was the case last year, the Government will not press this Resolution. The position that we took up last year was the cause of the Bill being withdrawn, and I hope that on this occasion also the Government will realise that this is the wrong time at which to bring it forward, and that they will withdraw it and leave the matter over until the financial situation of the country is much better, and it is possible to make an attempt to put these men on a better footing. I, for one, will do all that I can to stop this Measure from going through.

Mr. MACPHERSON

I do not think that anyone in the Committee will doubt the personal sincerity of the two hon. Gentlemen who have spoken from the Labour Benches, however much one may disagree with the views which they have expressed. I have on more than one occasion said in this Chamber that I regarded pensions as deferred pay, and that applies to pensions in this Service just as much as to pensions in any other Service.

Mr. J. JONES

What do you mean by service?

Mr. MACPHERSON

Any branch of the Civil Service.

Mr. JONES

What about the national service?

Mr. MACPHERSON

I agree with what was said by my hon. Friend who moved this Resolution, and I think that, whatever individual views may be, the Committee as a whole will accept the view that it is reasonable and right that one branch of the Service should be placed in the same position as every other branch of the Civil Service. It is well to remember that the Foreign Office Service, or Diplomatic Service, has, until quite recently, been what might be regarded as a close Service.

Mr. BUCHANAN

What about the Pensions Service that you were at the head of? Make a comparison with them.

Mr. MACPHERSON

I will make that comparison on the proper occasion, but I think the Committee will agree with me that, whatever individual Members may say, it is not lair or reasonable that one branch of the Civil Service should be left out in the cold.

Mr. JONES

No branch of service should be left out.

Mr. MACPHERSON

What I am now going to say will, I think, appeal to the working-classes of this country. It is well to remember, when we are discussing the Diplomatic Service, that until quite recently it was a closed service, that is to say, it was a service practically reserved either to what are called the upper class or to the very rich people of this country. Recently, however, it has become more democratic, and there is no reason why a clever young man of humble parentage should not have the same career in the Diplomatic Service to-day as the son of any other person in the country.

Mr. JONES

Do you know of anyone?

Mr. MACPHERSON

Only the other day the name of a very distinguished young man was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Quite recently, and, as I gather, it is to be expected in the future, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald) was at the head of this service, and I am perfectly certain that he did his level best to give any man of ability, to whatever class he might belong, the chance of a career in that service. I say, however, that it is perfectly impossible, however willing a Foreign Secretary may be to see a young man of poor circumstances make his way in that service, for such a marl to have that chance, unless he is assured by means of a pension that it is safe for him to enter upon that career. Therefore, upon these broad general grounds, I support this Resolution. In the first place, I think it is right and reasonable that this service should be placed in the same position as every other branch of the Civil Service, and, secondly, I say that, without the hope of a pension, which is merely deferred pay, this still remains a closed service to the son, or it may be the daughter, of a member of the poorer classes of the community. On these grounds I support the Resolution.

Mr. SAMUEL

The case is even worse than is indicated by the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson). I do not disagree with a word of what he has said, but I do not think the Committee has realised that this matter of pension has become unworkable, and that great difficulty is caused by the amalgamation of these two Services. I want to put the point as strongly as I can before hon. Gentlemen opposite, so that their sense of justice may cause them to see that we are bound to take the action that we are now taking. If a man is appointed now to the combined Service as it has existed since 19193 he may be prevented by the terms of his service, if he is called upon to serve in the Foreign Office at home, from obtaining sufficient service abroad to enable him to qualify for pension. The result is a condition of gross injustice. Owing to the impasse at which we have arrived, a man may, after a lifetime spent in the service of the State, be unable to get a pension at all. That is an injustice that we must put right, and I appeal to the Committee to consider it.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

There are millions of people of our class always in that condition.

Mr. CONNOLLY

I want to continue the point which was raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson). I raised this question two years ago, and the Financial Secretary, in reply, said that this question of a blind-alley occupation in the Diplomatic Service was causing the Government deep anxiety, and they promised, two years ago, to give it consideration. I am glad to see that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is here, because I want to ask what has been done. I called the attention of the House then to the fact that in our consulates in Europe, particularly in Belgium, a state of things existed which was most deplorable. The personnel there received a fixed scale of wages, on which they remained during practically the whole of their service, and they were not open to get superannuation in the ordinarily accepted way. According to the White Paper that we have now, an alteration is, apparently, going to be made, because it says: Existing members of the Diplomatic Service will be brought under the new Act unless they prefer to remain under the Act of 1869. I have been looking at the Act of 1869, and there is no reference whatever to them in that Act.

Mr. SAMUEL

The Consular Service is already under the Civil Service Superannuation Acts.

Mr. CONNOLLY

I am taking the Financial Secretary back to his own answer to me on the 9th November, 1926, when I brought this matter before him. The question is whether anything is going to be done, in the Consular Service in Europe, to make employment in the Diplomatic Service something other than a blind-alley occupation. The admission was made that that was causing the Government anxiety, and that it was under consideration at that time, two years ago. I do not know whether the reference here means that something has been done, or is going to be done. I see that further down on page 4 of the White Paper it says: Until it is known how the option given to existing officers is exercised, no certain estimate can be formed of the immediate cost of introducing the new system.

Mr. SAMUEL

Is the hon. Member referring to the Consular Service? I am not clear what he means.

Mr. CONNOLLY

I am speaking of the personnel at the consulates—people who are debarred from coming under the superannuation scheme at all, or were up to 1926, at any rate.

Mr. SAMUEL

If the hon. Member means that the Consular Service does not come under any pension arrangements, let me assure him that it does come under the Civil Service Superannuation Acts as regards pensions.

Mr. CONNOLLY

I am speaking of the personnel at consulates on the near coast of Europe. I may be under a misapprehension, but I was not under a misapprehension two years ago, in 1926, and, if necessary, I will refer to the OFFICIAL REPORT, which I have here, in order to bring back to the Financial Secretary his own answer to my question.

The CHAIRMAN

I think there must be some misapprehension in regard to this matter. The hon. Member seems to be referring to employés at consulates who are not civil servants at all. If that be so, the matter can hardly be raised here, because the whole question here is one of different classes of people who are already civil servants.

Mr. CONNOLLY

That is exactly the point that I am bringing forward, that they have not the opportunity, which they ought to have, of belonging to the Civil Service. I would remind the Financial Secretary of the form in which I raised the matter. I raised it, first of all, on the question of the currency. These employés at the Consulate, who ought to be civil servants, were being paid not at sterling rates, hut at the rate of the currency. The Financial Secretary said that was a technical consideration. Then I drew attention to the anomaly of the personnel of these consulates not being brought in on proper Civil Service regulations, and I am asking now whether this White Paper, when it speaks of existing members of the diplomatic service, includes these people. Is there some part of this Estimate to cover a proposal to bring these people in? I want to raise it as a matter of urgency, because the treatment that has been meted out to these people in the consular service is a by-word.

Mr. BARKER

This proposal is peculiarly obnoxious to this part of the House. When we contrast the pensions of these members of the Diplomatic Corps with the pensions given to working men after 60 or 70 years' hard work, the whole thing is outrageously and monstrously unjust. It is impossible for anyone with any sense of justice and fairness calmly to acquiesce in a proposal of this kind. The working classes, if they are thrifty, are saddled with all kinds of disadvantages. I had an answer from the Secretary to the Treasury yesterday with reference to a question sent up to me by the Monmouthshire County Council Pensions Committee, where the money saved by certain people who had been thrifty is estimated to bring in an interest of 10 per cent., and though it may be in the Post Office Savings Bank only bringing 2½ per cent., they are charged on a 10 per cent. basis. Evidently that is monstrously unjust to those people. We have to-day a proposal under which a person who may have done 10 years' service in the Diplomatic Corps may obtain a pension of £2,000 per annum, whereas those who are getting the meagre wages they are receiving to-day will get an old age pension of 10s. per week, and every time they strike a match they will be contributing something to the pensions of these other people. We on this side of the Committee cannot possibly support a proposal of this character. It is striking at the very root of equality between one man and another. The day is very nearly drawing to an end when a Minister will dare to make a proposal of this character to the House of Commons. It is time those who are down and out had some consideration from this House rather than creating an aristocracy. That is what it means, because these diplomats will get some kind of a title, and then they must have pensions from the State to live up to the title the State has given them. By that means the workers are continually exploited by the Treasury and by the House. I hope the strongest opposition will be given to this proposal. I shall certainly vote against it and I do not know how it can be supported by anyone who has any sense of equity and justice as between man and man.

Mr. J. JONES

There is an old adage which runs: For he that hath, to him shall be given; and he that bath not from him shall be taken even that which he hath. Most of the people who are going to benefit by this proposal are already well provided for. The question of pensions for services rendered is a principle with which all of us would agree, but the ordinary working man before he can get a pension at 65 has to be an insurable person under the national health and unemployment insurance scheme, and before he can get an old age pension he must have given a certain number of contributions. Who are these people who are going to get special treatment? The Lord Tomnoddies, people who could not get a job in the ordinary labour market and are pitchforked into our foreign offices in various parts of the world. One of the conditions under which they get their jobs is that they must have passed through a university and must have certain degrees.

Captain EDEN

No.

Mr. JONES

How many bricklayers are foreign representatives? They must have passed through the schools, or through the associations connected therewith. It is no good talking humbug. When ice get down to brass tacks we know that all the higher positions in the Foreign Service are at the disposal of only certain classes of the community. There are boys getting education at a school just opposite here who are being trained for the Diplomatic Service. It is part of the curriculum of the school. The ordinary workman's son does not stand a cat in hell's chance of getting one of these jobs. An hon. Member below the Gangway pointed to our late Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, talking as if Labour was going to have a hand in the arrangement, and he found the very people he was trying to help sold him a pup. Where did the Zinovieff letter come from if not from that class of people, who are out for all they could get without giving anything in return? I am not going to hold the candle to the devil. If we are going to have pensions, let us have pensions all round. These people never subscribe to any pensions scheme. It is called deferred pay when they do not pay anything.

Captain O'CONNOR

On a point of Order. Is it in order for the two hon. Baronets opposite to maintain a conversation while the hon. Member is talking?

Mr. JONES

I am not troubling about who talks when I am speaking. Who are these people who are going to get pensions? Are all the servants of the State employed in this line going to receive equal treatment? Are all the messengers who are sent out going to be put on the same basis as the people who order them about? Are the workmen connected with the various establishments that we control in foreign countries, going to have the same kind of treatment? Will the Minister tell us that they are? If he did, a good deal of our opposition might be averted, but after all who is going to foot the Bill? The people of this country have to find the money to pay all the pensions. Now we are told these people are getting simply deferred pay. If the old age pensioners got deferred pay, it would not be 10s. but 30s. at least for the service they have rendered to the nation in the production of wealth. Therefore, we are opposing this Motion not because we want to prevent any man getting a pension, but, if pensions are paid to those who do the least of the work, there ought to be pensions for those who do all the work. We protest against special treatment for special classes of people.

Mr. MACLEAN

I feel I could not allow this matter to go through, more particularly after having heard the explanation of the Financial Secretary. The hon. Gentleman said this matter should appeal to our sense of justice. That is just the reason why we are opposing it, because it appeals to our sense of justice. These people for whom we are asked to provide pensions come from a particular class in society. To enter the Diplomatic Service one must have certain qualifications. One of them is the accident of birth. One must be born in a particular stratum of society before he is admitted to the Diplomatic Service, one must have a certain kind of education and a certain income. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] One must have an income of not less than £400 a year. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO!"] That used to be the case. However, I withdraw that. But I notice that no one interrupted me or questioned me when I said that those who enter the Diplomatic Service are drawn from a particular station of society and must have a certain kind of education.

Captain EVANS

A short while ago the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs pointed out, in reply to a question put by a Member of his own party, that the First Secretary of one of our embassies abroad is the son of a cleaner of locomotives.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. MACLEAN

That is the one lily in the bed of wheat. That is the one exception that is quoted to us in order to induce us to vote for the proposal. That is one, out of the many who are in the Diplomatic Service, who has sprung from the ranks of the working class to induce us to vote pensions to all the rest. They are asking the impossible. I have a question on the Order Paper to-day relating to a woman in my constituency who is in receipt of a need pension from the Ministry of Pensions. What has happened? Upon obtaining the old age pension of 10s. a week, her need pension of Os. 2d. was reduced by 4s. 2d. to 5s. a week, making the total income of this pensioner 15s. per week. Women and men in Govan come to me and produce papers from the Ministry of Health showing that they have been refused the old age pension on the contributory basis because of being on the borderline. There is, perhaps, some little anomaly regarding contributions. Widows are refused pensions there of 10s. a week. Appeals are made to us across the Floor of the House by Members sitting on the Government Benches to the effect that there is not sufficient Money in this country to give certain little concessions for which we ask from time to time with regard to unemployed people and to old age pensioners. Yet the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who has made appeals to us not to press claims for concessions on the ground that this country cannot afford them, now comes before us and appeals to our sense of justice to give him power to award pensions of £1,700 per year or nearly £36 per week. If £1,700 were given in a lump sum to any of the old age pensioners in this country, it would, if invested at 5 per cent., provide an income of approximately £80 per year. From what I can see, there is on these Benches a feeling against this proposal, and hon. Members want to utter their protest. As I said at the outset, I cannot allow this thing to pass in silence, and, if it is pressed to a Division, I shall certainly vote against the passage of this particular Resolution. I could not face the people at Govan who are being refused pensions, I could not face the men and women in Govan who have been refused unemployment benefit by the Ministry of Labour if I allowed such a proposal as this to go through unchallenged and allowed the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to obtain it without a final protest on my part.

Mr. RAMSAY MacDONALD

I hope that we shall not allow this matter to get out of its proper proportions. The very important and germane points which have been raised by my hon. Friends behind are founded on very fine experience, and it is absolutely impossible for Labour Members who come into close contact with the industrial conditions and the human conditions of everyday life not to make reflections such as those which have been made by my hon. Friends this afternoon. I am not at all sure, however, that when we turn again and again in this House and in this Committee to exposing those points that our case will not be all the stronger if we give fair play irrespective of the conditions in which men and women find themselves. I am perfectly certain that the arm which is going to strike injustice out of the high places ultimately is going to be the arm that has struck injustice, irrespective of class, out of conditions that have been exposed before the final blow has been struck. Therefore, this afternoon I am going to support this Resolution. This is not a Resolution asking for new pensions. I am quite clear about that. It is not a Resolution asking that men shall be pensioned who in the eyes of the law and in the spirit of the law ought not to be pensioned now—[Interruption.] No, I know what I am talking about. It is something in my own experience that compels me to support this Resolution.

Mr. MACLEAN

May I say that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in presenting this Resolution to the Com- mittee, said that there were certain members of the Diplomatic Service in the Foreign Office who had served their whole time in this country and did not give service abroad who are not receiving pensions, and that it was in order to give them pensions that this proposal has been brought in.

Mr. MacDONALD

As a matter of fact, these men now but for certain discrepancies in the law would have their pensions, and they belong to a service which is legally a pensionable service. Let me justify myself by drawing an analogy. I am not sure that it is a very practical one, as it only comes to me without preparation. Supposing my hon. Friend happens to leave this House for a week and if he goes to Scotland his pay of £400 is continued, but if instead of going to Scotland he goes down to Devon for a week he gets none of his pay owing to some curious and unforeseen and undesigned provision of the law—supposing that were the wording of two rather incongruous Acts of Parliament, then if this Committee were to amend the Devonshire residence disqualification it could only be said that it was adjusting what really was an absurd, unfair and unjust anomaly in the law of the country. The intention of the House all the time was to pay Members of Parliament. That was its intention all the time, but by certain laws it was found that if a Member of Parliament was in a certain place he would get his pay and if he was in another place doing exactly the same work and, still in the service of the State, he would get no pay at all. I can assure my hon. Friend that that would be very unfair. That is all that there is in this case. Of course, reflections about £1,700 and so on are perfectly obvious, but again the men who are going to get the £1,700 are not going to get an addition of £1,700.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

They are going to get £1,700.

Mr. MacDONALD

That may be, but let us get at the justice of the thing and deal with the mathematics of the thing later on. The justice of the thing is, that it is not those men who are going to get £1,700. They are going to be taken from non-pensionable status and given a pensionable status, so that, with all the vagaries of the application of the law applying to pensions of the State, they will know when their time comes that it will not be a Treasury clerk or a Foreign Office clerk who will look through their papers, and say: "This man is going to get £500 or that man £700." The effect of this is going to be to declare that those men who are civil servants, who have served in the Civil Service with a certain status, shall have the same pension as their colleagues of exactly the same status in the Civil Service have at the present time. That is the position.

There is another point which, I think, ought to be explained. It may just be on the verge of Order, but I think that it is within the narrow line. Who are these men? It has been said that only one son of a, working man is in a high official position. As a matter of fact, I think that there are more, and what we have to remember is that we are going to have still more. There is no mistake about that. What is the use of all the elementary school scholarships, going to secondary schools, and going up to the universities if we are not going to use the brains of the working-class in the State service. Moreover, at the present moment those men are selected by a Committee and upon that Committee sits my hon. Friend the Member for South Leeds (Mr. Charleton), who has done extraordinarily good work. Supposing we put one of these men into a Diplomatic office with very great responsibility, and he does his duty well and he retires. Why, if that man belonged to the class which had £400 a year income from private sources he could snap his fingers at our pension. He would be all right. If he were my son or your son, what about it then? These are the men who suffer most of all from the existing law which we are now going to change by passing this Resolution. That is the position. It is more than that. It is a position which I experienced when I was at the Foreign Office, and it is very unfair. If it is a question of revising salaries and that sort of thing, I would remind hon. Members who have been members of Town Councils and local governing bodies, that if they have done their duty they have again and again voted salaries for town clerks and others greater than many of the salaries of those officers whom we are now considering.

Mr. BUCHANAN

Never once.

Mr. MacDONALD

I said that they have if they have done their duty. The principle is a perfectly settled one and all sections of the Committee and all parties will have to recognise it. The State Service must be very well paid if we are going to retain the people whom we want to be in that service. One of the things that we are constantly complaining about—and if we complain about it we ought to face the facts—is that there is too much leakage from our Civil Service into private industry. I say to this Committee, perfectly frankly, and to the Civil Service itself perfectly candidly, that if I expect great ideals in regard to the Civil Service, and if it is my intention to use the Civil Service in a way in which the Civil Service has never yet been used—for the purpose of advancing national interest and building up a very fine national organisation—I am going to say to the civil servants, "You stay with us, and we will give you pay, we will give you status, and we will give you an honour which no private outside employer can give you." It is part and parcel of that ideal to welcome this Resolution, for which I am going to vote.

Mr. BATEY

The Leader of the Opposition has put the cat among the pigeons. I beg to differ from him, and I am unconvinced in regard to my opposition to this Resolution. A fortnight ago, we were told that the Government needed all the time of the House, and on that ground they took all the time of private Members, the argument being that that course was necessary in order to get through the business of the Session. Notwithstanding, we have scarcely started the Session when they bring forward this Resolution, which is to be followed by a Bill. Last year, for six months, there stood upon the Order Paper a Bill dealing with this question, but the Government allowed it to lapse and the finish of the Session killed the Bill. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury remarked that a gross injustice was being done at the present time to the men in the Diplomatic Service. I would be the last, if I knew it, to do a gross injustice to anybody, but I do not believe that we are doing the least injustice to these men in the Diplomatic Service. We are paying them pensions to the extent of £50,000 a year and this Resolution means that we are going to increase that amount. I would ask the House to remember that this is public money and that we are not justified in giving public money to a certain class at the expense of another class.

The White Paper says that it is proposed to give these people pensions of £1,700 per annum, after 15 years service. I would ask the House to compare that with the position of my own class. I came to this House in order to keep the interests of my class before my eyes and I think of them before anything else. The men who work in our Durham coal-pits are fortunate if they earn a wage of £100 a year. After 15 years service, what pension do they get? They get no pension at all. After 25 years service they get no pension. If we reverse the 15 and make the figure 51 we find that. after 51 years service they may get a pension of £26 a year. These Durham, coalminers are men just as are the people in the Diplomatic Service, but they have not the same chance of saving. They have no opportunity of providing for a rainy day. These men in the Civil Service, who are so much better circumstanced, are to be entitled after 15 years service to a pension of £1,700 a year, while the men of my class after 51 years service are fortunate if they get a pension of £26 a year. That is a gross injustice. The Financial Secretary talks about a gross injustice. The gross injustice is to the working classes of this country and not to the members of the Diplomatic Service.

The Leader of the Opposition used one argument which rather tickled me. He said that at the present time there are sons of the working class in the Diplomatic Service. One swallow does not make a summer. The right hon. Gentleman added that we are to have more of the sons of the working classes in these high positions. God forbid, because in most cases to raise up men from the working class and to put them into service like this, with these huge pensions, simply makes them snobs. It makes them forget their own class. I am not anxious that the sons of the working class should be put into these positions and I would not vote for it, because one's experience is that if we put them there they would be no better than the others. Therefore, I will not vote for putting them there. The White Paper says that this pension system is unsatisfactory in itself and quite unsuited to modern conditions. That argument does not apply only to the Diplomatic Service. It applies to the pensions of the working class. Until we get the pensions of the working classes increased, I will not vote for any members of any service to have these pensions.

Last year we introduced a Bill into this House to give pensions to women of over 65 years of age whose husbands had reached the age of 70 years. The proposal was to give them a pension of 10s. per week. Hon. Members opposite killed that Bill. They would not allow us to have a Second Reading. They prevented these women of over 05 years of age, whose husbands were 70 years of age before the 2nd January, 1928, from having pensions. They said to these women of the working class: "We cannot give you a pension of 10s. a week," yet they will go into the Lobby to-night to vote for pensions of £1,700 a year to members of the Diplomatic Service. They will do that, after their treatment of the working class women. If the pensions in the Diplomatic Service are not. suitable to modern conditions, equally the pensions of the working class are not suitable to modern conditions. We have thousands of working men and working women who cannot get a pension. They have been prevented by one thing or another from getting a pension of 10s. a week and they have to exist on the Poor Law. Until these people can get a pension, I shall vote against any diplomatic pensions. With all the present trouble and distress in the coal industry it would be a good thing if we could give an adequate pension for the miners when they reach the age of 60. We are told in the White Paper that an Ambassador or Minister may be pensioned before attaining the age of 60. If the Government would find the money to superannuate our miners at 60 years of age, instead of feeding the fat sow as they are proposing to do by this Resolution, they would remove from the mining industry a good many men who have no hope—

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is getting very remote from the Question before the Committee.

Mr. BATEY

I wish to keep in Order, but the statement in the White Paper rather tickled my palate. I refer to the statement that the pension system is unsatisfactory in itself and guile unsuited to modern conditions. The present pension system as regards the working class is also unsatisfactory.

The CHAIRMAN

We are dealing in this Resolution with a particular class of the Civil Service. The hon. Member cannot go into the whole question of the pension system.

Mr. BATEY

I am quoting from the White Paper which backs up this proposal. If the Government are entitled to issue a White Paper for the purpose of supporting the proposal, surely I am entitled to criticise it. It is a gross injustice to the working class for the Government to propose to pay such big pensions to a certain class of people and to leave the working class in their present condition. I can, of course, understand the Government doing it, because they know that their time is very short. They know that the judgment day for the Government is coming, just as some of us believe that there is a judgment day for men. They know that the judgment of the country will be passed upon them and that they may pass into outer darkness. Before they go there they want to make sure that they have made provision for their friends. They are not justified in asking us to pass this proposal. I hope that the majority of Members on this side of the House will not only on this occasion but on every occasion oppose a system like this which divides the people of this country into the upper class and the lower class and provides for the upper class whilst neglecting the interests of the working class.

Mr. CHARLETON

As my leader intimated, I have served on the Committee of Selection for entrants into the Diplomatic Service. I have sat on that Committee for three years and T think this Committee ought to know what takes place, because it may be that there is some slight misconception as to how the young men are selected for the Diplomatic and Consular Service. The young men come before the Committee, and it is our job to examine them, not from the point of view of class but as to their fitness to represent us in the Diplomatic Service. It may be that the Diplomatic Service is wrong—I am not arguing that question—but we simply as men of the world, and we are a pretty well-assorted lot, examine these young men and try to find out what sort of young men they are. We have their references from various sources. We turn some down. You have a spectacle of an engine driver declaring that the son of a lord or a duke is not fit to serve his country in the Diplomatic Service.

No young man has been passed for the Diplomatic Service with whose selection I have not agreed. I have agreed with the selection of every man who has been passed during the time I have been on the Committee. When the candidates leave us they have to go through a very stiff examination and there, perhaps, some of my hon. Friends are to some degree right when they say that the man with the university training has an advantage. He certainly has, but we have before us bright youths, intelligent youths who have won scholarships—I am not saying that the scholarship system is right—and have gone to the universities and done very well. Some of them were passed; how they got on afterwards is not my business. Some of my lion. Friends seem to have forgotten this point, that for the first time something is going to be done by way of pensions for those in the Diplomatic Service. This is doing what the Labour party would have to do when we come to overhaul the Diplomatic Service.

At the moment the granting of pensions is open to favouritism; it is an award for service. There is no right. This is a proposal to put it on an equitable basis; a man will get a pension as a right and by virtue of his service, and we shall he able to deal with the matter in the House of Commons. We have not been able to deal with these pensions in the past because they never came before us. We do not know how many men were on pensions. If this proposal is accepted every man will get a pension according to his length of service. The reference in the White Paper to "modern conditions" seems to me to suggest that in this matter we are bringing it into line with what we on this side would desire. In the old days, when a man had to have a private income of £400 before he could enter the Diplomatic Service, he was not much concerned about pensions, but when the individuals for whom hon. colleagues of mine have been pleading get into the Diplomatic Service it will be very necessary that they should have pensions. If a bright lad gets into the Diplomatic Service he will know that at the end of his service he will get a pension which will carry him to the end of his days. That is all I propose to say on this matter: I thought I ought to say it before the Vote is taken.

Mr. MAXTON

I wish to associate myself with those who are opposing this Resolution. I cannot say that I have been very deeply impressed by the arguments put forward in its favour. A considerable sum of money is involved, something like £20,000, and that is a consideration which the Committee should weigh before letting the matter go out of their grasp. In spite of what the hon. Member for South Leeds (Mr. Charleton) has said I do not think, being a minority on the Committee that he would have a very powerful influence in deciding the types of those who get through the narrow door into the Diplomatic Service. I am very anxious that members of the working class should get into the public service, and the very first step towards that is the abolition of the Board of Selection altogether. There is no special reason why men going into the Diplomatic Service should pass the Board of Selection before they sit for the examination. It does not apply to the men going to the Home Office or the War Office or any other Government Department. It is argued that because sons of the working classes may get into this service at some distant date that we ought to see that when they reach 60 years of age they should be provided with pensions of £1,700 a year. I want to point out this fact in addition, that if a man is going to get. a pension of £1,700 a year he has had, according to the ordinary calculations of the Civil Service, a salary of £3,400 in his retiring year and a sum approximate to that for many years before.

Mr. CHARLETON

They do not all get it.

Mr. MAXTON

The lowest figure mentioned in the White Paper is £700, which means that a man has had a salary of £1,400 a year, and the majority of the electors in South Leeds, certainly a majority of the electors in the Bridgeton Division, if they had a salary of £1,400 for one year could make ample provision for a considerable number of years afterwards. And that is not all. According to the Civil Service practice we give a gratuity of 1½ times the amount of his annual salary to a man on his retirement, which means that the Labour party on this side of the House is supposed to agree to a proposal to give a man on the first year of his retirement £1,700 a year as pension and £5,100 in the form of a gratuity, that is, £6,800 in one lump sum. The hon. Member for South Leeds has appealed to us. He has a knowledge of the Diplomatic Service and the excellent work that is done, and he tells us that it will be necessary for a Labour and Socialist Government to pay high rates of remuneration in order to retain in the public service the highest forms of ability. I notice that the Government have been unable to retain the services of one of their most eminent members because of the attractions outside. Every man who wants to desert the public service for higher money outside should be allowed to go, and we should wave him goodbye, but I hope very shortly after the accession of a Labour Government that there will be very few opportunities for a man to desert the public service and enter into private enterprise; I hope the position will be that if they do desert the public service they will be' unemployed.

I do not think that in the Diplomatic Service, or in the public service generally, there is any scarcity of talent to perform the most difficult tasks. The hon. Member for South Leeds has referred to the necessity which local authorities have felt to pay high salaries to town clerks and other public officials. I know that on many occasions town councils have been persuaded to believe that they ought to pay high salaries in order to get the services of particularly competent men. We had a case in Glasgow, where a public official getting £3,000 a year insisted that he could not carry on unless he got another £500. The town council nearly believed it and thought that he would resign if he did not get it. He did not get his extra £500, and he did not resign. We have had other cases in Glasgow. A certain town clerk who bad been in the public service for many years, highly respected, and was regarded as an irreplaceable man. All the citizens were expecting that the administration of Glasgow would collapse when this old gentleman did retire. He retired. We searched the length and breadth of Great Britain at a fancy salary for a man to take his place. We got him, and retained his services for a short time only. We advertised again and got another man. He went after a short time, not proving very competent; and we then found that the man who had been working as a junior subordinate of the old man was capable of taking his place. He did so; but got the idea into his head that he was absolutely irreplaceable and that we must pay him a fancy price. I have been in the public service myself, and I know that for every man holding a big position there are about 50 underneath him who believe that they are perfectly competent to take his place.

Mr. AUSTIN HOPKINSON

In politics too.

Mr. MAXTON

Yes, and it would be a pity for the world if it did not apply to politics.

The CHAIRMAN

We are getting very wide of the Vote, which applies to a particular class of civil servants.

Mr. MAXTON

I was trying to argue the point that the type of quality which is required for this work is very scarce and that we must, therefore, pay scarcity prices in order to keep it in the public service. I do not think there is anything in the facts of the case to support that view. An hon. Friend of mine has suggested that if we do the decent thing here hon. Members opposite will be persuaded to do the decent thing towards the working-classes. He knows that that would be a very grotesque thing to expect. I find sufficient justification for opposing this Resolution in the fact that never have I seen hon. Members opposite at any time come into this House with a spirit of generosity towards members of the working-classes. Never once during the seven years that I have been in the House have I seen an appeal of this description made on behalf of the bottom dog in this country, whom we represent, and, therefore, I think it is fair Parliamentary methods to say that if the Government refuse to treat those who are clown at the bottom all the time with decency, let alone with generosity, then we certainly shall do all we can to prevent them giving a very favoured section of the community anything more than they have at the present time. I shall oppose this Resolution.

Mr. J. H. THOMAS

No one will complain of the dulness of this Debate. I imagine that everybody will be delighted with the unanimity expressed by silence on the other side of the House, and by the expressions which have been used on this side. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) says that he is going into the Lobby against this Resolution in order to give expression to his disgust that hon. Members opposite have never once done anything for the working classes.

Mr. MAXTON

Shown a spirit of generosity.

Mr. THOMAS

lie is going into the Lobby to show his opposition to hon. Members opposite, because he neither believes them nor trusts them, but, in doing so, he forgets that he is consciously doing an injustice to somebody else. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I am dealing with the arguments used; and the statement of my hon. Friend was clear and definite, that his opposition is to the Government, never mind the injustice to the people with whom we are trying to deal. I also agree with previous speakers on this side of the House who say: Why should we support a proposal which gives £1,700 a year pension to someone when at the same time other people are denying 10 shillings a week to members of the working classes? Again, I associate myself with the protest and opposition against their actions in that connection, 'but, after all, the question we have to vote on it this: there are two people in the Civil Service doing precisely the same work, rendering precisely the same service, serving the community faithfully and well, but because of a flaw in the existing law one of them is deprived of rights which the other one enjoys.

If it is admitted that that is the existing state of affairs, what bearing have the old age pension and all the other grievances got on the removal of that particular anomaly as it exists to-day? That is exactly what is proposed. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition says, "Let us carry it to its logical conclusion." In 1924 there were vacancies for the highest positions in the Dominions and the Colonies. I suppose that my hon. Friends behind me will at least subscribe to the view that brains are not necessarily the monopoly of any class. I, as a Minister of a Labour Government, took the view that in these administrative and big positions we ought not to consider either the special social position or the politics of the individuals chosen. Then why ought we to go into the Lobby with my hon. Friend and perpetuate a system that deprives us of the opportunity of availing ourselves of the brains, even for those positions? That is what you have to answer. [Interruption.] The answer I get is that provision will be made. But as my right hon. Friend said earlier on, you are not here asking for any special favour or privilege. What becomes of the argument that you must not vote for this because these people are getting £3,000 a year As one of my hon. Friends has said, there are people in his constituency not getting anything like it. Hut there are a number in my hon. Friends' constituencies not getting anything like what they get.

Mr. J. JONES

And there are more in your's.

Mr. THOMAS

As my hon. Friend says, there are more in mine.

Mr. JONES

I wish I had half of your's.

The CHAIRMAN

I really must ask hon. Members to allow the right hon. Gentleman to proceed.

Mr. JONES

I know. He must not throw bricks or he will get them back.

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member must allow the right hon. Gentleman to proceed with his argument. If he will not refrain from interrupting, I must ask him to leave the House.

Mr. THOMAS

The Leader of our party gave expression to his view. No one interrupted him or anyone else who expressed the opposite view. Surely we are all entitled equally to deal with the arguments used in connection with particular proposals. I say that this is neither inconsistent nor unfair. Is it to be argued that we are to oppose the regularising of a pension system that is admittedly unfairly applied to-day? Can it be argued that we must do that on the ground that these people obtain a certain salary for their work, while miners or railwaymen or cotton operatives get a less salary? It is not unfair to say that the logic of that is, "Let us all be on the same salary."

HON. MEMBERS

Hear, hear£

Mr. JONES

That would be your sacrifice.

Mr. THOMAS

That being so, we know exactly where we are, and all our town clerks and Prime Ministers and even our Members of Parliament had better give immediate evidence of their anxiety to bring it about. At all events, I shall vote for this proposal, but I refuse to have it said that in voting for it I am in favour of the present miserable pension for the working-classes; I refuse to have it said that I am unmindful of the social and economic conditions of our own people. I shall vote for it for precisely the same reasons as my Leader will vote for it, because I do not think it is a good thing to perpetuate an admitted injustice when that injustice can be speedily removed.

Colonel WEDGWOOD

I do not think this is a question over which one need get hot. There is no question of justice involved in this matter at all. We on these benches are not being unjust to the Diplomatic Service, and the Government are not animated solely by the spirit of justice. Every member of the Diplomatic Service on entering the Service knows perfectly well the conditions under which he has to serve. The pension conditions are among the elements considered naturally by every person entering the Service. What we are considering to-day is purely a question of expediency. Are we to pay higher pensions? I noticed in to-day's "Times" the proof of the will of our previous Minister to Jugo-Slavia at £125,000. If all Ministers were as well off as that there would be no need of this increase of pensions. But it is known perfectly well that they are not, that some are well off and some are not. The present system of pensions, I understand, takes into account considerations of that sort, whereas the new system proposed in this White Paper is a hard-and-fast system dependent on length of service.

As far as I can see from the White Paper, only Ministers and Ambassadors who have served for five years get any benefit under this scheme. It has long been my idea that it would be far better to get, as Ambassadors, people from this House rather than from outside, people who would bring democratic ideas to deal with new countries, not in the old spirit of the old diplomatic service, but in the spirit of the outside world. Such people would obviously be short-term people. Their services would in every case be less than five years. This scheme automatically debars everybody of that sort from getting a pension. That alone is bad from the point of view of this country's interests abroad. I would point out to the hon. Member for South Leeds (Mr. Charleton) that he would not get a pension unless his service exceeded five years, and then he would get only a gratuity. It is only after 10 years that there is a pension. This affects merely the people who enter the service as diplomatists and carry on through life as diplomatists.

There is another point. We have recently increased the cost of the Diplomatic Service. There have been new Ambassadors appointed in Argentina and the Brazils, and that change has involved additional expense. There are few signs anywhere of Ambassadors being reduced to Ministers. In Turkey we still preserve the fiction that that is a country to which we should send an Ambassador. The expenses of the service, owing to the large number of new countries that have been started since the War—Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Finland—have increased, because additional Ministers have been appointed. If this had been an increase in the cost of the Consular Service, I should have been all in favour of it. That would have been something for our trade. The diplomatic branch seems to me to be a branch on which we might wisely economise. The relations of these small countries to this country are not as important as were the relations of the larger countries to this country before the War. We are in a position of much greater security and independence of the political co-operation of those other countries. We need not spend so much money on diplomacy because we are safer. That may be a small reason, but there is an additional one.

We are now carrying on a great deal of our diplomacy and our relations with these small countries in Europe through the League of Nations. The League has been a constantly growing expense, and we have not had a corresponding economy in the old diplomatic machinery. We are now at a time when we might reduce the old machinery and use the new machinery more, and thereby save money. Therefore, when this question is brought up, I wish it were brought up as showing an economy instead of an additional expense to the taxpayers. Whenever a Diplomatic Service is brought up I should strongly urge economy, although it would be fighting against a vested interest which is peculiarly strong. There is all the old machinery, all working perfectly smoothly, composed of perfect people who are delightful to meet and do their job perfectly well. It is excessively hard to cut down the expense of that branch of the service. But, in view of the rise of the League of Nations, we should not be asked now to vote an additional £23,000 a year to this particular branch of the Diplomatic Service.

6.0 p.m.

Mr. WRIGHT

I may observe at once that I am opposed to this proposal. Like my colleagues, I oppose it on conscientious grounds, but I do not approach this question from the same point of view as some of my colleagues. I do not regard it purely as a working class question, or from a working class point of view alone. My view of pensions is that they ought to be paid to all men who need them, and that a pension ought not to be paid to any man who does not need it and who has been able to provide for old age out of the salary or wages which he has received. That is the position which I have hitherto taken up and unless some very important argument is advanced against it, that is the position which I shall continue to take up. I have never been satisfied that men like Members of Parliament, or Judges, or members of the Diplomatic Service, are more valuable members of the community than manual labourers—dock labourers, men who cultivate the soil or men who dig coal in the mines. I am not sure that it is a wise discrimination to treat one class with luxury and the other class with hardship. We are quite in order in opposing this proposal. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) was good enough to advance the argument that it was possible for a man, however humble his position to enter this service. It is equally true that it was possible for working men to enter Parliament in 1869 when the Act governing this matter was passed; but it was, in practice, quite impossible for any number of them to enter Parliament then just as it is quite impossible in practice for the sons of working men to enter this service now. Therefore that argument does not carry us much further.

When we consider that the recipient of a first class pension of £1,700 per annum gets, in a month, as a pension the equivalent of what a highly skilled workman at 50s. a week will earn in a whole year for working, and that the £25 a week represented by a pension of £1,300 per annum is more than the average miner receives for the full year's work, I think it will be seen that we have some reason for our attitude on this matter. The same argument can be applied to other categories of workmen. Representing as I do, to the best of my ability, a very important industrial constituency, and as a member of the Labour party for many years, I could not conscientiously support this proposal, by whomsoever else it may be supported, in view of the fact that this Act was passed at a time when there were no representatives of labour in this House. There is bound to be a revision in regard to many of these questions in proportion as the strength of the Labour party is increased. We have to remember that vast numbers of our people have no provision for their old age and are now living in poverty and distress—indeed in many cases in actual semi-starvation. I should not be doing my duty if I, in any way, recognised the pensions which are proposed here and I am not concerned as to the conditions under which they were originally fixed.

Much of the ground has been covered in this Debate and some of the arguments advanced in support of the proposal seem to me so flimsy as to be scarcely worth notice. It was with regret that I heard the argument advanced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas). He said that Members on these back benches were receiving more than many of the people in their constituencies. That is perfectly true and it is not very creditable to the industrial system. But there is the further argument that we have much more expense than these men living in our divisions. What is more, the right hon. Gentleman, when he was in office, received a pension of ten times more than back benchers received. Is he ten times a better man than the men who are sitting on the back benches?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY

Not a pension—a salary.

Mr. WRIGHT

I accept the correction, hut the argument holds good. I think the right hon. Gentleman had better have left out that argument entirely. I can scarcely see anything more calculated to check the progress of the Labour party than the attitude of certain hon. Members to-day. If they deliver those speeches in the great industrial centres, they will damn the prospects of the Labour party for the next 20 years.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR

I have on other occasions when proposals of this kind came before us, taken strong exceptions thereto, and I should be failing in my duty if I did not oppose the present proposal. I came to Parliament to make such efforts as I could on behalf of those who are riot in the position of being able to look forward to a pension of any kind at all. I am not at all surprised at the attitude of the Front Opposition Bench or at the deliverance which has come from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas). We have followed his movements in regard to other things, where those who are in high positions have his very sympathetic consideration. His concern apparently is to start adjusting anomalies and injustices at the top. I thought the Labour representatives came here, first of all, to consider those who are at the bottom. That is the general impression prevalent in the minds of the workers and I agree with the previous speaker that there is every likelihood that many workers will take note of the disparity shown on such an important question as this.

The right hon. Gentleman asks us to consider tile anomalies or injustices prevalent in this particular connection. My case is that we are dealing here with a grant of substantial pensions to those who have had plenty of opportunity to make requisite provision for their future. It is most natural and most logical that we should consider, in contrast with this proposal, what confronts the mass of workaday people who cannot get any employment at all. We have to remember faithful and ardent toilers who are seeking to serve the best interests of the community in industrial life—that is, speaking of those who are even getting a chance to make a livelihood. But what of those who are not getting a look-in at all? How can any man representing the Labour movement fail to take advantage of this opportunity to emphasise the necessity for a complete readjustment of our pension system. I reckon that these opportunities offer us a special advantage from this point of view—that we can strike the public mind and bring home to the public conscience the fact that Parliament with perfect complacency will vote thousands of pounds to people who are simply wallowing in wealth, while we have sneering and scoffing and ridicule when issues are presented concerning those who have only a dark bleak outlook for the future. To me the thing is appalling.

I notice when subjects of this kind are introduced, there is a feeling which is expressed in the words, "So-and-so is likely to discuss this question, but it will soon be over and there will be nothing more in it." I can understand the feeling which comes over Members when they get to the House of Commons. There is an atmosphere, there is an influence abroad, that is insidiously dangerous to those who have committed themselves before the body of the public by giving undertakings and entering into obligations. We have our electoral responsibilities; the people think that we are in earnest and that we intend to push forward their interests as far as Constitutionalism gives us the opportunity. There are such striking contrasts in connection with this matter that every conscientious man or woman must feel that sooner or later we must start on a readjustment of these questions.

When we are being asked by the Government to support a proposal of this kind we should reflect on the pitiful allowance for the old lady who makes the way smooth for Ministers and ex-Ministers in making readjustments on those carpets over which we walk. No pension there—a mere pitiful allowance. An absolute disgrace to the House of Commons. [Interruption.] Yes, after 40 years' service. I can understand the situation of an ex-Cabinet, Minister having difficulty in opposing this kind of thing. Anybody with a cork head could understand that. When we were discussing the late Speaker's pension, an hon. Member who belongs to the Conservative party, but who used to be a Labour Member—there are many and various kinds of Labour Members nowadays—challenged us on the point of whether we would go in for reduction of our own salaries. It was a reference in my direction. I said then, and I say now, that I am prepared to face that challenge and substantially to face it. I would be the last man to make a personal boast. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman one of the leaders of your party, has said it and I am dealing with him just now. He has said that we are getting more than other people. So far as I am concerned I stood for the representation of Dundee in this House before there was any payment of Members of Parliament.

The CHAIRMAN

I think it is impossible to go into the question of salaries for different classes of public work. I know that some allusion has been made to it, but the hon. Member seems to be pursuing that point to the extent of discussing equality of reward for different kinds of public work. We must confine ourselves to the question of pensions.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR

I was going along the Derby track and that, of course, is a dangerous line. Still I feel that when we have taunts of that kind put forward, I must in defence, as far as it is in order to do so, say that I am not frightened by anything of that kind, and I am prepared to go as far as any man or woman in this House on that matter. I submit that if there are those opposite who are being urged to face the pensions question by those who are deeply grieved about the situation as it confronts them in their inability to get the Government to go any further, one of the best ways in which they can make an impression upon the Government is, on every occasion of this kind, to go into the Lobby in opposition to it, in order to impress the public mind and conscience of the absolute necessity of getting a thoroughly readjusted system of pensions for all concerned.

Major OWEN

I have been very much interested to listen to the opposition above the Gangway to this measure of justice to the Diplomatic Service. One is reminded of the very different attitude taken by Members of the Labour party when they were actually in office. I think I can recall to the memory of the Committee that when they came into office in 1924 they had a surplus from the previous Government of about £40,000,000, and that that surplus was available for the use of the Labour Government during that period, but I think I am also within the recollection of the Committee when I say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer in those days said he had no money with which to give pensions to widows and orphans, and he could not—

The CHAIRMAN

This is a very large argument to build on the very narrow question of two kinds of civil servants.

Major OWEN

The question is why we should perpetuate in this case, where it needs only a comparatively small sum of money, an injustice to men who give public service of a very valuable character to the country. It is an injustice in this sense, that whereas men may join the Diplomatic Service, they do not know when they are joining whether they are to remain at home doing the same work that other men by going abroad are rewarded with a pension for doing. There is that inequality between men joining the service for the purpose of serving the country in that capacity. It strikes me as being rather insincere for Members to object to a small sum of this kind to remove a disability, and what I would like to remind hon. Members above the Gangway is that it would be far easier to remove disabilities in the case of a larger number of people if they started by small degrees of this sort. If you do what is justice to one class, it gives you a precedent to secure justice for a larger section of the community.

Mr. KELLY

I wonder what has prompted the hon. and gallant Member for Carnarvonshire (Major Owen) to speak as he has just done. His reference to a surplus and to widows' and orphans' pensions I will not follow, except by way of illustration. I remember moving a Motion from these benches in March of 1925 on widows' pensions, but I did not see any of the hon. and gallant Member's friends or colleagues on those benches joining forces with me on that occasion. The injustice that is inflicted by the operation of the present method has not been explained very clearly to us, but even if it has, there are injustices resting upon a great many other employés of His Majesty's Government. Not all the civil servants are assured of a pension. Most of the dockyard men are denied it because the Government refuse to establish them, and the bulk of the employés of the Arsenal are not pensionable, because the Government refuse to recognise the injustice inflicted upon those excellent servants, who have given 20, 30 and 40 years' service to their country; but because there is some anomaly among this particular branch of the Diplomatic Service, we are asked to put it right.

I have some recollection of what has been done in the Civil Service since 1919, and I remember that when the salaries of the higher paid civil servants were assimilated, everything was done that they desired should be done, but as soon as ever the anomalies among the higher paid civil servants were rectified, we then had the cry for economy and, I am afraid, the assistance of some of those higher paid civil servants to prevent the lower paid having their anomalies put right. I wonder that the hon. Gentleman who introduced this Motion did not explain to us why these particular servants should be so much better treated than any other branch of the Civil Service. Not only are they entitled to a pension after lb and in some cases 10 years' service, but in certain cases there is not even the question of any length of service, because a temporary pension may be awarded should there be a rupture of diplomatic relations. I submit that in this Money Resolution you are treating these people better than you are treating any other branch of the Civil Service.

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL

What is proposed applies to the whole of the existing Civil Service.

Mr. KELLY

Is it the suggestion of the Financial Secretary that those in the Consular Service and all other branches of the Civil Service receive pensions, if at any stage it is found necessary to dispense with their services? The question of a pension at 60 years of age does not apply; a pension may be awarded to these individuals before they reach the age of 60, and before they have completed the length of service mentioned in another part of this White Paper. It is not asking that an injustice should be removed, it is not clearing up an anomaly, but it is putting these people into a much more favourable position than that in which you are placing other sections of the Civil Service. In the matter of the gratuity that is awarded by the Treasury to those who have served in the Admiralty and the Army, it is only at the rate of one-fiftieth of their annual salary—at least, I know there is only a week's wages added for each year's service—hut in this case, in addition to the pension, they are to receive a gratuity of one-thirtieth of their annual salary, so that there again the suggestion that we are dealing with these people in a way that is putting them on an equal footing with other branches of the Service is not a fair statement of the case.

With regard to the amount, I wish that in dealing with the other branches of the Service, with those who have been in your employment and rendered excellent service, you would put up the same scheme for them as you are putting up for these servants. The suggestion made by the hon. and gallant Member for Carnarvonshire that it is only a small section and that it requires only a small sum of money to deal with these people is certainly a begging of the question. If an injustice is being inflicted upon the great bulk of the Service, it ought not to be a question of cost, but of justice. Reference was made to the leakage from the Civil Service. I regret that leakage very much, but as I see many of these people going from the Civil Service into the City and other occupations, I think it does away with the argument of hon. Members opposite who often malign the Civil Service and declare that it is not manned by people who are capable of undertaking business control. I oppose this proposal. I think that if you are determined to remove injustices, you should attempt to remove those which lie so heavily on the shoulders of the weekly wage earners in your employment, and I shall certainly vote against this Motion.

Mr. BUCHANAN

I rise, in common with most of my colleagues who have spoken, to oppose this Motion. I have noticed during the Debate that there has arisen the question of whether the working class are capable of taking these posts, if offered to them. Here you have a Government, supposed to be composed of all the talents that a wealthy Government can have, a Government composed of great men of all types, and yet, in order to save them to-day, not their own Front Bench, but two members of the working class party have had to be produced to bolster up their weak case. I suggest that the Government have had to take two of the most prominent Members of the Labour party in order to save their case. I want to take a different line from that taken by other hon. Members, and to put three propositions before the Committee. The first is this: Is the expenditure of £50,000 at this juncture justified? Secondly, do the people who are going to receive this £50,000 need it? Thirdly, are those who are in this Service so badly paid that it makes legislation on this subject an urgent necessity?

These are the three propositions. It is not sufficient to say that the sum is small. I have always held that a penny badly spent is far more wasteful than £1,000 well spent. Therefore I maintain that, you must defend the first proposition. I notice that in another place, when this matter was dicussed, we were told that it would not cost the Exchequer a single penny. I find from the White Paper that it will cost a considerable sum of money. In the present state of the finances of this country, whether it be a question of men with £5,000 a year or £500 a year, there is only a limited sum to spend, and the choice that arises, therefore, is how that limited sum is to be spent I am surprised at anybody on this side of the Committee defending the spending of £50,000 out of the national income to people who, comparatively speaking, do not need it. The nation has made up its Budget for the year, and the choice before the Labour party should be not whether this is an injustice or not, but whether with £50,000 the Labour party could not find a better way of spending it than giving it to diplomats. No other issue is involved.

I am told that we must do this, or an injustice will be perpetrated. Nobody has told us where the injustice is. I am asked to accept it as a fact. I want proof, and we have never been given a bit of proof that anybody would seriously suffer if this Resolution were not passed. Show me a single person who will seriously suffer through lack of food, housing or clothing if this Resolution be not passed, and I will withdraw my opposition. I ask those who support the proposal on what business grounds they justify it? I see the hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) in his place. He is one of the leaders of the Diehard group who live for economy, and who come here wanting to know how much the printing department is spending in certain directions, and how much the State is wasting in another direction; usually the amount is £100. How do they justify spending £50,000 of State money on people who do not require it? We were told by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson) that the service is open. These men ought to save more than enough to keep their wives and families in decency and comfort for the rest of their lives. The Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ross and Cromarty constantly insisted on the necessity of pensions being inquired into before being granted.

Let me come to my other proposition. Take the case of a man who retires after having an income of £3,300 per year. On his retirement he gets one and a-half years' salary. That is to say, if he retire on 31st December, he has had a year's salary, and then he gets one and a-half years' salary in addition, a, total of £8,000. Just imagine a man on these benches being in that position. I put it to my constituents when I was explaining this to them, and asked them to imagine what their wives would do if they told them that they were going to get £8,000 when their husbands were dead. No one could guarantee a man's life if he told his wife that. I cannot understand men on this side representing the poor working classes saying that this Resolution is urgent, and that it must be passed, and that the Diplomatic Service and the Foreign Office will not be run properly if somebody, in addition to getting £1,700, does not get £8,000. The mockery and the hollowness of it! The shame and the cruelty of it! It is terrible! This nation has this year a limited sum to spend; the Budget runs to about £800,000,000. Some of it is to be used as interest on the National Debt, and some is to be used on unsocial services to keep the Army and the Navy, and now we are told that we have £50,000 more to spend, and that sum has to be taken for 44 diplomats.

If we have £50,000 to spare let us spend it on those who need it most. That is our first duty. We have constantly to make choices here. Many a time that I was on the Glasgow Town Council I was told we voted for £2,000 salaries and 21,700 pensions. I challenge anybody in this party to tell me of any town council where a Labour man or any Tory has ever voted for a pension of £1,700 to any public official. That is what we are being asked to do to-day, and I hope the House will reject it. There are far more social claims for this money. An injustice may be done if we do not pass this. Let me grant that to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas), but injustices could be multiplied a hundred times. The House has a choice how it will spend this £50,000, and it must decide whether this so-called injustice is more urgent than other social injustices. I am convinced that if the right. hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby had not been in a Government for nine months he would not have supported this. If this were the last day I was to be in this House, I would take pleasure in dividing against this cruel Measure.

Mr. MONTAGUE

A word or two from another point of view would not be out of place. I represent a constituency which is as poor as most, and it would be the easiest thing in the world for me to go to meetings and get cheers by talking in the way that some Members on these benches have talked upon this question. If the question really were whether £50,000 should be spent on pensions to diplomats, or in a better way, I would vote for the use of the money to relieve the destitution of the people. But that is not the question we are to decide.

Mr. SAMUEL

The amount is not £50,000.

Mr. MONTAGUE

I took the figure from the speech of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). Whatever the amount, if it were a question of spending the money one way or another, I would rather spend it on destitution than on pensions to diplomats. I am prepared to admit that a discussion of this kind can be justifiably used to point out the inconsistencies of the friends of privilege and wealth on the other side. I am not quarrelling with the use of a debate of this character to bring forward the injustice of the poor and the working people, but I do not want the question of social justice and the question of Socialism, which I am sent here to defend, to be mixed up with a mere question of dividing income or whether this particular type of person gets such and such pension and other people do not get quite as much. That will not solve the problem of poverty. That problem will not be solved by the mere redistribution of existing wealth—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]—and that is not Socialism. Moreover, I would like to put to hon. Members who are so ready with their cheers my point of view as a Socialist on this question. Questions of great importance have been raised in this Debate. I believe in better and equal treatment for everyone; I believe in ideals of equality, but ideals of equality are one thing, and the present system is another. If it were a question of dealing with excessive incomes, the most sensible way for a Socialist party would be to deal with them by methods of taxation. It would be the sensible and the just way. At what point are you going to say "This amount of income"—and it is a question of income, whether it be pension or salary—"is unjust, and a pound below that particular sum is just?" You cannot get any such standard under a system of society which is not based upon the spirit and principles of equality. I believe that all work which is equally necessary is necessarily equal, and I believe in a condition of society where it will not be a question of two-penny-farthing Jack looking down upon two-penny Joe. I want to get rid of the snobbery which makes for distinction of salary and income, for it is pure snobbery, this mere question of social status and social position.

But these are ideals for which I wish to fight upon a very different issue from this one, and I wish to get my people to defend them upon sound economic principles. We are not discussing fundamental economic principles at the present moment, and what I object to about this debate, and about a good deal which has been said in the course of it, is that there is far too much of the slave mentality about it, far too much slave psychology about it. We of the working class ought, not to talk so much about our slavery. We ought not to go down to our people and say, "You are getting 30s. a week; look what so-and-so is getting. That is not the way to get intelligent Socialist opinion. The only way to get intelligent Socialist opinion is by explaining Socialism to the people, and Socialism will not be attained by this method which is advocated to-day. For these reasons I take the line that we should not base and hinge the principles for which we stand upon such a really comparatively trifling thing as this. We have to fight the fundamental principles upon which Toryism and reaction are based; but although I think it is perfectly justifiable to point out the hypocrisy of certain people it is not justifiable to suggest that we ought all to be upon an equal level so long as the level is low enough. That is the kind of equality for which I am not prepared to stand.

Mr. THURTLE

I would like to explain why I feel it necessary to record my vote against this particular proposal. I would like to assure my hon. Friend the Member for West Islington (Mr. Montague) that, so far from having anything in the nature of slave mentality, I think I have the mentality of a rebel: and that is one of the reasons why I wish to record my vote in this way. I am not going to attempt to argue the case for equality of income. I am not yet convinced that such a case can be maintained, and I am certainly not going to argue it this afternoon, but what I feel to be an essential point is that we are about to spend between £20,000 and £30,000. Can we afford that amount when there are more urgent claims upon us? I take my mind back to a few months ago, when I had the obligation of leading a deputation to the Minister of Health. It was a deputation representative of about 12 London boroughs, many of them with Conservative majorities, who went to the Minister to plead with him that he should not economise on the milk for the maternity and welfare centres. He had deliberately imposed a form of economy by which he was going to save £19,000 on the Estimates. He did not attempt to prove to the deputation that there had been anything in the nature of wasteful expenditure. He said these maternity centres were doing most excellent work, and had not granted milk in extravagant fashion; but he told us that the Government had to adopt a course of economy, and that the Ministry of Health, in common with all other Departments, had to make a sacrifice. "I have looked round" he said "and I find that the most appropriate direction in which I can save on the Ministry of Health Estimates is by cutting down the amount of milk which should be allowed for infants and nursing and expectant mothers."

If the Government tell us they are short of money, and that national economy is so imperative that they cannot afford £19,000 for milk for working-class babies and nursing and expectant mothers, we are not going to take it from the same Government that they can afford £30,000 for the purpose of pensioning diplomats. I have to go down to my poor working-class constituents and say to them, "While the Minister of Health cannot afford this necessary money for these maternity and child welfare centres, the Government of the day can afford to spend £30,000 on pensioning diplomats." Presented with a choice like that, I am bound to say that if the Government cannot afford this money for maternity and child welfare centres, that I am certainly not going to grant them a larger sum for the purpose of pensioning diplomats.

Question put.

The Committee divided: Ayes, 312; Noes, 33.

Division No. 7.]	AYES.	[6.54 p.m.
Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel	Day, Harry	Hutchison, Sir Robert (Montrose)
Albery, Irving James	Dean, Arthur Wellesley	Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Alexander, E. E. (Leyton)	Dennison, R.	Iveagh, Countess of
Allen, Sir J. Sandeman	Drewe, C.	Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)
Apsley, Lord	Dunnico, H.	James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Ashley, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Wilfrid W.	Eden, Captain Anthony	Jenkins, W. (Glamorgan, Neath)
Astbury, Lieut.-Commander F. w.	Edmondson, Major A. J.	Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)
Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)	Edwards, J. Hugh (Accrington)	Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Atholl, Duchess of	Elliot, Major Walter E.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Baker, Walter	England, Colonel A.	Jones, W. N. (Carmarthen)
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-S.-M.)	Kennedy, T.
Balfour, George (Hampstead)	Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith	Kindersley, Major G. M.
Barclay-Harvey, C. M	Evans, Captain A. (Cardiff, South)	King, Commodore Henry Douglas
Barnett, Major Sir Richard	Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univer.)	Lamb, J. Q.
Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.	Everard, W. Lindsay	Leigh, Sir John (Clapham)
Beckett, Sir Gervase (Leeds, N.)	Fairfax, Captain J. G.	Livingstone, A. M.
Bellairs, Commander Carlyon	Falls, Sir Bertram G.	Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey
Bellamy, A.	Falls, Sir Charles F.	Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (Handsw'th)
Bonn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)	Fanshawe, Captain G. n.	Loder, J. de V.
Bethel, A.	Fenby, T. D.	Longbottom, A. W.
Betterton, Henry B,	Fermoy, Lord	Lougher, Lewis
Birchall, Major J. Dearman	Fielden, E. B.	Lowe, Sir Francis William
Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)	Ford, Sir P. J.	Luce, Maj. Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Bourne, Captain Robert Croft	Forestler-Walker, Sir L.	Lumley, L. R.
Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart	Forrest, W.	Lynn, Sir R. J.
Boyd-Carpenter, Major Sir A. B.	Foxcroft, Captain C. T	MacAndrew, Major Charles Glen
Brass, Captain W.	Frece, Sir Walter de	MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Aberavon)
Brassey, Sir Leonard	Gadle, Lieut.-Col. Anthony	Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)
Briant, Frank	Galbraith, J. F. W.	MacIntyre, Ian
Briggs, J. Harold	Ganzoni. Sir John	Mackinder, W.
Briscoe, Richard George	Gates, Percy	McLean, Major A.
Broad, F. A.	Gibbins, Joseph	Macnaghten, Hon. Sir Malcolm
Brocklebank, C. E. R.	Gillett, George M.	Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.
Bromfield, William	Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John	Macquisten, F. A.
Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.	Glyn, Major R. G. C.	MacRobert, Alexander M.
Broun-Lindsay, Major H.	Goff, Sir Park	Maitland, A. (Kent, Faversham)
Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)	Gower, Sir Robert	Maitland, Sir Arthur D. Steel-
Brown, Ernest (Leith)	Grace, John	Makins, Brigadier-General E.
Buchan, John	Grant, sir J. A.	Margesson, Captain D.
Burgoyne, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Alan	Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter	Marriott, Sir J. A. R.
Burman, J. B.	Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Sir H. (W'th's'w, E)	Mason, Colonel Glyn K.
Burney, Lieut.-Com. Charles D.	Grenfell, Edward C. (City of London)	Meller, R. J.
Butt, Sir Alfred	Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John	Merriman, Sir F. Boyd
Buxton, Rt. Hon. Noel	Griffith, F. Kingsley	Mitchell, S. (Lanark, Lanark)
Carver, Major W. H.	Grotrian, H. Brent	Mitchell, W. Foot (Saffron Walden)
Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)	Guinness. Rt. Hon. Walter E.	Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M.
Cazalet, Captain Victor A.	Gunston, Captain D. W.	Montague, Frederick
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Ladywood)	Hacking, Douglas H.	Moore, Sir Newton J.
Chapman, Sir S.	Hall, Lieut.-Col Sir F. (Dulwich)	Moreing, Captain A. H.
Charleton, H. C.	Hall, Admiral Sir R. (Eastbourne)	Morris, R. H.
Charteris, Brigadier-General J.	Hall. Capt. W D'A. (Brecon & Rad.)	Morrison, H. (Wilts, Salisbury)
Christie, J. A.	Hamilton. Sir R. (Orkney & Shetland)	Mosley, Sir Oswald
Churchman, Sir Arthur C.	Hammersley, S. S.	Nail, Colonel Sir Joseph
Clarry, Reginald George	Hanbury, C.	Nelson, Sir Frank
Clayton, G. C.	Harland, A.	Neville, Sir Reginald J.
Cluse, W. S.	Harrison. G. J. C.	Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.	Hartington, Marquess of	Newton, Sir D. G. C. (Cambridge)
Cockerill, Brig.-General Sir George	Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)	Nicholson, Col. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Ptrsf'ld.)
Conway, Sir W. Martin	Haslam, Henry C.	Nuttall, Ellis
Cope, Major Sir William	Headlam, Lieut.-Colonel C. M.	Oakley, T.
Couper, J. B.	Henderson, Capt. R.R. (Oxf'd, Henley)	O'Connor, T. S. (Bedford, Luton)
Courtauld, Major J. S.	Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.	Owen, Major G.
Courthope, Colonel Sir G. L.	Henn, sir Sydney H.	Penny, Frederick George
Cowan, D. M. (Scottish Universities)	Hennessy. Major Sir G. R. J.	Perkins, Colonel E. K.
Craig, Sir Ernest (Chester, Crewe)	Herbert, S. (York. N.R., Scar. & Wh'by)	Perring, Sir William George
Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)	Hills, Major John Waller	Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)
Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)	Holbrook. Sir Arthur Richard	Peto, G. (Somerset, Frome)
Crookshank, Cpt. H. (Lindsey, Gainsbro)	Holt. Captain H. P.	Pilcher, G.
Culverwell, C. T. (Bristol, West)	Hopkins, J. W. W.	Ponsonby. Arthur
Cunliffe, Sir Herbert	Hopkinson. Sir A. (Eng. Universities)	Power, Sir John Cecil
Curzon, Captain Viscount	Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)	Preston, William
Davidson, Major-General Sir John H.	Howard-Bury, Colonel C. K.	Price, Major C. W. M.
Davies, Ellis (Denbigh. Denbigh)	Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)	Raine, Sir Walter
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)	Hudson, R. S. (Cumberl'nd, Whiteh'n)	Rawson, Sir Cooper
Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)	Hume, Sir G. H.	Reid, Capt. Cunningham (Warrington)
Davies, Dr. Vernon	Hunter-Weston. Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer	Reid, D. D. (County Down)
Davison, Sir W H. (Kensington, S.)	Hurd, Percy A.	Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.
Dawson, Sir Philip	Hurst, Gerald B.	Richardson, Sir P. W. (Sur'y, Ch'ts'y)
Riley, Ben	Smith-Carington, Neville W.	Wallace, Captain D. E.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Bromwich)	Smithers, Waldron	Walsh, Rt. Hon. Stephen
Robinson, Sir T. (Lanes, Stretford)	Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip	Warner, Brigadier-General W. W.
Robinson, W. C. (Yorks, W.R., Elland)	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)	Warrender, Sir Victor
Ropner, Major L.	Southby, Commander A. R. J.	Waterhouse, Captain Charles
Ruggles-Brise, Lieut.-Colonel E. A.	Spencer, G. A. (Broxtowe)	Watson, Rt. Hon. W. (Carlisle)
Russell, Alexander West (Tynsmouth)	Spender-Clay, Colonel H.	Watts, Sir Thomas
Rye, P. G.	Stanley, Lieut.-Colonel Rt. Hon. G.F.	Williams, A. M. (Cornwall. Northern)
Samuel. A. M. {Surrey, Farnham)	Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westm'eland)	Williams, Com. C. (Devon, Torquay)
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)	Steel, Major Samuel Strang	Williams, Herbert G. (Reading)
Sandeman, N. Stewart	Stott, Lieut.-Colonel W. H.	Williams, T. (York. Don Valley)
Sanders. Sir Robert A.	Streatfeild, Captain S. R.	Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)
Sanderson, Sir Frank	Sugden. Sir Wilfrid	Wilson, Sir Murrough (Yorks, Richm'd)
Sandon, Lord	Taylor, R. A.	Wilson. R. R. (Stafford, Lichfield)
Savery, S. S.	Templeton, W. P.	Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George
Sexton, James	Thorn, Lt.-Col. J. G. (Dumbarton)	Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D Mcl. (Renfrew, W)	Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)	Withers, John James
Shaw, Rt. Hon. Thomas (Preston)	Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)	Wolmer, Viscount
Sheffield, Sir Berkeley	Thomson, F. C. (Aberdeen, South)	Womersley, W. J.
Shepperson, E. W.	Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell-	Wood. E. (Chest'r. Statyb'dge & Hyde)
Shiels, Dr. Drummond	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)	Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)	Tomlinson, R. P.	Woodcock, Colonel H. C.
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's Univ., Belfst.)	Townend, A. E.	Wright, Brig.-General W. D.
Sitch, Charles H.	Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles	Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)
Skelton, A. N.	Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
Slesser, Sir Henry H.	Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Smith, R. W. (Aberd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)	Waddington, R.	Captain Bowyer and Major the
		Marquess of Titchfield.
NOES.
Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)	Jones, T. I. Mardy (Pontypridd)	Stephen, Campbell
Batey, Joseph	Kelly, W. T.	Sullivan, Joseph
Beckett, John (Gateshead)	Lansbury, George	Sutton, J. E.
Buchanan, G.	MacLaren, Andrew	Thurtle, Ernest
Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)	Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)	Wallhead, Richard C.
Garro-Jones, Captain G. M.	Maxton, James	Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah
Grundy, T. W.	Potts, John S.	Wellock, Wilfred
Hardie, George D.	Purcell, A. A.	Wilkinson, Ellen C.
Hirst, G. H.	Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)	Wright, W.
Hirst, W. (Bradford, South)	Saklatvala, Shapurji
Johnston, Thomas (Dundee)	Scrymgeour, E.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Jones, J. J. (West Him, Silvertown)	Smith, Rennie (Penistone)	Mr. Tinker and Mr. Kirkwood.

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

Resolution to be reported To morrow.