Commons Sitting of 26 March 1930

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
EDINBURGH CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL,
"to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, relating to Edinburgh Corporation," presented by Mr. Secretary Adamson; and ordered (under Section 7 of the Act) to be considered To-morrow.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  PASSPORTS AND VISAS.
  Mr. DAYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any negotiations or conversations are taking place at the present time between His Majesty's Government and any foreign Powers which will have as its object the modification of the passport regulations; and can he give particulars?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Arthur Henderson): No, Sir. No such negotiations have been entered into with foreign Powers in regard to the passport regulations.
  Mr. DAY: Is it the intention to bring the matter before the Council of the League of Nations?
  Mr. HENDERSON: No, we have no intention of bringing it before the Council of the League of Nations.
  Mr. HANNON: Is the right hon. Gentleman doing anything to make more easy the relationships with the United States in the issue of passports than has been the case up to the present?
  Mr. HENDERSON: I have not had any difficulty reported to me, but, when
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  questions have been submitted to me with regard to coming to a joint arrangement for the removal of visas, I have reported to the House that that could not be done at present for financial reasons.
  Mrs. HAMILTONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any arrangement has yet been reached between this country and Czechoslovakia for the mutual abolition of visas?
  Mr. HENDERSON: Yes, Sir. A reciprocal agreement for the abolition of visas was concluded with the Czechoslovak Government on the 14th instant, and will come into force on the 1st May next.

  RUSSIA.

    DEBTS, CLAIMS, AND COUNTER, CLAIMS.
    Sir ASSHETON POWNALLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any committees or other bodies have yet been set up under the protocol of 4th October to go into the question of Russian debt settlement?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: I would refer the hon. Member to my reply of Monday last to the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Wight (Captain P. Macdonald).
    Sir A. POWNALL: Does the right hon. Gentleman adhere to the statement made last January, that these would be no question of financing the Russian Government until such time as a debt settlement was arrived at?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I have already reported to the House any discussions, and the line that we are proposing to follow, and we are still endeavouring to adhere to the statements made.

    BRITISH EMBASSY, PETROGRAD (PLATE).
    Marquess of HARTINGTONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will request the Russian Government to assist him in recovering the lost plate from the British Embassy at Petrograd?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: In reply to inquiries on this subject made by His

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    Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires in 1926, the Soviet Commissariat of Foreign Affairs said that a search instituted by them had proved unavailing, and that inquiries at Leningrad had not thrown any light on the circumstances in which the plate was lost. I do not consider that any further representations to the Soviet Government on this subject would serve any useful purpose.
    Marquess of HARTINGTON: On a point of Order. Is the right hon. Gentleman in order in suggesting that this friendly Government is either unable or unwilling to assist in the recovery of stolen goods?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I do not think I suggested that. I suggested that the Government which the hon. Member so closely supported failed, and I do not hope that I can succeed.
    Major The Marquess of TITCHFIELD: Will the Russian Government pay a sum of money in lieu?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I am not sure that the previous Government ever made an attempt to get such a sum of money.
    Marquess of TITCHFIELD: Would the right hon. Gentleman try?
    Mr. HENDERSON: No; I have nothing more to say on the subject.
    Colonel HOWARD-BURY rose—
    Mr. SPEAKER: Colonel Wedgwood.

    REFUGEES IN POLAND.
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir FREDERICK HALLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what action has been taken by the Refugees Committee of the League of Nations to afford assistance to Russians who have sought refuge in Poland owing to religious persecution; whether such action was taken as the result of reports received from the Polish Government and, if not from what source the information as to the plight of these refugees was obtained; and if he will lay upon the Table papers on the subject?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: I understand that the Polish Government are considering what measures should be taken for the relief of the refugees who, for various reasons, have recently crossed the frontier
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    from the Soviet Union, As far as I am aware, the Refugees Committee of the League of Nations have not had the matter under consideration.
    Sir F. HALL: Have the Refugees Committee had an opportunity of seeing and studying the suppressed report of the British Ambassador at Moscow?
    Mr. BECKETT: Is any action being taken to assist the Polish refugees who are in Russia, Germany, and surrounding countries, and are suffering political persecution by their Government?
    Sir F. HALL: May I ask for an answer to my supplementary question? [Interruption.]

    DIPLOMATIC PRIVILEGES (BRITISH EMBASSY.
    Mr. MARJORIBANKSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Soviet Government are conceding the ordinary privileges of extraterritoriality to the house, rooms, or premises occupied by His Majesty's ambassador and his suite?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: Yes, Sir. His Majesty's Ambassador and his staff are enjoying the ordinary privileges to which they are entitled by international law.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    PORTUGUESE PORT DUES (DISCRIMINATION).
    Mr. ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUELasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is now in a position to make a short statement giving the result of the recent representations to the Portuguese Government by His Majesty's Ambassador at Lisbon on the question of flag discrimination so far as it is operated by the Portuguese Governrnent against British goods and shipping?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: I am not yet in a position to make any statement as to the result of the representations which His Majesty's Ambassador was instructed last month to make to the Portuguese Government on this subject.
    Mr. SAMUEL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is a clog on British export trade, and is it right to let the matter go on like this?
    Mr. HENDERSON: The hon. Member must know that we cannot force the hands of Governments with whom we are in relations. All that I can do is to make representations, which I did, as I stated in answer to a question last month.
    Mr. SAMUEL: If the Portuguese Government put this clog on our export trade, would it not be possible to hint to them quite discreetly that we could put a duty on their port wine?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I am not sure how far that sort of policy of retaliation would carry us.
    Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: Have not the Government to be very careful in their dealings with the Portuguese at present?

    TARIFFS (AUSTRALIA).
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he now has any information about the proposed alterations in the Australian tariffs; and whether it is proposed to prohibit the import of certain goods?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. Lunn): I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend on the 13th of March.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Will my hon. Friend let me know when he receives the information about this matter?
    Mr. LUNN: I shall be pleased to do so.

    EMPIRE MARKETING BOARD (FILMS).
    Mr. DAYasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he will state the number of films that have been made by the Empire Marketing Board; whether there are any films at present in the making; the name of the cinema officer who is employed at the Empire Marketing Board for the supervision of these films; what previous experience this officer has had in the actual production of cinematograph films, and the amount of the percentage of net profits paid to this officer in addition to his salary of £1,200 per annum on any films made under his direct supervision?
    Mr. LUNN: The Empire Marketing Board have completed some 17 films of varying lengths, many of them edited from existing material placed at their disposal, and further films are now in course of preparation. As regards the name of the Board's Cinema Officer, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave him on 5th March. The officer in question had no previous experience in the actual production of films. In the event of net profits being secured upon films made under his direct supervision, he would be entitled to a percentage of 5 per cent. up to a maximum payment of £3,000 in any one year.
    Mr. DAY: Does my hon. Friend not think that for this very large salary a very highly experienced and technical man could be engaged instead of one without any experience in production at all?
    Miss WILKINSON: Is it not a fact that the recent film produced by the Empire Marketing Board has been described by the criticis as being of the highest standard of any British film which has been produced?
    Sir JOSEPH LAMB: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether any films are being made of industries in this country?
    Mr. LUNN: That matter is under consideration now by the Films Committee of the Empire Marketing Board, and I have good reason to believe that steps will be taken to produce suitable films in that direction.

    GREAT BRITAIN AND UNITED STATES (MARITIME LAW).
    Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any negotiations have yet been entered into with the United States of America to define and agree on the right of search and capture of private property at sea in time of sanctions?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: The answer is in the negative.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Can my right hon. Friend say when he will be in a position to give me an answer to this question?
    Mr. HENDERSON: No. This is a very big question, and we have big enough questions in hand with the United States at the moment without tackling this one at the same time.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is not this part of the same problem which is being tackled at the present time?
    Mr. HENDERSON: Yes, in a certain sense It is; but I think it was the desire of that Government that we should not raise this question during the Conference.

  CHINA.

    SITUATION.
    Captain PETER MACDONALDasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has any statement to make with regard to China?
    Sir KINGSLEY WOODasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make a statement concerning the position of affairs in North China; and whether he has any information as to the Peking-Hankow Railway administration and as to whether foodstuffs are now being commandeered in the Peking and Tientsin districts?
    Mr. A. HENDERSON: His Majesty's Minister at Peking reported on the 20th instant that the outlook in China had changed for the worse, and that an outbreak of civil war was again regarded as imminent. The Northern authorities had taken over control of the telegraph and other public offices in Peking hitherto staffed by Nanking appointees, and the Chinese Government's troops appeared to be withdrawing from Shantung. I have subsequently seen reports in the Press that agents of Yen Hsi-shan, the leader of the Northern movement against the Central Government, took over the Peking-Hankow Railway administration and the wireless station at Peking on the 23rd instant, and that necessaries for the anti-Government bloc were being commandeered in the Peking and Tientsin districts. I have, however, received no official confirmation of these reports.
    Sir AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that, in these disturbed conditions, the legations are safe and adequately guarded?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I have no reason to doubt their safety at the moment. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we are splendidly represented there, and Sir Miles Lampson keeps us very fully informed of everything that is going on.
    Sir K. WOOD: Does the right hon. Gentleman think, in view of the statement he has made as to the condition of affairs in China, that it is wise for us at the present time to relax any of our extraterritorial privileges?
    Mr. HENDERSON: I do not see that the two points are entirely associated. After all, the movement with regard to extra-territoriality was made under the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a member.
    Captain EDEN: Are negotiations suspended for the moment, during the present disturbed conditions?
    Mr. HENDERSON: No; I cannot say that they are actually suspended. We have to leave that matter for the time being in the hands of our representatives.
    Sir K. WOOD: Has the right hon. Gentleman heard anything about Mr. Chen lately?

    ANTI-PIRACY GUARDS.
    Sir BASIL PETOasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can furnish the House with any information in respect to the opinions and recommendations of the Piracy Committee which, under the Governor of Hong Kong, is studying the question of piratical outrages on British ships in Chinese waters?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. A. V. Alexander): The answer is in the negative. This Committee is a Standing Committee set up to advise the responsible authorities on the subject.
    Mr. HANNONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware of the anxiety which prevails in shipping circles, and especially in mercantile marine officers' organisations, following upon his decision to abolish the armed anti-piracy guards on British ships in China; if his decision in the present situation in Eastern waters is definite and final; and, if so, will His Majesty's Government undertake to indemnify owners,

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    officers and men for losses sustained as the result of inadequate protective measures against piracy?
    Sir B. PETOasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, as yet, a reply has been returned to representations which have been made to him with regard to the proposal to withdraw, as from 1st April, the armed guards from His Majesty's Forces that have recently been supplied to British merchant vessels permanently trading on the China coast; and, if so, will he state the terms of the reply?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: The Government have informed the companies that they are prepared to sanction a further extension of the provision of regular naval and military guards for a definitely limited period subject to the following provisions:
    (1) That the shipping companies before 1st April agree to accept an elaboration of the present scheme under which Indian guards are made available by the Colonial police authorities for the internal protection of shipping.
    (2) That any regular guards supplied after 31st March are paid for by the shipping companies in full.
    (3) That the whole cost of the elaborated scheme, including that of maintaining guards when not actually employed on board ship, should be borne by the companies in proportion to their requirements.
    A meeting was held with the shipping companies on 24th March at which explanations of the above decision were given, and I am still awaiting a reply from the companies.
    Sir B. PETO: Does the right hon. Gentleman think, in view of the state of civil war that the Foreign Secretary states is imminent, or actually in force in China, it is reasonable to throw on shipping companies the whole cost of the defence of their ships, crews and officers and to withdraw facilities hitherto given in this respect by the Government?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: The whole position has been explained to the companies. The question of civil war does not closely affect the question of piracy on board these ships. Piracy arises very often
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    from the conditions under which either the crews are enlisted or the passengers are admitted to the ships, and in all the circumstances we feel that the policy adumbrated last year by the late Government, giving notice to withdraw the guard, is sound, and we have gone as far as we can in extending the period for the supply of armed guards on payment.
    Mr. HANNON: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the part of my question dealing with indemnity to officers and men and shipowners whose property and lives may be endangered or lost in piratical operations in the China seas?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I have nothing to add to the full answer that I have given.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is a new principle that naval guards should be paid for? For example, in the fishing industry we do not have to pay for fishery cruisers.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    BANDS (COPYRIGHT MUSIC).
    Mr. DAYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether there is any arrangement between the Admiralty and the Performing Right Society for permission to play copyright music by the bands on His Majesty's ships; and will he give particulars?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative and the second part, therefore, does not arise.
    Mr. DAY: Have the Admiralty received any threats from the Performing Bight Society, and is the position different from that of the bands of the Territorial Force?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I am not aware that any representations have been received from that body. The Crown has no liabilities under the Act.

    BATTLESHIPS.
    Commander BELLAIRSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the proposals of the Government for the total abolition of the battleship were first submitted to the naval war staff; and whether they envisaged any increase in the number of cruisers?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I cannot see that the two points of the hon. and gallant Member's question can be held to arise out of the Government's expression of the hope that battleships may ultimately disappear, which occurs in paragraph four of Part II of the Memorandum in Command Paper 3485 on the Government's position at the Naval Conference. No more definite proposal in this regard has been made by His Majesty's Government.
    Commander BELLAIRS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Memorandum not merely expressed a wish that agreement should be reached that battleships should disappear altogether, but proceeded to say that they were a very doubtful proposition, giving technical reasons of submarine attack? Surely the staff was not consulted on that point?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: The Admiralty staff are consulted on every question of a technical quality which affects policy.
    Commander BELLAIRS: Did the Admiralty staff express agreement with what was put into the Memorandum?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I have nothing to add to what I have said.

    RANKER OFFICERS (PROMOTION).
    Mr. HOREBELISHAasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any naval ranker officers qualified for promotion under the scheme for accelerated advancement are now available for the 1 per cent. of commanderships open to those who have taken the courses for such early promotion; and, if so, if it is the Admiralty's intention to put the scheme into operation in regard to such officers of the military branch?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part of the question, promotion is by selection and each case will be considered on its merits.

    DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he can make any statement as to the Admiralty's intention regarding the Naval College at Dartmouth?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I assume that the hon. Member's question is prompted by
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    recent reports in the Press that the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth is likely to be closed. Such reports are without foundation.
    Commander SOUTHBY: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that, before any decision to close this old established naval academy is taken, the House will have an opportunity of discussing the matter?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The Minister has said that he is not going to close it.

    LONDON NAVAL CONFERENCE.
    Sir B. PETOasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the arming of merchant vessels has been dealt with in the course of the proceedings of the Naval Conference?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: No, Sir.
    Sir B. PETO: If the right hon. Gentleman receives evidence that some European countries are making preparations to arm merchantmen, will he consider laying the question before the Naval Conference?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: No, Sir. We can only deal with the Naval Conference on the basis of the agenda.

    SHIPWRIGHTS (UNEMPLOYMENT).
    Mr. HORE-BELISHAasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether any instructions are issued by the dockyard authorities to the Devonport and Plymouth Employment Exchanges that shipwrights should not be submitted for entry as labourers in His Majesty's dockyard; and whether, in cases of shipwrights who are unemployed and are anxious to secure work in any capacity in the dockyard, he will give instructions that they can be entered as labourers, if they so desire, until such time as there is a vacancy in their own trade?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative, and the second part does not, therefore, arise.
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the impression which I have mentioned is the impression at the Employment Exchange?
    Mr. ALEXANDER: I have already made particular inquiries, because of the hon. Member's question being on the Paper. My answer represents the facts.

    SOLOMON ISLANDS.
    Mr. CECIL WILSONasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what, reforms have been initiated in the administration of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate since the Report of Lieut.-Colonel Sir Harry Moorhouse in January, 1929?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Dr. Drummond Shiels): The Protectorate administration has been addressed upon the several matters dealt with in the Report by Sir Harry Moorhouse. The proposal to divide the island of Malaita into two administrative districts is being proceeded with, but action upon some of the other recommendations involving increased expenditure has been delayed owing to financial stringency.
    Mr. WILSON: When is that further action likely to be taken?
    Dr. SHIELS: I am unable to give any date. We are pursuing the policy recommended in the Report, but our progress must be conditioned by financial conditions.
    Mr. CHARLES BUXTON: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the whole question of imposing direct taxation upon extremely primitive people to whom the whole system is absolutely unintelligible?
    Dr. SHIELS: That is a matter that we have constantly under consideration.

  PALESTINE.

    MUFTI OF JERUSALEM.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware of the fact that the Lebanese authorities suppressed the Arab newspaper "Il Aad el Jadid" for publishing a letter from the Mufti of Jerusalem, inciting the Moslem inhabitants of the Lebanon to revolt against the French Government; whether the Mufti is on the salary list of the Palestinian Government; and whether
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    any steps are being taken to prevent further incitements by this dignitary?
    Mr. MARJORIBANKSasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Mufti of Jerusalem is on the civil establishment of the Palestine Government and in receipt of a salary from its revenues; whether his attention has been drawn to the letter addressed by the Mufti of Jerusalem on 17th February, 1930, to the Sheikh Moustafa Ghalaini, President of the Moslem Council in Beyrouth, inciting the Syrian Moslems to resistance against the French authorities; and what action he proposes to take?
    Dr. SHIELS: I understand that the paper mentioned has been suppressed by the Lebanese authorities. With regard to the second part of the question, the Mufti is President of the Supreme Moslem Council in Palestine and, as such, receives remuneration from Palestine Funds. As regards the last part, the Secretary of State will consider whether it is necessary or desirable to take any action.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this paper is the official organ of the Moslem Supreme Council in Palestine?
    Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this paper was not suppressed for publishing the Grand Mufti's letter, but because it published the fact that the Palestine Arab executive decided not to hold the feast of Ramadan this year on account of the disastrous conditions in Palestine caused by the Zionists?
    Dr. SHIELS: I am aware of all the facts in connection with the case.
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Will the hon. Gentleman answer my question?
    Dr. SHIELS: I think I have answered it.

    MR. JABOTINSKY.
    Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he can now state the circumstances under which Mr. Jabotinsky was convicted by a military court in 1920 to 15 years' penal servitude; whether he is aware that this was almost immediately afterwards reduced to one

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    year's imprisonment in the second division, and that Mr. Jabotinsky was amnestied and released, but subsequently appealed against the original sentence, as a result of which the proceedings of the military court were quashed with the exception of the finding that Mr. Jabotinsky had been guilty of being in possession of a revolver without a licence; and whether Mr. Jabotinsky entered into any undertaking never to return to Palestine?
    Dr. SHIELS: The events referred to took place before the Colonial Office had any connection with Palestine; but I have ascertained that the facts are substantially as stated in the second part of the question. As regards the last part, I am not aware that Mr. Jabotinsky ever entered into the undertaking referred to.
    Sir A. POWNALL: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the services rendered by Mr. Jabotinsky during the War, especially in regard to the formation of a Jewish battalion?
    Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that Mr. Jabotinsky went to Palestine and made a very violent incendiary speech—
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is always giving information instead of asking questions.
    Captain E. N. BENNETT: Is it not a fact that a person deported from Palestine or any other country is ipso facto debarred from returning as and when he likes?
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Was he deported?
    Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Is it not a fact that the sentence was quashed and never ought to have been passed, and the hon. Member's suggestion is, therefore, without foundation?

    COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT ORDINANCE.
    Colonel HOWARD-BURYasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the Collective Punishment Ordinance has now been put into effect at Safed and other places in Palestine; that this ordinance has been
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    given a retrospective effect and has caused hardship and injustice to the Arabs; and will he take steps to have this ordinance repealed?
    Dr. SHIELS: The Collective Punishment Ordinance was applied with the Secretary of State's approval to Safed and other districts of Palestine as a measure necessary on account of acts of violence which occurred during the disturbances of last year. My Noble Friend is not prepared to take any action in the matter.
    Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is the hon. Member aware that there is no occasion whatever for retrospective effect being given to this ordinance, that it is creating very great hardship and unrest in Palestine, and can he not put an end to it?
    Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Is not this punishment inflicted for very foul murders on helpless women and children?

    WEST INDIES (SUGAR INDUSTRY).
    Mr. MARJORIBANKSasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies what other Addresses similar to that passed by the Barbados Assembly have been sent to the Government on the subject of the West Indian sugar industry?
    Dr. SHIELS: Requests for assistance in the present sugar crisis have been received during the last month from Trinidad, Leeward Islands, St. Lucia, and British Guiana.
    Mr. MARJORIBANKS: Were they not unanimous that the abolition of the present preference would ruin the trade?
    Dr. SHIELS: I think the House is familiar with the nature of the representations, and, as there is an opportunity to-morrow night, I understand, to debate the whole subject, T do not know that it is wise to develop it now.
    Mr. MARJORIBANKS: Will the hon. Gentleman answer my question?
    Captain P. MACDONALD: Why have the Government rejected the recommendations of the Olivier Report?

    PERAK HYDRO ELECTRICITY COMPANI.
    Mr. WELLOCKasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Government of the Federated Malay States have Secured any control in the Perak Hydro Electricity Company in respect of their recent loan to that company of £850,000; and, if so, of what nature?
    Dr. SHIELS: Yes, Sir. One of the conditions of the loan is the amendment of the Articles of Association of the company so as to give the Federated Malay States Government voting control by virtue of its holding of preference and ordinary shares.

  KENYA.

    NATIVE LAND CLAIM.
    Mr. R. S. YOUNGasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the inquiry into the claim of the Masai to an area of land known as the one-mile strip, lying to the south of the railway line from Simba to Athi River, and to the fact that the chairman of the Ulu Settlers' Association has disputed the desirability of granting the Masai claim on the ground, inter alia, that the land in question is a potential white settlement area, he will take steps to protect the Masai claims, based on treaty rights, on long occupation, and on the desirability of their having free access to the railway?
    Dr. SHIELS: My Noble Friend has no information as to the inquiry referred to. The Governor of Kenya will, no doubt, report to him in due course, but in the meantime he will ask the Governor for a statement as to the position.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind the recommendation of the Young Commission that certain lands should be reserved for individual cultivation and ownership by the natives?
    Dr. SHIELS: All those points will be borne in mind.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: I wish to know whether that particular point is being borne in mind.
    Dr. SHIELS: In view of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's representations, I will see that it is borne in mind.

    NATIVE AUTHORITIES (APPOINTMENTS).
    Mr. HORRABINasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies how the constituted native authorities in Kenya Colony are appointed; and whether the natives have any voice in such appointments?
    Dr. SHIELS: When a local native council has been established by the Governor-in-Council under the Native Authority Ordinance, the, Governor appoints as members of the council such headmen or other natives as he thinks fit; but before any person other than an official headman is appointed, the natives of the area concerned are given an opportunity to nominate suitable persons to represent their interests and these names are submitted to the Governor with the recommendation of the District Commissioner. Under the same Ordinance, provision is made for the Governor to appoint any chief or other native whom he may think suitable to be an official headman.

    NATIVE MEETINGS (PROHIBITION).
    Mr. HORRABINasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to the recent prohibition of certain public meetings of Africans in Kenya Colony; and whether he will state on what grounds and by what authority such prohibitions have been made?
    Dr. SHIELS: My Noble Friend has been informed by the Governor of Kenya that certain meetings of natives have been recently prohibited in the Kikuyu Reserve. This action has been taken by the native headmen under powers conferred on them by the Native Authority Ordinance to prohibit natives subject to their jurisdiction from holding or attending any meeting or assembly within the local limits of their jurisdiction which in their opinion may tend to be subversive of peace and good order. Further information is expected front the Governor on the subject.
    Mr. HORRABIN: Has the attention of my hon. Friend been drawn to the arrest of one or more African natives for attending meetings described as unauthorised

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    meetings, and does he not think that this particular method of preventing public discussion will encourage unrest?
    Dr. SHIELS: We have not yet received full information, and I certainly think that the Governor of Kenya and the local Government believe that what they are doing is in the best interests of the peace of the Colony.
    Mr. HAYCOCK: Will my hon. Friend draw the attention of the Archbishop of Canterbury to this form of persecution?
    Miss WILKINSON: Is it not a fact that every Governor always thinks that what he is doing is for the best interests of the subjects?

    SOUTHERN RHODESIA LAND APPORTIONMENT ACT.
    Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs what alterations in the Southern Rhodesian Land Apportionment Bill, 1929, have been recommended by the Dominions Office and accepted by the Southern Rhodesian Government to balance the consent of His Majesty's Government to change the letters patent of the Southern Rhodesian constitution and the consequent loss to the natives of the right to buy and rent land?
    Mr. LUNN: As my right hon. and gallant Friend is aware, the object of the Southern Rhodesia Land Apportionment Act is to give effect to the recommendations of the Southern Rhodesia Land Commission of 1925. I would refer in this connection to the reply which I gave to him on 22nd January. After full consideration of the question, the Secretary of State came to the conclusion that the general adoption of the Commission's proposals was to the interest of the natives, and he has not asked for any amendment of substance in the Act.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Are we to understand that the Secretary of State has altered the letters patent to deprive natives of their rights to own land without getting any modification in an Act which deprives the natives of an opportunity of living in their own country and working there?
    Mr. LUNN: I think that that is altogether a wrong understanding of what is the position in regard to what has been
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    considered in changing the letters patent. My right hon. and gallant Friend knows the objects of the legislation, and the only matter in which the Secretary of State has taken an interest is to make clear what are the rights and claims of the natives.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is not my hon. Friend aware that the Anti-Slavery Society and the Aborigines Protection Society have made representations on this question, frequently urging modifications and amendments of the Act, and are we to understand that the Government have consented to alter the letters patent of the constitution without taking any steps to safeguard native rights as requested by the Anti-Slavery Society?
    Mr. LUNN: I think that my right hon. and gallant Friend must take my reply that the Secretary of State has asked for no alterations of substance in the Act which is now under consideration by the Legislature in Southern Rhodesia.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Do you say that he has made alterations, or that he has not?
    Mr. LUNN: Alterations in form, but not alterations of substance.

    EMPIRE SETTLEMENT (ALBERTA).
    Mr. OLIVER BALDWINasked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs if he has made inquiries as to the reason why certain prospective immigrants to Alberta, who had been approved as such, had given up their occupations, and had paid their £15 deposit by the 13th February last to the Alberta Government, were prevented from leaving England on the 20th February by the sudden cancellation of their contracts at the orders of the Alberta Government; and whether he will try to arrange with the Alberta Government that such a position does not occur again?
    Mr. LUNN: Arrangements were made with the Government of Alberta in this year as in former years for a limited number of young men to proceed to Alberta for employment on the land after a preliminary period of training in agricultural schools maintained by the Alberta Government. In view, however, of the restricted demand in the present

    411
    season for farm labour the Alberta Government have represented that it would be desirable to suspend these arrangements for the present. Efforts are being made to place the young men concerned in farm training schemes in other Provinces of Canada. It is hoped that a similar difficulty will not occur in future, but my hon. Friend will no doubt appreciate that the representations of the Alberta Government were dictated primarily in the interests of the young men themselves.
    Mr. R. A. TAYLOR: Are they all single men?
    Mr. LUNN: As far as I know.
    Sir ERNEST SHEPPERSON: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is at the present time considerable unemployment in the Province of Alberta because the surplus of wheat grown in that Dominion has been detrimental to the agricultural community?
    Mr. LUNN: The action of the Government has been influenced by the unemployment at this moment.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE.

    CIVIL FLYING MEETINGS (ASSISTANCE).
    Mr. L'ESTRANGE MALONEasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether Royal Air Force units are ever permitted to take part in flying meetings organised by private aero clubs; and whether the decision as to which clubs should have Royal Air Force assistance allocated to them rests with the Air Ministry or any other body?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Mr. Montague): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, and to the second that the decision rests with the Air Council. The assistance which, with due regard to Service training requirements, can be given by the Royal Air Force to these meetings is very limited and its most appropriate allocation is determined by the Air Council in the light of the recommendations of the Royal Aero Club, who obtain, I understand, the advice of the General Council of Associated Flying Clubs.
    Mr. MALONE: Does the hon. Member realise that that procedure penalises clubs which are not affiliated to the Royal Aero Club, and, in particular, a very fine club, the Northamptonshire Flying Club?
    Mr. MONTAGUE: This procedure has so far been the practice, but I am willing to consider any further point that may be involved.

    LODGING AND TRAVELLING ALLOWANCES.
    Mr. BEAUMONT (for Captain HAROLD BALFOUR)asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air in what directions and to what financial extent the Air Ministry consider the recently introduced scales of lodging and travelling allowances will be of benefit to Royal Air Force officers below the rank of group captain?
    Mr. MONTAGUE: The reply being necessarily of some length, with the hon. and gallant Member's permission I will circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the reply:
    The revision of the regulations in question will benefit officers below the rank of group captain in be following respects:
    (1) The rates of lodging allowance for stations outside Europe are being increased for both married and single officers.
    (2) Lodging allowance will be issued to married officers during absence from duty in certain circumstances not previously recognised.
    (3) A new furniture allowance of 2s. a day, in addition to lodging allowance, will be issued to married officers for whom furnished married quarters are not available.
    (4) The new rates of subsistence (travelling allowance) will not be subject to deduction of ration allowance, as are certain of the present rates.
    (5) Conveyance of furniture will be allowed for married officers on permanent change of station in the United Kingdom as a new concession.
    (6) Certain other concessions will be made as regards travelling expenses of officers and their families in the circumstances set forth in paragraphs 2 to 9 of the Air Ministry Weekly Order No. 58 of 1930, of which I am sending the hon. and gallant Member a copy.

    413
    It is impossible to state the extent to which officers will benefit financially as a result of the new regulations. The effect depends in each case upon the rank and the station of the officer, whether he is married or single, whether quarters are available for him, etc. On the whole there is no doubt that the new regulations will result in a distinct financial benefit to officers.

    PROMOTIONS.
    Mr. BEAUMONT (for Captain BALFOUR)asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the total number of general list promotions of permanent Royal Air Force officers from flight-lieutenant to squadron-leader and squadron-leader to wing-commander for the years 1927, 1928, and 1929, respectively; and if he will state whether it is anticipated that the number of promotions in these ranks for 1930 will be equal to the 1929 totals?
    Mr. MONTAGUE: The numbers of promotions of permanent officers (General Duties branch) from flight-lieutenant to squadron-leader and from squadron - leader to wing-commander were 26 and 14, respectively, in the financial year 1927–28; 53 and 21, respectively, in 1928–29; and 67 and 29, respectively, in 1929–30. My Noble Friend is not prepared to forecast the number of promotions that will be made during the coming financial year.

    MUNICIPAL AIRPORTS (OPENING CEREMONIES).
    Mr. BEAUMONT (for Captain BALFOUR)asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether the Air Ministry will consider detaching units of the Royal Air Force, when service duties permit, for the purpose of taking part in opening ceremonies of municipal airports in a similar manner to the Royal Air Force support to be granted to a limited number of club meetings, and at least to the same extent?
    Mr. MONTAGUE: I regret that it is not possible to agree to the hon. and gallant Member's suggestion. The assistance which is already being given by the Royal Air Force to civil flying meetings is the utmost that can be done in that respect and I am advised that Service training requirements preclude absolutely the extension of such assistance to the ceremonies to which he refers.

    TRANSPORT.

      LONDON TRAFFIC BILL.
      Sir K. WOODasked the Minister of Transport when he proposes to introduce the London Traffic Bill?
      The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I am not yet in a position to add to the replies which I have already given to the right hon. Member on this subject.
      Sir K. WOOD: How long is this delay to continue Would it not be much better for the hon. Member and his colleagues to fall back upon the late Government and to introduce the Conservative Bill.
      Mr. MORRISON: I cannot give a precise answer to that question as the right hon. Gentleman spends half his time demanding the production of Bills by the Government and the other half of his time obstructing Bills that have been introduced.
      Captain P. MACDONALD: Is it in order for a Minister of the Crown to charge a Member of this House with obstruction?
      Mr. SPEAKER: It is not regarded as an unparliamentary charge.
      Sir F. HALL: Owing to the anxiety of the Metropolitan Borough Councils, may I ask whether the hon. Member has been able to come to a decision as to giving protection to the borough councils with regard to the roads on which these omnibuses will travel?
      Mr. MORRISON: That has nothing whatever to do with the question on the Order Paper.
      Sir F. HALL: Surely it has a great bearing upon it.
      Mr. SPEAKER: The question on the Paper deals only with the London Traffic Bill.
      Sir F. HALL: With all deference, I submit that the question which I put was very relevant to the question on the Order Paper.
      Mr. MORRISON: May I inform the hon. and gallant Member that he is thinking of the Road Traffic Bill now before Standing Committee C and not the London Traffic Bill.
      Sir A. POWNALL: Is it intended to produce this Bill during this Parliamentary Session?
      Mr. MORRISON: That is a question which I cannot answer. It should be addressed to the Leader of the House.

      GRIMSBY AND IMMINGHAM (ROAD).
      Mr. WOMERSLEYasked the Minister of Transport what progress has been made in the negotiations between the county borough of Grimsby, the Grimsby and Immingham Rural District Councils, and the Lindsey County Council respecting the making of a direct road between the ports of Grimsby and Immingham; and, with a view to relieving unemployment in this area, will he urge these local authorities to expedite these negotiations?
      Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: It was proposed in November last to hold a conference between representatives of the Lindsey County Council, the Grimsby Corporation and officers of my Department to discuss the proposal for constructing a road between Grimsby and Immingham. The county council declined to take part in the conference, however, on the ground that they were not prepared to contribute towards the construction of the road, and in the circumstances I do not feel that I could successfully urge the local authorities to re-open negotiations.
      Mr. WOMERSLEY: Is it not possible for the hon. Member to make special representations to the Lindsey County Council, as they appear to be the only authority standing out?
      Mr. MORRISON: As my reply indicates, such Action was taken in November, but the county council definitely replied that they would not contribute.

      KINGSTON ROAD, MERTON (BY-PASS).
      Mr. EDEasked the Minister of Transport if he has received representations urging the desirability of constructing a by-pass road to avoid the congestion of traffic in the Kingston Road, Merton, Surrey; and if he has yet sanctioned a scheme for this purpose?
      Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: Representations of the nature indicated have reached me from various quarters, and as the result of consultations between my
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      officers and the local authorities concerned, I hope that these authorities will now proceed urgently with their preparations for carrying out the most suitable of the various schemes which have been considered.

      SOUTH SHIELDS AND TYNEMOUTH (CROSS RIVER TRAFFIC).
      Mr. EDEasked the Minister of Transport if he can announce the name of the consulting engineer appointed to advise the county boroughs of South Shields and Tynemouth on a crossing of the Tyne between those boroughs; the fee to be paid; the amount to be defrayed by the Ministry; and the date by which the Report is to be before the county borough councils?
      Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: A provisional understanding has been reached as to the Appointment of consulting engineers, and is awaiting formal confirmation from the two authorities.

      HIGHWAYS AND COMMON LAND.
      Mr. EDEasked the Minister of Transport if it is the practice of his Department, when approving schemes involving the throwing of common land or manorial wastes into a highway, to provide for the throwing of at least an equivalent area of land into the common or waste?
      Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: Cases of this kind are not necessarily brought to the notice of my Department. Where, however, there is a statutory obligation to provide other land in exchange for common land acquired for road purposes, it is my practice to allow as grant-earning expenditure the cost of any land needed for the purpose.

    ELECTRICITY SUPPLIES.

      WORKING-CLASS HOUSES.
      Mr. ALPASSasked the Minister of Transport whether any municipalities install electricity in working-class houses on the easy payment plan. or by other special means; and, if so, will he give the names of such authorities?
      Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: At the end of the financial year 1928–29 upwards of 160 municipal undertakers had incurred expenditure on the provision of wiring in consumer's premises for hire or hire-

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      purchase, and others were in process of doing so. I am unable to say whether in all these cases the assisted wiring schemes apply specifically to working-class houses, but I should assume that they would as a general rule be open to all classes of private consumers.
      Mr. ALPASS: Will the hon. Member supply me with the names of some of those specific authorities?
      Mr. MORRISON: I will endeavour to do so.
      Mr. ALPASS: Thank you.

      CHARGES, SOMERSET, GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL
      Mr. ALPASSasked the Minister of Transport the prices charged to consumers for electricity in the counties of Somerset and Gloucester, and the city of Bristol, respectively?
      Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: As the answer is somewhat long and contains a number of figures, I will, with my bon. Friend's permission, circulate it with the OFFICIAL REPORT.
      Following is the answer:
      The latest particulars I have as regards the prices charged for electricity in the city of Bristol are:

      Per unit.

      For lighting only

      5d.

      For heating and cooking only

      ld.

      For combined domestic supplies:
      A tariff with a fixed charge based on rateable value plus ld. per unit.

      For power

      l½d.

      or a maximum demand rate of l½d. up to a certain consumption per quarter, plus ¾d. per unit for additional units.
      The charges for lighting and power are subject to a scale of discount according to consumption. In addition to the Corporation of Bristol, there are 28 other undertakers in the counties of Somerset and Gloucester, and if my hon. Friend will let me know the places in which he is more particularly interested, I will endeavour to supply him with any further information he may desire.

      HOLDING AND DISTRIBUTING COMPANIES (FINANCIAL RELATIONSHIPS).
      Mr. WELLOCKasked the Minister of Transport if he is satisfied that the financial and other operations and resources of every electricity distributing company are kept entirely separate from those of all other companies; and whether he will consider setting up an inquiry into the financial relationships between electricity holding companies and the distributing companies which they control?
      Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: The accounts of electricity distribution companies are in the form prescribed by the Electricity Commissioners. They are entirely separate from those of any finance or holding company controlling them and necessarily take no cognisance of the operations of such companies. The accounts are officially audited, and as at present advised I do not propose to institute an inquiry of the nature indicated by my hon. Friend in the last part of his question.

      POWER STATION, BATTERSEA.
      Sir K. WOODasked the Minister of Transport what is the present position concerning the erection of the electric power station at Battersea?
      Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: The Electricity Commissioners inform me that the London Power Company have not yet been able to complete their experiments, but that they will submit a Report to the Commissioners as soon as possible.

      HOUSE OF COMMONS (VENTILATION).
      Dr. FORGANasked the First Commissioner of Works whether be is aware that the existing system of ventilation in the Chamber has been declared by experts to be definitely prejudicial to health and that repeated recommendations of committees on the subject have been ignored; and whether, in view thereof, he will undertake to have the necessary alterations commenced not later than August next?
      The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Lansbury): The answer is in the negative.
      Dr. FORGAN: Are we to understand that there is a negative reply to each part of the question, or only to the latter part?
      Mr. LANSBURY: It has never been definitely decided that this building is unhealthy. As I have stated on previous occasions, there have been recommendations for some improvement, but these have been postponed until the financial position of the Government or the country is eased.
      Dr. FORGAN: Is it not a fact that the recent report declares that the conditions are definitely prejudicial to health? In view of that fact, is the necessary alteration to be indefinitely postponed, seeing that it has a bearing upon the health of Members of this House?
      Mr. LANSBURY: I must disagree with my hon. Friend about "definitely." Experts have thoroughly disagreed, as all experts do, on subjects of this kind. We cannot get the money to do the work.
      Mr. HARRIS: In spite of the very heavy expenditure involved in ventilating this place, has it ever been suggested that the atmosphere is really good?
      Mr. LANSBURY: It has never been suggested that it is very bad; it is middling.
      Major COLFOX: Is it not a fact that Members of Parliament, when they get over the perils of a General Election, often live to an advanced old age?

      INDIA (PRICES AND WAGES).
      Major GRAHAM POLEasked the Secretary of State for India whether the Government will consider the possibility of continuing again the publication of the annual Prices and Wages in India, discontinued in 1923?
      The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Wedgwood Benn): I will communicate my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion to the Government of India.

      WAR OFFICE (SUPERINTENDENT OF LITHOGRAPHIC PRINTERS).
      Mr. MACLEANasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that a board of selection interviewed on 4th March a number of applicants for a position as superintendent of lithographic printers, and that one of the conditions laid down to applicants was that those who appeared most suitable would be required to undergo a practical test of their capabilities; whether he can state if such a test was held; and, if so, when, and how many of the applicants interviewed had to undergo the test?
      The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. T. Shaw): A selection board interviewed certain candidates on the date stated. It was arranged beforehand that those of them who were not already personally known to the Department should undergo a practical test of their capabilities if the board selected them for it; but as no such candidate was so selected for the test the need for it has not arisen.
      Mr. MACLEAN: Is it not the case that on the notice sent to each of those selected to appear before she committee there was no such statement made that those who were personally known would not require to undergo a, test, but that notification was given that all would have to undergo a test?
      Mr. SHAW: I have not the circular which was issued, and I ea mot say what appeared in it.
      Mr. MACLEAN: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept a copy of the circular that. I will send to him?
      Mr. SHAW: With pleasure.

      NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.
      Mr. STEPHENasked the Minister of Pensions (1) the number of cases for educational grant which came before the Special Grants Committee last year for consideration; the number of cases disallowed; and the number of times the committee met to deal with those particular cases;
      (2) why no record is kept by the Special Grants Committee of applications from Glasgow or other cities for

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      educational grants; and whether there is any member of this committee who is familiar with Scottish standards of life and education to advise his or her fellow members in cases of applications from Glasgow for grants for educational purposes?
      The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Mr. F. O. Roberts): About 1,850 fresh applications for educational grants were received by the Special Grants Committee during last year. In about 850 of these grants of one kind or another were made, the remainder being found ineligible for assistance on various grounds. The records of the committee are not (any more than are those of the Ministry) kept on a geographical basis, and it would, I fear, be impossible to record separately the number of cases from Glasgow or other towns without considerable additional labour and expense. One member of the Special Grants Committee is a member of a Scottish War Pensions Committee. Grants for educational purposes are, however, dealt with mainly by delegation to a sub-committee of the main committee and its officers. This sub-committee, whose members have both technical and practical experience of education, held 22 meetings in the course of the year.
      Mr. STEPHEN: Is the Minister of Pensions aware that there is no representative of the working-classes on this Committee, and as these decisions may adversely affect the interests of working-class children will he consider appointing someone specifically to represent the working-classes?
      Mr. ROBERTS: I understand that this Committee is representative of all classes.
      Mr. STEPHEN: Will the Minister of Pensions tell me the names of those representing the working-classes on this Committee?
      Mr. ROBERTS: I have not the names of the Committee in front of me, but I shall be glad to get the list and show it to my hon. Friend.
      Mr. STEPHEN: Is my hon. Friend aware that I have already asked for the names of the working-class representatives on this committee and that he informed me that there is no specific working-class representative on it. In view
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      of the fact that it is the applications of working-class children which are being refused, will he not see his way to appoint someone to see that their interests are adequately represented?
      Mr. ROBERTS: I will see whether their interests are adequately represented or not.

      CENSUS, 1931 (DOMESTIC ANIMALS).
      Mr. FREEMANasked the Minister of Health (1), whether he will make provision in the 1931 Census for particulars of all domestic and captive animals in the Returns;
      (2), the date of the Census to be taken in 1931; and whether any changes are contemplated in the statistical Returns to be made?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Miss Lawrence): The date of the 1931 Census and the nature of the inquiries to be included therein are receiving consideration. My right hon. Friend is not as yet in a position to make any general announcement, but he cannot hold out any hope of dealing with the subject mentioned in my hon. Friend's first question.
      Mr. FREEMAN: Will the Parliamentary Secretary consider the desirability of making a record of horses, dogs and cats?
      An HON, MEMBER: And monkeys!
      Sir A. POWNALL: May I ask whether the hon. Lady cannot make an exception for the right hon. Member the Secretary of State for War with regard to rabbits?

      RED BIDDY.
      Mr. C. WILLIAMSasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he is taking to protect the revenue from evasion caused by the manufacture and sale of the Scottish beverage known as red biddy?
      The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence): I have no reason to suppose that there is any evasion of the appropriate duty payable in respect of the article in question, which, as my right hon. Friend has pre-

      423
      viously explained to the hon. Member, is understood to be a cheap red wine of either British or foreign origin. In either case the Duty is secured by the usual Revenue machinery.
      Mr. WILLIAMS: Can the Financial Secretary tell me why the Chancellor of the Exchequer takes no interest in collecting this Duty from a highly alcoholic beverage and whether he will not go into it a little more carefully in order to collect the highest amount of Duty possible?
      Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: It is not right to say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer takes no interest in collecting this Duty. In so far as it is correctly imposed, it is collected in the ordinary way.
      Mr. MACLEAN: Will the Financial Secretary supply the hon. Member with a sample of red biddy?

      SAFEGUARDING DUTIES.
      Sir F. HALLasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in connection with their consideration of the question of the retention of Safeguarding Duties, the Government propose to draw any distinction in the case of goods manufactured abroad under unfair labour conditions compared with those observed in corresponding industries in this country?
      The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. W. R. Smith): I have been asked to reply. The policy of the Government in regard to these duties has repeatedly been enunciated, and I have nothing to add to the statements already made.
      Sir F. HALL: Are we to understand that it is to be the policy of His Majesty's Government to allow these manufactured foreign goods, produced under conditions which are not allowed in this country, to be dumped here free?
      Mr. SMITH: The hon. and gallant Member must take Government policy to be in accordance with the statements which have been made.
      Sir F. HALL: Are not the suggestions I have made in accordance with the ideas of the Government?

      INCOME TAX (STOCKS AND SHARES TRANSACTIONS).
      Mr. MALONEasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether the Inland Revenue Department has any Regulations, and, if So, what are the Regulations, whereby the transfer of stocks and shares by the original holder to a nominee are recorded and duly notified to the inspector of taxes of the district in which both the original holder and the nominee reside?
      Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: No, Sir.
      Mr. MALONEasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the Inland Revenue Department has a regulation whereby accredited brokers and dealers in stocks and shares, in selling cum dividend, prior to or during the period the books of a company are closed to make out dividend warrants, are permitted to issue to buyers of such securities vouchers to enable them to reclaim tax deducted at source in all cases where the sellers receive the company dividend warrant and voucher for reclaim of tax deducted at source; and what check has the Inland Revenue Department to prevent the seller presenting the company's voucher for the reclaim of tax, bearing in mind that the buyer also receives a duplicate voucher from the broker or dealer for the reclaim of tax?
      Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I am aware of the practice described in the question. The prevention of fraud is a subject that is constantly Engaging the attention of the Revenue Department, and my hon. Friend may be assured that, although for obvious reasons I cannot disclose the methods adopted, the danger of this particular form of fraud is not overlooked.

      CHANNEL TUNNEL.
      Mr. LEIF JONES (for Mr. RUNCIMAN)asked the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the Government to print for the convenience of Members of Parliament the evidence given before the Channel Tunnel Committee in somewhat the same way as was done in the case of Lord Lansdowne's Committee on the Channel Tunnel scheme in 1883?
      The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): The two inquiries referred

      425
      to in the question were quite different in character. The one of which Lord Lansdowne was Chairman was a Joint Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament, but that which has just reported was a Committee of the Economic Advisory Council. The proceedings of the latter were confidential, and the evidence received by it was submitted on the express understanding that it would not be made public. It will therefore not be published.
      Major COLFOX: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the desirability of urging upon Lord Rothermere the advisability of investing some of his surplus wealth in this undertaking?

      ADVOWSONS (SALE).
      Mr. BRACKENasked the Prime Minister whether he will consider the introduction of legislation to prevent the sale of advowsons?
      The PRIME MINISTER: The answer is in the negative.
      Mr. BRACKEN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the advowson of the parish church at, Hampstead has been sold to a partisan church society without the knowledge of the vicar or the parish council, and does he not think that this traffic in advowsons is a great public scandal?
      The PRIME MINISTER: I understand that the proper authority to deal with with this matter has it at the present moment under review—that is the Church Assembly.
      Mr. BRACKEN: Will their decision be implemented by the House of Commons?

TITHE REMISSION.
Mr. KEDWARD: I beg to move,
"That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the remission of tithe rent-charge and for purposes connected therewith."
At the present moment much of the agricultural land of the country is suffering from very heavy and excessive tithe rent-charge. While the Bill that I seek to introduce does not deal with the principle of tithe, it deals with the question
426
of giving remissions on land that is too heavily burdened. When the tithe was introduced in 1836 the conditions were very different from those which obtain to-day. The price then of wheat was 56s. a quarter, barley 36s., and oats 22s., and when the commutation was made no doubt much of the land which was then growing corn could bear the burden which was placed upon it. Times have changed, and much of the land that was arable has since gone down to grass and is still called upon to pay a very heavy tithe rent-charge—so heavy that in many cases it is quite impossible for it to issue out of the land. You have the strange result that many people have struggled to pay this tithe, have been unable to do so and have been distrained upon, and because the authorities have pressed the distraint to the utmost possible limits, the land has been going out of cultivation and many people who were employed on the land have ceased to be so employed. The land has become derelict.
There is provision in the Act of 1891 to give tithe payers the right to appeal against excessive tithe, that is tithe if it exceeds two-thirds of the annual value of the land. The Bill would give to the tithe payer the right to appeal against his tithe where it exceeded 3s. in the pound of the annual value of the land. We take it that 3s. in the pound is really limiting tithe to what it was supposed to represent, namely, one-tenth of the annual increase, one-tenth of the produce of the land. At the present moment you have land, grass land, bearing a tithe rent-charge of 10s. or 12s. an acre, with a rental value of approximately the same. I have here details of a case that I would like to give to the House, as it puts in a nutshell the grievance that. the Bill seeks to remedy. On 23rd February of this year in a certain county a man was sued for tithe rent-charge and he stated his case in these terms:
"He bought the farm in 1906. Tithe was then £39 per year upon it. At that period he sold his barley at 37s. 6d. a quarter, his wheat at 34s., and his oats at from 27s. to 30s. a quarter. Defendant's head workman received £1 a week with the usual farm workers' allowances, and other wages were about 18s. per week. In 1930 he was faced with tithes amounting to £62 18s. a year, against £39. His barley was almost unsaleable at 26s., and wheat was round about 36s. a quarter. Best oats were from 17s. to 18s. for extra good

427
samples. The wages were £2 2s. 6d. for head men and a fixed wage of 32s. 6d. for other farm workers.
His Honour said he was very sorry, but he could only administer the law."
Here was a man faced with a tithe rent-charge practically double what it had been when he purchased the farm. His wages were up. the price of his commodities down, and he is saddled with a tax which cannot possibly issue out of the land and which he cannot possibly meet. The tithe owner is in the position of having to issue a summons for payment of this excessive charge, and, as one said to me the other day, he was very reluctant to do it. But Queen Anne's Bounty, now almost without soul, just comes down and issues distraint upon the land, and creates a very bad feeling in the villages. People who have been distrained upon for excessive tithe do not feel like going to church. I think that at any rate the time has come when this matter must be reviewed. In 1925 this House fixed tithe rent charge at 105 for every £100 worth of value, with £4 10s. for redemption. To-day, with the present price of corn, the value of it is about £68. Something will have to be done, because we are going to be faced with the position that a number of people cannot possibly pay, and the countryside is going to be devastated by a tax that cannot issue out of the land. I ask the House to look at the matter carefully and to give this Bill a First Reading, so that there may be the right to appeal against excessive tithe and so that the Court may order relief where the burden is really excessive.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Kedward, Viscount Elmley, Mr. Granville, Mr. Richard Russell, Mr. Haydn Jones, Mr. Pybus, Mr. Gray, Mr. Blindell, Mr. de Rothschild, and Mr. Dallas.
TITHE REMISSION BILL,
"to provide for the remission of tithe rent-charge and for purposes connected therewith," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 147.]

BILLS REPORTED.

  PORTSMOUTH CORPORATION BILL [Lords] (CERTIFIED BILL).
  Reported, with Amendments: Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  Bill, as amended, to be considered upon Monday next, pursuant to the Order of the House of 11th December.

  BRIGHTON AND HOVE GAS BILL.
  Reported, with Amendments: Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

  UNITED KINGDOM TEMF ERANCE AND GENERAL PROVIDENT INS CITUTION BILL [Lords].
  Reported, without Amendment; Report to lie upon the Table.
  Bill to be read the Third time.
  BOROUGH MARKET (SOUTHWARK) BILL.
  Reported, with Amendments: Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
  MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (BLANDFORD FORUM EXTENSION) BILL.
  Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Order confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
  Bill to be read the Third time Tomorrow.
  BOURNEMOUTH Co PORAT I ON BILL.
  Reported, with Amendments, from the Local Legislation Committee (Section A); Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  CAPITAL PUSISHMENT.
  That they give leave to tie Lord Archbishop of York, the Viscount Bridgeman, the Viscount Brantford, the Lord Buck-master, and the Lord Darling to attend in order to their being examined as witnesses before the Select Committee appointed by the Commons on Capital Punishment, their Lordships consenting.

  STANDING ORDERS.
  Resolutions reported from the Select Committee;
  1. "That, in the case of the Middlesex County Council Bill [Lords], Petition for additional Provision, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to insert their additional Provision if the Committee on the Bill think fit."

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  2. "That, in the case of the Torquay and Paignton Traction Bill [Lords], Petition for Bill the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to proceed with their Bill."
  Resolutions agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 3) BILL.

    OVERSEA WIRELESS TELEPHONY.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
    Sir HILTON YOUNG: This Motion provides the first convenient opportunity for calling attention to a matter of public interest affecting in a very vital way the strategic, political and economic interests, not only of this country, but of the Empire as a, whole. I refer to the express decision of the Government and the determination of the Post Office to develop our oversea wireless telephonic system, of communications without cooperation with the existing Communications Company. The magnitude of the
    issue needs little emphasis. The most characteristic feature of our State, compared with any other State, is its scattered nature, and its most vital interest is communications. An interesting feature of the present day is the extraordinary speed of evolution of means of communication. Wireless telegraphy has followed swiftly upon cables, and wireless telephony is now following swiftly upon telegraphy. In the near future wireless telephonic communication will be the most practical and most important method of communication between all the scattered parts of the Empire.
    Two years ago, in 1928, as a result of the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference—which was called together because of the growing competition between wireless and cables as means of communication—a great public utility corporation was formed in this country to co-ordinate and rationalise the cable and the wireless systems of oversea communications. It was a matter of political controversy at the time, but we are not concerned with that political controversy to-day. We are concerned, simply, with making the best of the existing state of affairs. Now that this great company has come into existence, the important fact for us to realise to-day is that the company possesses an existing establishment of
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    beam stations which provide means of carrying on various wireless telegraphic communication. These communications are tested, efficient and practical. As regards telegraphy, they represent a going concern in the communications system of the day.
    In connection with the existing system, the Communications Company by long experiment, and by the brilliant inventive genius of its experts—in particular the celebrated name of Marconi has been associated with these experiments—has developed a system of oversea wireless telephony which has been tested by practical experiments with Canada, Autralia and other parts of the world. It is in existence, under practical conditions. Having brought these tests up to the point of practicability, this public utility company, founded by the State, offered to the Post Office its system, its plant and its staff, as a means of securing immediately for the country a practical system of oversea wireless telephony. That offer was in accordance with the expectations and the intentions which were formed on the institution of the Company. It is clear, beyond the possibility of contradiction, that at the time of the institution of the Communications Company, it was contemplated that it should, on behalf of the Post Office, carry on oversea telephonic communication, as well as oversea telegraphic communication. The eighth recommendation in the report of the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference is as follows:
    "The Post Office in London will reserve the right to conduct the external telephonic services of Great Britain, hut will agree with the Company the terms on which it will have the right to use the Company's wireless stations, or portions thereof for telephonic purposes."
    Mr. L'ESTRANGE MALONE: If they wanted to.
    Sir H. YOUNG: Quite clearly that recommendation does not imply any absolute obligation on the Post Office to make use of the Communications Company's system or outfit. That is agreed; but I think it must also he admitted, that the perfectly clear meaning of the Conference's recommendation is that the Post Office should, at any rate, give an opportunity to the Communications Company to act as its agent in the business. The complaint to-day is not that the Post Office has denied the company a right,

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    but that it has refused even to approach the matter by way of negotiations and that it will not even give the Communications Company an opportunity to make good its offer. That offer, is to this effect—that if the Post Office will but give the Company the opportunity, the Company will, as soon as it has had time to construct the necessary apparatus, give us an immediately practical commercial service of direct communications with the great Dominions, Australia, Canada, and South Africa, and with India. The complaint is that that offer has received no response, that it has been rejected, and that the Communications Company has not been given any opportunity of establishing the value of its proposed services.
    Let me pause, at this moment, to clear away a misapprehension it is urgently to be desired that this matter should be decided on the sole issue of national interest, without reference to confusing issues of party politics which belong to an altogether different sphere. There is here no question whatever of the vexed issued between public and private ownership. There is no question whatever of depriving the Post Office of full control and monopoly in oversea wireless communication, telephonic as well as telegraphic. That is admitted. The proposal which we have to discuss is that the Post Office, while retaining control and monopoly, should use this public utility company as its agent, and take advantage of its system; that it should art least consent to negotiations, to see whether it is not possible to arrive at some reasonable basis on which it might use the company as its agent. Hon. Members opposite seem disposed to raise an issue between nationalisation and private enterprise on this matter. We are prepared to debate that issue on the appropriate occasion, but it does not arise in this case. The Post Office and the Communications Company are, almost in equal measure, public bodies. The Communications Company is controlled in its profits and in its rates. It is subject to the supervision of an advisory committee which is an official body. It performs public duties as regards the maintenance of strategic cables; and its chairman is in substance appointed by the Government. In all essentials, the issue
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    here is between two public bodies and not between a public and a private body.
    One can best make clear the gravity of the position by putting the issue between the Post Office and the Communications Company in the following manner. The Post Office, as we understand from the pronouncements of the Postmaster-General, refuse to enter into negotiations with Communications Company, because they desire to establish their own system of oversea telephonic communication concentrated at Rugby and Baldock. Let us accept for the moment this alternative, between the Post Office co-operating with the Communications Company, and the Post Office acting entirely alone. I think I can show that there are other and wider issues involved, but let us take it, for the moment, that it is an issue simply between a service conducted jointly by the Post Office and the Communications Company as one alternative, and a service conducted by the Post Office, unassisted. Even in that case, without any profound acquaintance with the subject, anybody who studies the public documents which are available, must be convinced that there is a strong prima facie case that the service would be conducted more economically and efficiently by the Post Office taking the Communications Company into co-operation and using that company as its agent.
    The issues involved include technical considerations so intricate that I am quite unqualified to deal with them, and. if I may say so, perhaps even the House generally would find very great difficulty in doing so. I shall not find it necessary, however, to put any of these technical issues before the House. All that is claimed on behalf of the Communications Company is not an immediate decision by this House or by the Postmaster-General but merely that this question should receive, what it has never yet received, impartial consideration by some tribunal capable of giving an impartial decision. There is a prima facie case for an inquiry by an impartial tribunal. The first issue that arises is on 4.0 p.m. the question of the promptitude and readiness of a service. The Communications Company tells us that it can give us at once a service of oversea telephony with all the great Dominions. That is worth having.

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    That is the next long step that we eagerly await in binding the Empire together by the links of communication. What has the Post Office to offer, on its own supposition of an unsupported Post Office service, in return? Nothing immediately. It has hopes; it believes that it can do something some day. But the something it believes it may do some day is no more than to erect at Rugby and Baldock an imitation of the system already being conducted by the Communications Company. It does not seem a very alluring practical alternative. The second issue, and one to which this House will pay particular attention, is not the efficiency of the services, but the economy, and, first of all, the question of capital economy. Which is going to be the cheaper service of the two? We want a good service first, hut we want a cheap service hardly less.
    As regards capital economy, how can there be a doubt as between the offer of the Communications Company and the suggestion of the Post Office? The Communications Company has the beam wireless station already in existence, by which, as it tells us, it can conduct an efficient oversea telephonic system. No fresh capital outlay to speak of is required. The House will understand that on one of the systems, at any rate, proposed by the company, by the same apparatus already existing, the Marconi beam wireless, immediate oversea telephonic communication can be provided. On the other. hand the Post Office would need to have some capital outlay, at any rate, in order to develop new stations, merely indeed to duplicating the stations of the Communications Company, at Rugby and Baldock. There is controversy as to what that amount is put at. It is put as high as £120,000. The Postmaster-General tells us it is not so much. That is one of the things we want to see inquired into by an impartial tribunal.
    The question as to running costs of the two alternative systems has been so confused that it leads us to suppose that really the Postmaster-General and his advisers have not got to the bottom of the matter. We were told in the first statement that the running costs at Rugby would mean an economy of £17,000 upon the system suggested by the Communications Company. That seemed to be worth
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    serious consideration, but when I asked the Postmaster-General a question the other day in the House, to which he was courteous enough to reply, as to the actual cost based upon inclusive estimates, including overhead charges as well as running costs, it appears that the Post Office system is not going to cost £17,000 less than the estimates of the company, but £3,000 more. The very short space of time which elapsed between the original estimate, which was favourable to the Postmaster-General, and the revised estimate, which was unfavourable, leaves one in considerable doubt whether the matter has been thought out with sufficient care by the right hon. Gentleman's advisers.
    Let me pass from the tedious but essential financial aspect to one which comes nearer the essence of the matter. The Communications Company, this public utility body of ours, is in control of all our other oversea communications. It has control of the cables and the wireless telegraphy. Does it need any expert knowledge to realise that the new method of communication by wireless telephony can be managed in a more businesslike way by those who are already managing all the other systems of oversea communications? Is there any meaning in the words "co-ordination" and "rationalisation," or is there not? Obviously, it must be more advantageous that one body should have general control of all methods of communication. I will give a single instance by which it can be realised, without deep technical knowledge, the enormous advantage which would come from co-ordination in the hands of this single authority. The Communications Company has control of wireless beam stations all over the Empire; the Postmaster-General has not. The Communications Company can relay its messages all over the Empire; the Post master-General has got prima facie no facilities for doing so at al. The most striking instance, I think, is Australia. The difficulty in sending a message to Australia is that it has to go half-way, as it were, in the dark, and half-way in the light. You want different conditions of transmission for the two sets of circumstances. The Company that controls the aerial stations in India can thus change the conditions for the dark and the light part of the journey at the appro-

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    priate place. It can relay. The Post Office has no such facilities, and cannot give so efficient a system.
    There is a strong prima facie reason to suppose that the Communications Company can give a better service over longer hours of a more practical sort, cheaper than the Post Office can do it. The matter comes to a head in a technical controversy about the size of the aerials. That underlies a great deal of the reluctance of the Post Office to meet the Communications Company in the matter. They take a different view on this technical question. I only say in regard to the controversy as to whether the bigger or the smaller aerial is better, that the Post Office engineers are on one side of the case and the Marchese Marconi is on the other. On a previous occasion, when there was that division of forces, the question was whether for the development of wireless telegraphy we should use the long or the short wave. On that occasion the Marchese Marconi turned out to be right. When we come, therefore, to another issue on a technical question with the same distribution of forces, recalling the previous occasion we must feel a good deal of anxiety as to the outcome of the present controversy.
    The House will appreciate that it is impossible to establish a case one way or the other to-day. One can only give reasons for questioning the recent
    decision. The question has not been properly considered or decided. We
    have had to consider it in the first place, a Cabinet Committee. On the Cabinet Committee the Postmaster-General sat himself; it can hardly therefore be looked upon as an impartial tribunal, or one which could consider such a question as I have put before the House without suspicion that it had a particular affection for one system more than another. The right hon. Gentleman will not think that I cast any reflection on him: it is impossible for anyone in his position to be placed in a situation of the sort to which I have referred, and be perfectly sure that he can bring to the consideration of the question, so intimately connected with the interests of his own Department, an absolutely impartial mind.
    In the second place, we had a reference to a couple of experts. I have the greatest appreciation of the careful attention and
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    brilliant talents brought by the experts to the discharge of their task, but their task was an impossible one. They were asked to decide upon a case stated in a dispute between the Post Office and the Communications Company. Under what conditions? It was a case stated by the Post Office without any reference to the Communications Company at all. What is the value of an opinion given in a case stated under those conditions? It offends against the elementary idea of what is businesslike and fair. The result was precisely what we should expect. One cannot read the questions submitted by the Postmaster-General to the experts without seeing that the questions are heavily weighted in favour of the case for the Post Office. The Communications Company had no opportunity of putting their case or of considering what the issues presented to the experts were to be. The first and most notable thing in the answers of the experts is that on the whole they think one system as good as the other. That is a remarkable result considering the conditions under which they were consulted.
    In the second place, they say in effect, in the last sentence of Their report, that they consider the issues submitted to them are really meaningless. It is not to be wondered at, considering the conditions submitted, that they should not be able to find any real issue at all. By reading a little more between the lines, I venture to say that the whole effect of the expert's report was a strong recommendation to the Postmaster-General to be sensible and co-operate with the Communications Company, because, as far as they are informed, there is really nothing to choose between the systems, and both will lose much by failure to cooperate. That leads me to the conclusion that there can be no satisfaction that justice has been done to national interests by the method with which this matter has been dealt hitherto, and that we are entitled to demand, for the sake of the public welfare in so big a question, that there shall be a decision by an impartial tribunal.
    There is a bigger issue still involved than that I have put so far, as to which is the better plan, the co-operation of the Communications Company with the Post Office, or the Post Office acting alone. In fact, if the Post Office do not co-operate

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    with the company, they cannot act alone. They will have to rely upon somebody else. They are, in fact, already relying upon somebody else, and the somebody else upon whom they are relying is no British interest at all but American interests. Does this not show that we are, indeed, confronted with a grave issue? I will give examples to prove this very grave allegation, that the Postmaster-General and the Post Office are preferring to rely in this matter upon foreign interests, owing to their inexplicable determination not to co-operate with the appropriate British interests. The Communications Company offer us a direct service with the great Dominions. With Canada at the present time there is no direct service. To secure a service with Canada the Post Office has to rely on American interests. Is that satisfactory? Is it not humiliating both to us and to our fellow-subjects in the Dominion of Canada?
    There is another instance. The Communications Company tell us that they can give us at once a direct service with the Argentine. At the present time the Post Office, who really seem willing to rely upon anybody rather than upon British interests, are providing a service for the Argentine through Berlin. They are going into the corners of the world to find some means to carry on without employing British interests with the result that the service is inferior and the profits are made by the German company. The Postmaster-General may say that this is only temporary, and that he hopes in the course of time to be able to get a direct service. That is problematical. It may be so, or it may not. At any rate, we know for certain that the Communications Company can give us a service at once, and even if it be temporary, it is an important indication of the manner in which the Postmaster-General rejects the appropriate British support in order to rely upon foreign interests.
    There is another and more important consideration. It is not operations, if I may say so, that are so important with regard to the future. What is of vital importance with regard to the future is that the oversea telephone system made use of by ourselves and our Dominions and Colonies should be developed as a British affair, by British brains, and British research, and British methods, and
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    that we should not in these natters have to rely upon American enterprise. That last will be the result of the Post master-General's action. If he will not cooperate with the Communications Company it is not possible for him to employ anybody else but Americana. What is already going on? The machinery which is employed at Rugby is to it, very large extent supplied by the British subsidiary of the American interests, the Standard Telegraph and Cable Company. I believe that there are American engineers and servants of that company actually at Rugby. We might ask the Postmaster-General how many American engineers and servants of this American subsidiary company are at the present time in the employment of the Post Office or working at Baldock and Rugby. It is a question of some interest.
    Refusing the assistance of the British corporation, the Postmaster-General is driven to make use of American support. From that, two serious consequences follow. The first is that as regards our own international communications with the British Empire overseas. we shall be in the hands of the Americans with regard to methods, and to some extent with regard to operation. Surely anybody might pause there and think they had pointed out a grave enough danger to our national system, but there is a danger graver still, an interest wider than that. At the present time the world is developing its system of oversea wireless telephony. All over the world it is being instituted. It is a new affair. Nations and Dominions of our own are mapping out their wireless telephonic future. There is a keen competition for that future between the British nation and the American nation. It is at the point, on a wide front of competition now between the two nations, where the competition is perhaps keenest and of most political significance. In that competition, to make the oversea telephonic system of the world, as it were, based upon British brains and British capital, and not upon American brains and American capital, what is the position of the British interest when it is neglected and cold-shouldered by its own Government? Here is the gravity of the position. The Postmaster-General, at this critical point for the future of the world's communications, is doing his

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    utmost, by this inexplicable policy, to make that future an American future and not a British future. At the present moment, for instance, Egypt desires to establish a system of oversea wireless telephony. One would expect it to be developed by British brains and capital, and to become, as it were, harmonious with our own system here. But the effort to make it so is held up because the Americans can boast at the present time, as the leader of the American interests has boasted, in giving public evidence before an inquiry in the United States, that he holds the British communications in the hollow of his hand.
    It was the intention of the Conference that instituted the system, and, 1 think, of this House, that we should give an example of businesslike rationalisation in the interests of the country as a whole. That I find expressed in the Report of the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference, where it says:
    "The full benefits of the scheme "—
    that is, of co-ordination of communications—
    "can only he secured by the whole-hearted co-operation on the part of all the Governments concerned and of the undertakings conducting telegraphic communications throughout the Empire. The establishment"—
    and let me ask the House to note these words—
    "or authorisation of services within the Empire, which work in opposition to, or indeed out of harmony with, the above scheme would deprive it of much of its, value and would militate against the objects which we have endeavoured to attain."
    It is a tragic thing—some of us may think a humiliating thing—that after that aspiration has been so clearly expressed on behalf of all parts of the Empire the first defection, the bad example, should come from the Imperial Government. It is nothing less that they are doing than seeking to erect a new part of the Imperial communications system, in the words of this reference, "out of harmony with" the system which it was the object of the Conference to erect. I would make an appeal to the Postmaster-General not to close his ears on this subject. He will understand that the plea is not on behalf of any corporation or any interest, however public the posi-
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    tion it may occupy. It is a plea inspired by apprehension lest, in a matter of such vital moment to the nation, we should be less than ourselves, and should be prepared to depend upon the strenuous forces across the Atlantic.
    I would ask him two things—and I trust he will understand that there is great moderation in the demand which is put at the end of an argument so deeply felt by many on this side. In the first place, I would ask this, that in order to enable us to judge where we do stand, in order to allay the suspicion that arises when we see a British Government Department preferring foreign to national interests, he will now publish all the documents which were before the Cabinet Committee, that he will give us an opportunity of judging the whole evidence, and of seeing exactly upon what basis his decision was come to—when we have done that, we ask that he should take the only course which we believe can possibly be open to him in order to allay the fears caused by his action—that he should recognise that neither a Cabinet Committee nor the experts whose opportunities were so limited can possibly set this matter at rest, that he will set it at rest in the only manner in which the public mind can be set at ease, by reference to such an impartial tribunal as a. Select Committee of this House, which will judge it in no interest except that. of the nation.
    The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Lees-Smith): I think it will be for the convenience of the House if I speak now, because the only explanation of the reasons for the Government action has been in answer to a few questions, and I think that probably this matter can be better debated if the full circumstances which the Government had to take into account are stated early in the Debate. I certainly have no complaint to make of the manner in which this subject has been introduced, and I hope to be able to show to the House that the decision of the Government has not been taken on account of any political doctrine, but has been reached on a consideration of national interests. If I can show that, I hope that this subject may become one of general acceptance, and that the Post Office can proceed with its work in the matter

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    The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir H. Young), who opened the subject, explained how this issue has arisen. The late Government leased the beam stations for wireless telegraphy to the Communications Company under conditions and circumstances which he described, but they reserved the future of wireless telephony, and, in spite of what he said, I think I shall be able to show a little later that the late Government and the Imperial Conference deliberately refused to give any undertaking that it would use the beam stations for future telephonic development.
    That was the position which I found when I came into office, and, after I had been in office only a few weeks—I think it was in August—I received a letter from the Communications Company, from the chairman, followed up, I think, by other communications from Mr. Kellaway and Sir John Pender, suggesting that now the Government should discuss the question of using the beam stations, on payment of a rent, for the development of telephonic services to Canada, Australia, India and South Africa in the first instance, of course to be followed later by general development to the world as a whole. I think it may put the House in possession of the facts in the best way if I tell them what were the considerations which were before my mind at that time, as a layman, without any of the material which has since been accumulated, by which 1 had to try at any rate to come to some preliminary conclusions on the subject.
    There were two alternatives, and one has been put by the right hon. Gentleman very graphically this afternoon. The first alternative was to use the beam stations, and their advantages are broadly as he has described them. They have the equipment, they have the receivers, they have the transmitters, they have the aerials, and therefore it seems obvious that by combining telegraphy and telephony in, so to speak, one set of apparatus, the most economical results can be achieved. That is what the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out. That is the side of the picture that he has seen, the side that he has seen very much more clearly than the other side, which very soon revealed itself to me. The other side was this—and it was not
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    reached lightly or carelessly. I visited the great wireless station at Rugby—and I shall be very pleased if any Members of this House will themselves make such a visit—and there I found that there was a great wireless telephone service already in existence, the greatest commercial oversea telephone service in the world, which the Post Office engineers had added to the telegraphic service which was originally initiated there.
    The question arises as to whether the advantage of combination in one instrument on the one side would not be outweighed by the advantage of concentration on one site at Rugby with its receiving station at Baldock. What do you find there? There, you have the aerial system pointing to the United States; walk a few yards, and there is the ground plotted out on which there will be an aerial system pointing to Canada; walk a few yards in the other direction, and you have your system pointing to South Africa, a few more yards to India, and a few more yards to Australia. You find already plotted out the whole system by which, in the course of a walk. you can cut across all the lines of conversation from Rugby to every part of the world. That is what the right hon. Gentleman did not so clearly explain to the House.
    The question, therefore, before us was whether, with the reductions in overhead charges and so on, what might be called rationalisation at Rugby did not give greater advantages than combination in a single instrument at the beam station. In deciding this issue, one had to decide which was the more efficient of the two alternatives offered to the Government, and which was the more economical. On the question of efficiency, an issue arose to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred. The stations of the Marconi Communications Company have developed a system of aerials with very high masts running to about 280 feet in height. The Rugby engineers so far—as the right hon. Gentleman said—from duplicating the beam stations, have repudiated what is the main feature of the beam station. The Rugby engineers have, on the contrary, preferred the comparatively low masts, and have developed their telephonic aerials on masts 4 between 120 and 150 feet.
    We were met with this claim. The Marchese Marconi and the representatives of

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    the Communications Company argued that there was such an overwhelming superiority in the system of aerials with high masts that no other system would stand by its side. On the other hand, the Post Office engineers advised us that they had deliberately rejected the high mast system on the grounds of expense, and that the high mast aerial system costs roughly about £34,000, but the low mast aerial array costs about £3,500. Although there was a certain loss of power with the low aerial, they had made up for it by developing a very powerful transmitter, so that, taking transmitter and aerial together, the Rugby system gave as much power and, I think, more power than the Marconi aerial array. These were highly technical considerations, and the Government did what I think was the natural and proper thing to do.
    We are asked to have yet another inquiry, but I say that no Government has ever inquired into a subject like this more carefully than we have done. There was, first, the Post Office inquiry by their own engineers, and the matter was referred at my request to a Cabinet Committee. The Government are greatly indebted to Lord Thomson, to my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and to my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department, who, with me, sat on that Cabinet Committee. I am bound to say, when the right hon. Gentleman complained that I had sat as a member of a Cabinet Committee which was to advise the Government on this matter, that his doctrine is not only highly improper, but highly unconstitutional. If the right hon. Gentleman believes that the Postmaster-General, who is the adviser of the Government on telephone matters, is to be forbidden, because the Post Office is attacked by an outside corporation and in the Press, to be even one member of a Cabinet Committee whose decisions were ultimately to be ratified by the Government as a whole, I say that the right hon. Gentleman is reducing the Postmaster-General to a position which no Minister ought to be called upon to occupy.
    The matter, then, was referred to the Cabinet Committee, who decided to refer the matter to these two experts, whose authority on this subject has not been
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    challenged since their names were known, and has not been challenged, and will not be challenged in this House to-day. We referred this matter separately to the two experts. We told each of them that we were referring it to the other,, and, when they had given their independent reports, it was found that they were in such complete agreement, that they finally sent in a joint report to the Cabinet Committee. That gives their views even more weight than they otherwise would have had. The House has the report of the experts in their possession, but, in order to explain exactly the meaning of the questions put, perhaps I may tell the House what was the nature of the evidence and counter-evidence which was put before them. The Post Office engineers, first of all, argued that their system was cheaper; they then argued that, because their system was cheaper—because the low mast aerial system was about £30,000 cheaper than the other—it possessed a greater degree of adaptability to new inventions than the Marconi system. As they pointed out, wireless telephony changes every month, and you must be ready to take advantage of new adaptations. If you have a cheap aerial system, you can scrap it as new developments occur. If you have an expensive aerial system, you have liabilities which tie you to the old methods.
    They further pointed this out—and this is a point of very great importance in connection with the question of hours and guaranteed service for the different Dominions. The Post Office engineers argued that, if you are to guarantee hours of service, and if you are to get a reliable service all over the world, you must have more than one wave-length, because, owing to climatic and electrical disturbances, a wave-length which fades at one period of the day can have its place taken by another. Therefore, they argued, three wave-lengths are necessary for a reliable service. A new wave-length means a new aerial; with a cheap aerial you get a cheap wave-length, and for that reason the Post Office system would give three wave-lengths to each of the Dominions, whereas the Marconi system, with its expensive aerials and expensive wave-lengths, will give only two to most of the Dominions, and to Australia, to which the right hon. Gentleman most frequently referred, it will give only one. These are the questions which were put

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    to the experts. I will read three or four sentences which are most important from their Report:
    "A brief answer to the first question is, therefore, that apart from future development both systems are probably equally capable of providing satisfactory telephonic communication between two points for a given number of hours per day.… As regards future developments we think that the adoption of the more elastic aerial system, namely, that with the lower masts"—
    that is the Rugby system—
    "would be advantageous since equally satisfactory results could be attained with a smaller expenditure of money."
    They also say:
    "There appears to be no reason for supposing that an effective aerial array would need masts over 180 feet in height, and there is no doubt that the cost of masts increases very rapidly when they are over 200 feet in height. The Marconi Company were pioneers in beam development and the Marconi beam stations already erected are handicapped somewhat by this fact. The Post Office system of aerial arrays being carried on lower masts could, therefore, probably be made more effective than the Marconi array at a lower capital cost."
    Then, with regard to the question of the number of wave-lengths, they say:
    "A difficulty frequently arises from the varying attenuation of different wavelengths, and to meet this it is often found desirable to change the wave-length in use according to the time of day. Provision for such choice of wave-lengths is likely to be more cheaply made with a relatively low mast system."
    On that Report, the Government felt justified, and were justified, in concluding that there was no such overwhelming superiority on the part of the Marconi system as had been claimed, that, to use very moderate language, the Rugby system was at least us efficient, and that, therefore, we were entitled to proceed to base our conclusions upon financial and general considerations.
    I come to the question of economy. On the question of figures and finance, whereas the right hon. Gentleman accused me of a certain confusion, the very remarks which he made show him to be suffering from the greatest confusion himself. We come to the question of which has been the more economical system. It will perhaps be best if I give the House the pros and cons of that inquiry, in the same way that I did with
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    regard to the inquiry into efficiency. The advantages of the Marconi system, and the economy arising from combination in one instrument I have already referred to and explained, and they have also been explained by the right hon. Gentleman. On the other hand, the Rugby system gives great economies. There is economy in the overhead changes and in combining the new services with the service to America and others that may be created; there are economies where all the services are concentrated in one spot, due to our being able to economies in transmitters and to use one transmitter for more than one service. Transmitters are very expensive parts of the equipment.
    Finally—and this is the explanation of the mistake the right hon. Gentleman really made—the most striking economy comes from the system of land lines. In order to operate the wireless system there must be a system of land lines from a central trunk exchange in London to the wireless stations, in order that the messages can be taken from London to the wireless stations and there switched into the air. Those land lines are very expensive. By concentrating; all your services on one site you save a great many land lines, and, in addition, Rugby and Baldock are a great deal nearer to London than Grimsby, Skegness, Bodmin or Bridgwater, where the beam stations are situated. The beam stations require 4,192 miles of land line circuit, and Rugby and Baldock require 780.
    Those are the broad advantages of the two systems. In order to test them by results, it was necessary, first of all, to make an estimate of what the Rugby system would cost, and then ask the Communications Company what rent they would charge, and compare the one with the other. The Rugby system costs, all told, both for the stations and for the land lines, £43,000 a year. The company made an offer containing three alternative proposals. The Post Office—for reasons which I will not enter into—thought the second was, on the whole, the best from their point ail view. The second proposal by the company was that they would take a minimum rental of £40,000, plus 10 per cent. of the gross receipts in excess of a certain figure. That is where the right hon. Gentleman's calculations stop, and that is why he

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    came to the conclusion that the Post Office system was £3,000 more expensive than the company's—£43,000 the Post Office, and £40,000 the company. The right hon. Gentleman had not taken into account the fact that in addition to the rental which we were to pay to the Communications Company we had to provide our own land lines, and the annual cost of those would be £20,800. That would make a total of £61,000. If we compare that with the £43,000 which the Post Office system would need, there is a saving of £17,000 or £18,000. But there are greater savings than that, because if tile gross receipts amounted to more than a certain figure the company asked for 10 per cent. of them. If the system belongs to Rugby, that comes back to ourselves.
    I have said the cost would be £43,000 a year, but I have made no calculation as to savings on overhead charges. If we take into account that we share our site, our plant, much of our service and our labour, with the American service, the £43,000 is reduced to £39,000, giving another £4,000 advantage; and we must further take into account the fact that when we have developed that Canadian service which the right hon. Gentleman referred to, and the Australian and the Argentine services, then, owing to the economy in transmitters to which I have referred, the saving will be increased by several more thousand pounds, and the average cost of each service will be about £36,000. Adding all these things together, the financial advantage of the Rugby system is somewhere between £20,000 and £30,000.
    It was because our inquiries into the relative efficiency of the two systems and their comparative costs showed these results—those were the main considerations: there are others to which I am coming—that we came to the preliminary conclusion that we should be justified in declining the offer of the Communications Company and developing our system by concentration at Rugby and with the receiving station at Baldock. The right hon. Gentleman introduced a number of other considerations which I shall deal with, but I ask any hon. Member who has followed these calculations what other conclusion we could have reached? If I had been standing at this Box and had asked the House to take into their hands
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    the report of the experts, with its verdict as to the relative efficiency of the two systems; had told them, futher, that the Rugby system would save between £20,000 and £30,000 of the taxpayers' money, and then had told them that it was the conclusion of the Government that they ought to allow these services to be leased by the Communications Company, I think I should have been open to the charge that I was sacrificing the national interest to the financial needs of a great commercial corporation.
    I will come to the main arguments outside the sphere of economy and efficiency, to which the right hon. Gentleman appeared to pay very little attention. Most of his speech was concerned with other matters. He claimed that there is some sort of moral obligation on the part of the Post Office to use the beam stations, or to give them a trial. I refer to it because he quoted two passages from the Report of the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference. He quoted Recommendation VIII. That recommendation gives a right, but it imposes no obligation on the Government, to use the beam stations. That recommendation, I may explain, was put it on the recommendation of the Post Office, in order that if we did wish to use the beam stations we should be saved from the danger of having to pay some monopolistic charge. As to the other quotation he gave, a general quotation, he will see if he reads it again that it refers merely to the telegraphic services which were to be handed over, and has no reference to the telephonic services, which are now under debate. Beyond that I will say that if he will look at the Report of the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference he will see that this matter was brought before them. It was reported to them that the Communications Company were asking for a guarantee that the beam stations should be used, and they said they were disappointed that the guarantee was being refused, but that they understood the position. That is actually in the Report of the Conference itself. I am very sorry that the late Postmaster-General is not here, owing to illness, because I am satisfied that if he were present he would not contradict what I say.
    May I now come to another argument of the right hon. Gentleman? A good many of the facts with which he has

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    been supplied are not correct. He said we refused to provide a service to Canada. The position of the Post Office in that matter has been perfectly frank. We have told the Canadian Government that we think that if they want a good commercial service—if that is all they are thinking of—they will get the best commercial service via New York. It has four alternative wave-lengths, and it gives communication to all parts. We have pointed out that if they have a direct service they will lose these four alternative wave-lengths, and will not be able to get to the west of Canada without going through American territory. But we have said that if, in spite of that, they would like a direct service, on account of imperial reasons, or national reasons, that we are willing to provide that direct service. In the last few days we have received a reply which indicates they will ask for that direct service, and it will be provided by the Post Office, as it would be provided by the Marconi Company.
    With regard to the Argentine, we are willing to open a service to the Argentine. We are accused of working through Berlin and Paris. The right hon. Gentleman does not understand that we are awaiting the authority of this House; when we have got the authority of this House, we will open a service to the Argentine within a few weeks. With regard to Egypt, the position there is that there are three companies wishing to obtain concessions in Egypt, and the Egyptian Marconi Company is one of them. We had a letter a few weeks ago saying they were hoping to come to terms, that they were making satisfactory progress with their negotiations with the Egyptian Government. Their managing director called upon us last week and we told him that, subject to the approval of the Egyptian Government, the Post Office would be very happy to open a service with them.
    Now I come to the argument 5.0 p.m. used by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seven-oaks with regard to America and the United States. I may say, in answer to the specific question which was put to me, that the suggestion that American engineers are employed at Baldock and Rugby is entirely incorrect, because there
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    is not a single one of them employed at either of those stations.
    Sir H. YOUNG: My question was with regard to American engineers in the service of the Standard Cable and Telegraphs Company. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he has not got the question quite right.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: I will now come to the question of American machinery, and ask what the Douse wishes the Government to do. This is the position. Every Government Department gives a preference to British goods, and the Post Office gives that preference as much as anybody else. British goods are deemed to mean goods produced in this country by British labour. In the contracts for the apparatus which the Post Office requires there are only two companies tendering, namely, the Marconi Company and the Standard Company, to which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Seven-oaks has referred. The Standard Company is a company financed with American capital. Its works are at New Southgate, Hendon and Woolwich, and it employs several thousand British workmen. The practice of every Government Department and every Government has been not to exclude from their tenders any private company which has a factory in this country and which employs British workers. Is it the policy of the Opposition to exclude from our tenders all those companies which are financed. by American capital? Must no orders be given to the Greater London and Counties Trust, Ltd.?
    I would point out that the Standard Company is one of our largest tenderers, and it does £1,000,000 worth of work for us every year in competition with companies like the General Electric Company, and Siemens and Ericsson. What is the position Why should not the Post Office follow the same practice as other Departments, and why, when the Standard Company get orders which might have gone to the General Electric Company, or Siemens, do they pass without comment, and when the Standard Company get an order for £20,000 which might have gone to the Marconi Company is made the subject of comment and questions in this House? The Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer) will remember

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    that he put some questions to me about the Marconi Company. We have not given many orders recently, but there have been four orders during the last two years, and two were given to the Standard Company, and that seems to be what the main complaint is about.
    Viscount WOLMER: That was before the Imperial and International Communications Company offered to provide the same service to the British Government.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: Not at all. Those orders were given under circumstances in which the Marconi Company and the Standard Company both tendered together. At the time when the Noble Lord was at the Post Office either he or his superior officer deliberately, and rightly in my opinion, preferred to give the orders to the Standard Company, because their prices were lower and their quality was higher.
    Viscount WOLMER: The hon. Gentleman has not contradicted my statement. I say that those orders were placed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Croydon (Sir W. Mitchell-Thomson) before the Imperial and International Communications Company were in a position to offer the services which they are now offering to the Government, and that cannot be denied.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: Those orders were placed at a time when the Marconi Company were in a position to offer those services, and, in fact, did offer them. Since I have been at the Post Office, I have only had one small order to give, and I gave that to the Marconi Company. In order to make the matter clear, I would like to say that I am prepared, in fact I have made arrangements by which, in the future, before these orders are given, the specification for them shall be discussed with the Marconi Company, and any other company that tenders, in order that the difficulties of the past may not occur again in the future. That being so, I hope that we shall cease to have this pressure put upon us, because it is not in the interests of economy or efficiency, and the only result is that articles appear in the newspapers.
    What would be the result if the Government gave way to a Press agita-
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    tion? There are only two tenderers for this particular class of work, and if, as a result of agitation, we cut out the Standard Company, we should give a monopoly to the Marconi Company, and the oversea services would have no alternative source of supply. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks has told us that the Communications Company has undertaken special obligations. An advisory committee has been set up, there are obligations with regard to strategic cables, and it is said that for these reasons, among others, we ought to hand over this service to the beam stations. I would like to point out that the Communications Company accepted those obligations at the time in return for most valuable financial rights, which indeed turned out to be so valuable that when it was known that they were to have these obligations there was a boom in their shares on the Stock Exchange. Now that the contract has been made, I entirely repudiate that it is my duty to hand over other financial rights which formed no part of the original arrangement and which can only be handed over at the expense of the nation as a whole.
    The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks made a good many remarks about the Post Office, and he re-echoed what has happened in the Press during the last nine months. Ever since I have been Postmaster-General there has been a steady stream of attacks and criticisms of the Post Office, in which the Marconi Company has taken a very considerable share. Now this great issue has been brought before the House and we find that the same interests and the same newspapers that have been attacking the Post Office for the last nine months are urging that the Post Office should hand over these great national services to this company, that has led the way in this attack. Let the House remember the task which the Post Office has to perform. The Post Office is a great State Department, and I repudiate the notion that it should be placed on an equality with the Communications Company, because that is a most improper and unconstitutional doctrine.
    Sir H. YOUNG: I did not put the Company on an equality with the Post Office, but I pointed out matters of similarity.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: The right hon. Gentleman dealt with it as a public utility company, but there are many kinds of companies. The Communications Company is not like the British Broadcasting Corporation or the Port of London Authority which make no profit at all. It is not that sort of public utility; it is a company in which profits play a very important part, and its shares are an active counter on the Stock Exchange. The Post Office is a great State Department which is represented in this House, and, as the faithful representative of this House, it has to enter into negotiation with great and powerful financial interests, and consequently it is bound to creat hostilities and antagonism if it faithfully discharges its duty. I do not ask for any favours, but I think the hands of the Post Office are weakened in defence of the public interest if when it creates those hostilities its action is to be received with hostile criticism in the Press. The Post Office cannot defend the public interest unless it gets some sympathy and understanding, if not from the Press at any rate as a last resort in this House.
    During the last three of four days there was put into my private door a letter written by Sir Ambrose Fleming, long associated with the Marconi Company, and that letter which was supported by a leading article in the "Times" contained abuse of Post Office engineers, and stated that the Post Office engineers suffered from ineptitude, sterility, and stagnation. Stagnation indeed, when the very reason that we are holding this Debate is that the Post Office engineers have developed at Rugby the greatest commercial telephone service in the world, a service which carries 100 messages per day, a service which carries more commercial messages than all the other oversea, telephone services put together, a service which makes thousands of pounds a year profit, and which, by linking America to Europe, enables the subscribers to get into communication with 90 per cent. of the telephone users in the world. Stagnation indeed! The Post Office engineers have built at Rugby a service which independent experts pronounce to be the equal to-day of their competitors, and likely in the future to drive their rivals off the field. I should like to take this opportunity—it is not very often that I get the oppor-
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    tunity—of expressing my thanks to and my appreciation of the staff of the Post Office for the inventiveness and initiative that they have shown; and I ask the House, by authorising this new development this afternoon, to show their appreciation by now giving them the power to go forward with the ordered and full development of this great new national service which their patriotism and their enterprise has provided for the State.
    Mr. AMERY: I do not think that either the eloquent peroration to which we have just listened, or the technical and financial exposition which we heard earlier, has in the least traversed the main argument brought forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Seven-oaks (Sir H. Young) as to tie methods by which the Government have arrived at their decision. In the first instance I wish to draw the attention of the House to the question of the policy pursued by the Government, and the way in which they have conducted their investigation, because the only question before the House is whether that investigation has been impartial and adequate, and whether there ought or ought not to be, as my right hon. Friend suggested, a fuller, more adequate, and more impartial investigation. Let me remind the House, to begin with, that this is not an issue between the State and a private corporation. I need not again go into the facts on which my right hon. Friend pointed out that this body—taking first the Imperial and International Communications Company by itself—is a body subject to a number of limitations and obligations to the State. Its revenue is definitely limited to a certain standard revenue, after which part of the profits are to go directly to the public, while beyond that there is the further fact that the whole system with which we are dealing includes, not only the company, but the advisory committee or council set up by all the Governments of the Empire to supervise this great business in the interest of the Empire as a whole.
    The Postmaster-General spoke with great indignation of the idea that a company could be compared in status to the Post Office. From one aspect, as a company, its status may not, at any rate in the eyes of the bureaucrat, be that of a Department. But from another point of view this whole organisation is an organisation representative, not of one

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    Government in the Empire, but of all the Governments of the Empire, and from that point of view the organisation as a whole, of which the company is only a part, is, I venture to say, on at least an equal footing with the Post Office itself. That organisation took over the beam service, and it may, perhaps, be worth while to go back into the history of the beam; for, when one talks of exploitation by outside corporations, it is worth while to remember that the beam was taken over by the right hon. Gentlemen opposite, when they were last in office, from the Marconi Company at a cost of £161,000 for the erection of the stations, and those stations, for telegraph purposes alone, are now being leased to the company for £250,000 a year plus 12 per cent. of any profits that may be made above the standard revenue. On the first item alone, in the 25 years of the lease, the Post Office will get £6,250,000 for that for which it paid £161,000. I do not know where the grasping corporation comes in.
    When, however, we come to the question of the telephone, it is perfectly true, as the Postmaster-General has pointed out, that the Post Office was reluctant to hand over the telephone service to the new organisation, and the new organisation accepted that position. What was the reason for that? It had nothing to do with efficiency of working. I am quite certain that, as far as that aspect of the question was concerned, the Imperial Conference would naturally have included the telephone with the telegraphs as part of one system. The reason why the Post Office wished to retain the telephones was perfectly simple and perfectly natural from its point of view. It pointed out that this was an entirely new experimental development, which might increase beyond all present calculations, and that, therefore, it was impossible to set a present value upon it. It was for financial and not for operative and technical reasons, mainly, that the telephone was reserved to the Post Office. But it was never contemplated that the Post Office should not afterwards try to arrive at that method of operation which—not from the point of view of the Post Office, considered narrowly in its own interest, but from the point of view of the public of this country and from the point of view of the
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    Empire—was the most efficient method. I must remind the House, when the Postmaster-General talks about economies arising from rationalisation at Rugby, that there are equally economies arising from rationalisation at the stations of the Imperial and International Communications Company, and that those economies, in so far as they hasten the attainment of the standard revenue, equally innure to the public in reduced rates and better services.
    I need not quote again the passages referring to the need for whole-hearted co-operation. Although those passages themselves referred to the telegraphic services, the whole conception of the new organisation was a great Imperial system which would not only give us efficient Empire communications but would put us beyond the reach of external competition, and, indeed, enable our Empire system to extend to our advantage—to the advantage of our trade, the advantage of British science, and the advantage of our influence in the world—into other countries. From that point of view, obviously, it was not the duty of the Post Office to use the company's stations, but it was the duty of the Government to consider at once with the company whether it could or could not co-operate. The whole record of what has happened shows quite clearly that the Post Office itself was determined to avoid co-operation with the company and to disregard the company's offers of co-operation.
    As far back as February, 1929, when the arrangements for handing over were complete, the Post Office assured the company that it would not place any orders for apparatus for Dominion services for at least six months without consulting the company, and it undertook to co-operate with the company with a view to the development of the most useful apparatus. On that, one might have supposed that negotiations and discussions would begin, but nothing happened, although, as early as July of last year, the Post Office, without informing the company—who, after all, ought to be its partner in this Imperial business, and not an enemy to be kept at arm's length—wrote to the Indian Radio-Telegraph Department saying that it was very desirable to have a system of communications independent of the Communications Company. Obviously, their whole atti-

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    tude was to try to get away from the company, and the offer of the company to make an immediate opening of services with Canada and other Dominions, instead of being met by a request to come round and discuss and consider the matter at once, received no answer whatever except a formal acknowledgment. As far as the Post Office was concerned, we do not know when any answer would have been received by the company. It was only when the company appealed direct to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, protesting against the attitude of the Post Office, that something at last happened. These protests were made at the end of September, and again on the 1st October, when the company felt bound to inform the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the company's telephonic communication at its station at Bridgwater had been cut by the Post Office, and had been taken up by the Post Office without even the courtesy of a warning or intimation, thus making it impossible for the company even to carry on experimental trials in order to show foreign visitors what it could do. The whole attitude was one of deliberately preventing the company not only from carrying on a commercial service, but even from carrying on experiments in this country.
    Then came the inquiry. That inquiry raised both technical and financial questions. I certainly agree that the right method of proceeding was to consult the Government's technical experts, and certainly no experts stand higher than Mr. F. E. Smith and his colleague in this investigation; but they ought to have consulted them properly. They ought to have consulted them under conditions where they could hear every side of the case, where they could be cross-questioned, where mistakes could he rectified. Instead of that, they were consulted by means of a set questionnaire, and it was a very extraordinary questionnaire. It was composed not only—
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: I should have stated in my speech, but perhaps I omitted it, that, of course, when we decided to consult the experts, all the relevant evidence which the Government received from the company was placed before them.
    Mr. AMERY: That may he so, but it is not the same thing as a full inquiry in which the experts could have investigated the matter face to face with the experts of the Company, obtaining all the relevant evidence. They were asked to answer what my right hon. Friend has very truly called a weighted questionnaire. It was a questionnaire consisting of certain leading questions, and, I might venture to add, misleading questions. It begins by pointing out that there are two systems. The one it describes as the Marconi system, with high aerials, "which are obviously an item of considerable expense"; and the other it describes as the Post Office system, consisting of "lower ae ials, which, as regards capital cost, are very much cheaper." That may be so, but the questionnaire omitted to state that the one set of aerials were already in existence, and that no cost would be involved by using them, whole, as regards the others, whether they were cheaper Or not, they had still to be constructed. The whole of that first part of the questionnaire is to that extent misleading. It also omitted to state that, in regard to the company's stations, corresponding stations at the other end existed, in some parts of the Empire at any rate, and that no cost would be involved there, whereas, obviously, the carrying out of the Post Office system would involve the Dominions, at any rate, if not this country, in very considerable expense, and, because it would involve them in expense, it would be likely to involve considerable delay.
    Turning to the next part of the questionnaire—and I hope the House will forgive me for touching, even for a moment, on these technical questions, with which, after all, we are not very capable of dealing—I would point out that the second paragraph in the questionnaire treats the Marconi system as practically identical with the multiplex system, and asks the experts, practically, to say that the multiplex system is not so good as others—for instance, the single band. The Marconi Company did not, as a matter of fact, lay any stress on the multiplex system. They only mentioned it as the cheapest. The system they themselves advocate, arid the only one which the Post Office has taken into serious consideration, is one involving

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    separate transmission. I have read as carefully as a layman can the reply of the experts, and it is clear that on technical grounds the best that can be stated for the Post Office system is that it can do equally satisfactorily. Their whole answer is based on the assumption of greater cheapness, which again depends on the misleading statement of the question, namely, the actual cost that would be involved in erecting high aerials, which is not the fact. They point out that the Post Office system of lower masts could probably be made more effective at a lower capital cost. "The choice between the two methods is purely economic."
    The strongest passage they used is that
    "the adoption of the more elastic aerial system with lower masts would be advantageous, as equally satisfactory results could be obtained with a smaller expenditure of money."
    That means only that one system is as good as the other, but that, if it costs more money to erect the company's masts, the other system is cheaper. On 26th February, the Postmaster-General, in his answer pointing out that the two questions of efficiency and cost arise, said that the experts had decided on grounds of efficiency in favour of the Post Office system, because the Rugby system was the more elastic, and, therefore, in this respect—I presume elasticity—offered decided advantages. That is a very considerable perversion of what the experts actually said. You cannot from first to last in their Report find a single sentence which on purely technical grounds gives a preference to the Post Office system. The whole of the recommendations of the experts are based on the assumption that there is greater cost involved in making aerials, and, as that is not the case, as the aerials already exist, the whole argument based on the experts' Report falls to the ground. A good many other technical points were not submitted to the experts' decision. I understand, for instance, that the whole question of receiving aerials was not put to them at all. That is clearly not a question on which we in this House can come to a conclusion. All I am suggesting is that it strengthens the case my right hon. Friend made for the publication in full of all the evidence and all the documents and for the constitution of some impartial body like a Select Committee of the House.
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    Now we come to the question of cost. The Postmaster-General repeated to-day what he said on 26th February, that concentration at Rugby admits of economies in many directions, and particularly in the land line connections to the London Trunk Exchange. Are there no trunk lines already in existence within a very close distance of the company's station I Is it not a fact that there was actual communication between Bridgwater and the main trunk line, which the Post Office deliberately severed as part of their policy of discouraging the company? When we come to the other figures, there is one aspect of the matter that I must point out. The Postmaster-General, when he came to the question of cost, said "the minimum rental asked by the company for the use of the beam telegraph stations, excluding a cheaper scheme which is open to objection on other grounds, was £45,000 per annum." You would obviously assume there that this other scheme, which is open to objection on other grounds, hardly came into consideration. But that other scheme is the very one which in the questionnaire to the technical experts is treated as if it were the only Marconi system. it seems to me that the whole treatment of the question, both in the questionnaire addressed to the experts and in the answers given in the House, has been disingenuous in the extreme. Obviously, I am not in a position to go into all the detailed figures the right hon. Gentleman gave of savings here and savings there. I would only remind the House that, as far as the public interest is concerned, economies in working, whether they are economies achieved by the Post Office or whether they are economies achieved by this great corporation, will inure to the benefit of the public in reduced rates and a better service.
    When talking of economies we have to consider the position not only here but in the Empire as a whole. The Postmaster-General's new aerials may be cheaper or not, but they have to be erected. The company's aerials are already in existence, and aerials are equally in existence in the other great Dominions. In South Africa it is conceivable that new aerials may he needed at Johannesburg in addition to the existing ones at Cape Town, but to carry out an Imperial system through the

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    Post Office, ignoring the company, would not only involve this country but the rest of the Empire in capital charges which may easily run into £300,000, £400,000 or £500,000. That, clearly, is not the way to carry out the recommendations of the Imperial Conference that all the Governments of the Empire should endeavour to work whole-heartedly with the company. This is, after all, an Imperial issue. We set up, believing it was to the vital interest of the whole Empire, an Imperial system of communications, and anything that affects beneficially or prejudicially the efficiency of that system of communications is of interest to every Government in the Empire.
    By preventing this corporation which the Governments of the Empire set up from developing telephone services, we are undoubtedly reducing its capacity to render service to the Empire. We are reducing its efficiency. That, it seems to me, is a matter that concerns the other Governments of the Empire. Have any of them been consulted? As a matter of fact, the other Governments of the Empire and ourselves have set up an advisory committee, not in any sense subject to the company, but subject to the Governments and under the orders of the Governments, to watch over the company, to see that it renders the right kind of service and gives the best kind of rates. That body ought, obviously, to be taken into consultation before the Government here decided that, even with a small margin of profit to one of its Departments, it should ignore the whole spirit of the Imperial Conference Report. Was the advisory committee consulted? I gather not. I should like very much to know why, in connection with a matter affecting the whole Empire, affecting the success of this Imperial system that we have set up, the Imperial Advisory Committee was not consulted.
    Then we come to the whole question of services with other countries. The Postmaster-General the other day gave an answer which, again, it seems to me did not altogether err in the direction of candour:
    "We do not intend to enter into any connection or partnership with American or foreign companies although, of course, the House will understand that at the other end of the service, which of course is in foreign countries, we are bound to make
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    some arrangement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th February; col. 2259, Vol. 235.]
    Quite true, but with whom? Are we going to make it with some body that is more or less a part of the great Imperial institution that is being set up, or with some body which is more or less a part of the great rival American institution? That is one of the great issues with which we are confronted. It seems to me that there, again, the Postmaster-General is making no attempt to answer the case. Instead of trying to work all over the world with a system which is Imperial, and to strengthen the. position of the British Empire in other countries, he is everywhere, by trying to avoid it, inevitably committing himself to the only other alternative, namely, the great American Radio Corporation.
    When we come to the question of apparatus and equipment, the Postmaster-General entirely misunderstood my right hon. Friend's point. Of course, in this country we naturally consider that the benefits of any preference that the Departments give should be given to goods made by British labour, whether those goods are originally of American type, or whether the capital is partly American or came from any other foreign source. That is a general rule to which neither my right hon. Friend nor myself take any exception. What he was concerned with is that in a great; matter of scientific development, where the success of one type in one place naturally leads to its extension all over the world, it should put the seal of Post Office approval and support upon the foreign type rather than the British type, and that it does so, I dare say, not only on grounds of cheapness and efficiency, but also because it fits in more easily with the fact that at the other end of the Atlantic it is working directly with a foreign corporation rather than endeavouring to work with a British corporation in Canada. They seem entirely to ignore from first to last the whole of the broader Imperial implications of the scheme.
    The same applies to the question of research. We are dealing with a subject which is in a state of constant evolution. No one knows from year to year, or month to month almost, what new discoveries may not be made. What may be the possibilities of television, what may

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    be the possibilities of power transmission we do not know, but anyone who is not even a technical expert can say that opportunities for practical research are enormously increased when every aspect of the matter is being worked together—telegraphy, telephony and wireless telegraphy—and this deliberate separating of the operation of wireless telephony from wireless telegraphy must cripple and hamper the progress of British research. It is not a question of Post Office ownership or of the Post Office getting the profits. The company, after all, only asks to be allowed to operate and to get one-tenth of the revenue, leaving 90 per cent. to the Post Office, though everywhere else in the world the proportion given to the land lines as compared with pans-oceanic transmission is infinitely less. Let the Post Office screw every penny it can, but do not let it stand in the way of the most effective and fullest development of research in these matters.
    This is really the conclusion to which I wish to draw attention. This is not an issue between the Government and what the Postmaster-General calls outside corporations. It is an issue between two functions of our British Governmental system, and in that issue it seems to me that the processes of inter-Departmental warfare have been carried on with quite unnecessary vehemence and with dubious fairness and impartiality by one Department of the State, and the public, which is interested in the most efficient cooperation of both these organisations, wants to know the facts. It seems to me, on the face of the facts as far as they have come out at present—and I am perfectly prepared to revise my conclusions if fuller facts are brought out—that the Post Office has been pursuing a vendetta against the company, and that in the course of that vendetta it has shown itself indifferent to all wider national interests. I believe that the whole thing would really be incredible if one did not know the depth to which inter-Departmental warfare descends. We in this House are not concerned with one side or the other in a quarrel of this sort, but we are vitally concerned in having the whole facts before us. Therefore, I ask the House not to prejudge the issue one way or the other, and not to take the argu-
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    ments which I have produced in any sense as conclusive arguments any more than the technical or financial arguments which the Postmaster-General has adduced. Let us have the whole of the facts and the whole of the evidence, and let them be judged by somebody who is competent to deal with them.
    Mr. PYBUS: I intervene in this Debate with considerable diffidence, because if it is based on the subject on which it was ostensibly to be based, the question is far too technical to discuss in this House. If there is no other consideration than the technical question, I cannot understand the wisdom of raising the matter here. I have spent most of my life as an electrical engineer, and I am bound to confess that the subject in its higher reaches is certainly too profound for me. I admired the courage and determination of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) in putting over so much technical information with so much emphasis. Hon. Members will be well-advised to keep off the technical side of this subject until they are quite sure that it is on a technical question that this case has been put forward. Hon. Members should not worry themselves about high aerials or low aerials. I cannot understand why, when one department takes a departmental decision to place a contract in a certain direction, it is the subject of half a day's debate in this House, while when nearly every other Department makes a decision as to where a contract shall be placed such decision is accepted by the contractors and nothing more is heard of it.
    What is the real issue? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir H. Young) in his speech maintained a very high note. I felt a little nervous about following him as he laid down the dangers for the Empire in the course which the Postmaster-General proposed to take. I consider that the Postmaster-General very kindly and equally courteously demolished those arguments, and reassured the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks that now we can treat this matter as a matter of business. What has really happened? Somebody wanted to sell something to the Postmaster-General, and he replied, "I thank you, but I think that I can do it better my-

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    self." That is an answer which I have often heard in business. My only regret is that when, in the old days, I lost a contract from the Government, I was unable to secure such excellent publicity and such persuasive advocacy. The truth is that the Debate is not a technical Debate at all. There are always two ways of doing everything. What the technical report of the experts says is, that of the two ways offered to the Government, and of which the Postmaster-General has the choice of alternative, both, or either, of them will do the job. I think that those who have brought the name of Marconi into the discussion do him an injustice. It would be a very grudging House of Commons which did not accord to that great scientist a full meed of gratitude for what he has done in developing this great science from its very beginning. He ranks alongside Stephenson and James Watt. But in the days of Stephenson and James Watt inventions were not floated for millions of money, and consequently the Postmaster-General, or whoever would be placing a contract before Parliament at that time, would not find himself confronted with the difficulty of having to give up all development on his own account because he had handed that development over to somebody else.
    I am not attacking the Marconi Company or the International Communications. I am sorry in a way that it has not been possible for this business to have gone to the Marconi Company, but I refuse to allow questions of Empire, introduced quite illogically, to intrude in what is nothing more than a straight business proposition. I consider that the Postmaster-General acted with unusual care. I cannot see the First Lord of the Admiralty acting with the same care when he decides to adopt a gun-mounting or a fuse and refuses to have it developed by Vickers-Armstrong. The Postmaster-General appointed two experts. Their report is as clear to the ordinary man-in-the-street as any report of so highly technical a nature could be. He then put that report before the Cabinet. The Cabinet approved that report. I cannot imagine how the placing of any contract or any concession, after assessing it in that manner and after it has received the full support of the Government, can be
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    questioned, unless you wish to question the entire integrity of the Government.
    Why should not the Post Office develop this system? The Post Office engineers in the past have had a great record of service of invention and of enterprise. Those of us who know anything of the Post Office realise that many devices which are, in the first instance, invented by somebody outside, are improved by somebody inside the Post Office, and it is very difficult to assess what is done by the Post Office and what is done by somebody else. I should be very sorry if there was a feeling in this House that the Post Office were not entitled to a research staff equal to the work which they would have to undertake. I consider the mere fact that there are masts erected in one part of the country by the Marconi Company and other masts erected by somebody else really does not matter one bit. In ten years' time, possibly, there will not be one mast of either type. The fact is that the whole business, the whole art, is in the same stage of development as the Rocket and the subsequent steam engines were. Having supported the Government in their view that they should carry out telephonic communication with wireless in this manner, I should like to plead that if they intend to set up a Department under the Government they should develop alongside Marconi interests and other progressive interests in order to get the best for the country. I hope that in asking for the best brains for Government service they will, a t any rate, reward them reasonably and at a fair rate. The greatest weak less of the present Government is in securing for the State proper research for that Department. The chief engineer of the Post Office is rated, I think, at a basic salary of £1,500 a year and his Department hand over £8,000,000 to the State. This sort of thing will not help in the proper development of research by the Government.
    I hope that the Postmaster-General will proceed calmly and serenely on his way to do what he feels is best for the country, and that he will not allow himself to be disturbed or his staff diverted from their object by attacks from one side or the other. I trust that if that chance is given to them, the quarrel between the opposing interests may yet die down, and that we shall find the British Government marching side by side with the Marconi Company, as they should do, and every-

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    body getting the best out of research. I have pleasure in supporting the Postmaster-General.
    Major CHURCH: I would like to support the hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Pybus) in the claim which he has made on behalf of the Post Office and at the same time suggest an end be put to this somewhat distressing quarrel between two great corporations, one possessing the whole backing of the State, and the other a private corporation, which had the support of the State through the late Postmaster-General ending in an agreement finally arrived at between the company and the present Postmaster-General. I deplore, as I expect most Members of this House deplore, the curious way in which the Communications Company advanced their claim to submit this matter of telephonic rights in trans-oceanic telephonic communication to an impartial inquiry. I can imagine no impartial inquiry into such a matter which does not contain experts on its committee, and I can imagine no experts appointed to such a committee who would not either be in the employ of the Communications Company or in the employ, directly or indirectly, of the State. I am not impugning for a moment their good faith in the matter. I am only pointing out how difficult it would be to convince anybody among the general public of the complete impartiality of the experts on either side. I should also like to point out the difficulty which any of us laymen, or any laymen sitting on such a committee, would have in reaching unanimity with regard to the rival claims, or the rival opinions, if there were rival opinions, of the so called impartial experts.
    If you take the development of the wireless transmission services in this country, it is obvious that it is based on the work done by the Marchese Marconi and other scientists. In recent years the whole of the developments have been in the hands of the Marconi Company, and two or three departments of the State. I refer to the Post Office, the Admiralty and the Air Force. The experts of these various services, including those of the Marconi Company, have been gathered together on a Radio Research Board. It has been suggested in the Press during the past few weeks that the Post
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    Office and the Government as a whole have not at their command the services of men such as are at the command of the Marconi Company, or, shall I say, of the Imperial Communications Company. If hon. Members make any
    reference to any work on 6.0 p.m. wireless or to recent radio research work, they will find that the Government experts are in the van of progress. It is true, as the hon. Member for Harwich said, that they are not remunerated in proportion to their intrinsic worth to the State. That is a matter which he and his fellow commissioners on the Royal Commission will probably be able to put right. One has only to refer to the work of the Post Office in recent years to realise how great a prejudice there must be in the minds of certain outside interests which may, rightly or wrongly, be in opposition to the Post Office experts. For example, there was a letter in the Press the other day from Sir Ambrose Fleming, a great inventor. I hesitate to accuse him of prejudice, or to impute motives to him, but it is a fact worth recording that the prolongation of his patent for the thermionic valve was successfully opposed by the Post Office. It is difficult not to regard as suspect letters from people who regard themselves as penalised by the advice given by Government experts on such matters.
    Right hon. and hon. Members who have taken the trouble to visit Rugby—I am one of them—have probably been surprised at the amazing progress that has been made in a very few years with regard to wireless telephony. I am credibly informed, shall I say authoritatively informed, that when the possibility of wireless telephony was before an Inter-Departmental Committee eight or nine years ago, the experts of the Marconi Company expressed the opinion that there was not the slightest possibility of that service ever being developed. It is true that experts change their opinions, but here is the fact that eight or nine years ago the opinion of the Marconi experts was that there was no future for wireless telephony, based on the knowledge existing at that time. The Post Office showed a considerable degree of foresight in the matter, foresight for which our Post Office engineers have not been given that full glare of publicity which almost invariably attaches to ex-

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    perts employed, and not always employed for the best of motives, by private companies. Eight or nine years ago the Marconi Company's experts definitely said that there was no future for long distance wireless telephony, but the Post Office went forward. It is true that when the Imperial Communications Committee were considering the future of imperial communications, they reserved to the nation, through the Post Office, the right to develop these services, and it is equally true that the Imperial Communications Company wished to have the privilege of working the services, but at that time they were not in operation; they were in a purely experimental stage. What is the position at the present time? We have a transmission station at Rugby, with a receiving station at Cupar and another receiving station at Baldock, the station at Cupar being used for long-wave reception and that at Baldock for short-wave reception. With the two stations we are able to maintain wireless telephonic communication with America for the whole 24 hours of every day in the year. It is not claimed—certainly I have not heard that it is claimed—by the Imperial Communications Company that they can operate their system for 24 hours in the day. That is one very essential factor, and that is done by a combination of the long-wave system and the short-wave system. As the Postmaster-General has said, the short-wave system has this advantage, as operated by the Post Office at Rugby, the choice of three wavelengths, 15, 24 and 32 metres. One wave-length may be better for one period during the day, during a certain state of the atmosphere, and another wave-length may be more suitable for another period of the day. The fact remains that we have a 24 hours' service, and it happens to be a very lucrative business.
    I was informed, and I believe that it is an under-estimate, that the number of messages per month, according to the average for the last three or four months, has been 1,200, with an average duration of six minutes for each message. In other words, we have a revenue, assuming that that average can be maintained throughout the year, and apparently it is on the increase, based upon £9 for six minutes—that is half the total revenue, because the total revenue will be £18, half of which
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    will have to go to the company on the other side—of something approaching £130,000 for a capital expenditure on the station—and this is worth remembering—of £500,000. It is quite conceivable, indeed, it is fairly Obvious. that in the not very distant future when we have developed the beam service to Australia—and that is in the immediate realm of probability—and to India and other countries, that with a very small additional expenditure the State will derive a very considerable revenue from its wireless telephony services.
    I am reminded that when the wireless telegraph services were handed over to the Imperial Communications Company, a system which cost the Post Office £160,000 to develop was actually receiving each year £160,000 in revenue; in other words, the revenue from the system was practically equal to the capital expenditure. This was not because the Post Office wished to keep up their prices, but because of an agreement arrived at between the Post. Office and certain cable companies that the former should not unduly lower their prices for overseas transmission. As a going concern the wireless telegraph services have been handed over to the merger company. It is sometimes suggested that the Post Office is very much behindhand. The charge was made by Sir Ambrose Fleming in his letter to the "Times" that the Post Office when they had the cables, or certain portions of the cable system, under their control, did not introduce the new permalloy system. That system had tot been in existence very long then. If that system is what it claims to be, and I understand that you can send messages over it at about ten times the rate, and even more, than over the existing Atlantic cables or over any other submarine cable, one wonders what the merger company, the Imperial Communications Company, has been doing all this time in continuing to use cables which are completely obsolescent. We need more cables.
    I should like to ask the Postmaster-General in regard to the development of international wireless telephonic services, whether the agreement with the Imperial Communications Company in regard to telephonic services gives to that company the right in respect of all messages transmitted over submarine

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    cables, or is that right still reserved to the nation? If not, I can see a tremendous future for the Imperial Communications Company if they will only take a bold step and lay some of the new cables, which can be manufactured in this country and certainly should be manufactured in this country. Perm-alloy is an American invention. Perm-alloy has its counterpart in a new alloy discovered in this country possessing the same properties. It is within the realm of possibility that we shall be able over these new cables to send seven or more messages simultaneously—not telegraphic messages but telephonic messages. We shall be able to use one cable for transmitting seven telephone communications at the same time. That would conceivably make a tremendous difference to the development of wireless telephonic services.
    The advance of science, as the hon. Member for Harwich said, in this particular field of research cannot be gauged to any degree of nicety at the present time. We are discovering new things every day. Our Government scientists, under-paid though they are, apply themselves with tremendous energy and enthusiasm to the task of keeping alight the lamp of research. They have made a number of remarkable contributions to the growth of this particular science. Some of them are employed by the Post Office. No Government scientist gets the same amount of publicity as the scientists outside, and there is a tendency on the part of the general public, because there is not constant advertisement by the State of their servants, to get the impression that the Government scientist is somewhat inferior to the scientist employed outside. That is an entire misconception. We have men in the Government telephone service who stand high among their fellows, and the State has every reason to be proud of the service it maintains, whether by the Post Office, the Admiralty or any other Department. One need not enumerate the many contributions made by Post Office engineers to the advancement, particularly of the technical side, of wireless telephony in the past few years. The results they have achieved are well known throughout the technical and scientific world. But I want to say this in regard to the Post Office Engineering Depart-
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    ment: it is not a scientific research Department.
    Under the Haldane Report a definite line of demarcation was laid down between fundamental and applied research. It is the business of the Post Office engineers to apply the researches made in universities and laboratories throughout the world; to keep abreast of all modern achievements in science and to apply them. Their primary function is not to make discoveries for themselves, and any sneer or suggestion that they are lacking in competence is entirely unfair. They are performing their functions only too well for some of the outside interests. They are keeping themselves so well abreast of modern developments, that, apparently, this country is leading the world in the question of trans-continental telephonic service. Anyone who has been to Rugby or has taken the trouble to realise how delicate a machine there is in being, how complicated is the machinery, and how easily it can be put out of order, not only by faulty operation but by faulty engineering work, will realise the tremendous strides forward that have been made by the Post Office in comparatively few years.
    There is an essential difference between telephone and telegraph. When you hand a telegram over the counter for overseas or this country, there is no question of getting in touch immediately with someone at the other end of the wire. In dealing with telephones you have a different proposition, and one of the reasons why I wish the Imperial wireless telephone service and cable telephone service to be kept in the hands of the Post Office is that such a policy would ensure an absence of friction. If you have two entirely different concerns, one an outside concern, existing in the interests of its shareholders and operating through the Post Office, as is suggested, and anything goes wrong with the service, the blame will be put on the Communications Company by the Post Office and by the Communications Company on the Post Office. It is much better, when you are dealing with telephones and the possibility of a breakdown due to the personal factor—and we know that breakdowns of that kind are not infrequent—that you should have control centralised in one institution, which

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    has built upon a scientific foundation a great telephone service not only for this country but for the whole world.
    Viscount WOLMER: The Debate this afternoon reinforces the desirability that the Post Office and everything connected with it should be taken out, of the arena of party politics. I am very sorry that so much of the party spirit has been imported into this Debate. It has not been done by us. The right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir H. Young), as the Postmaster-General himself admitted, dealt with it purely as a business proposition, and it is entirely from that point of view that we desire to approach this question. The hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Pybus) and the Postmaster-General himself took this line. They said, "Why all this fuss? Surely the Post Office has the right to give a contract to the firm it thinks best without the matter being raised in the Press and on the Floor of the House of Commons." They appeared to insinuate that there was some deep-laid plan behind the criticisms this afternoon. The reason why critics of the Government attach so much more importance to this matter than they do to an ordinary contract is because this contract is going to settle the whole future of inter-Imperial wireless telephony and govern the future of Empire communications for many years to come. Therefore, it is ridiculous and absurd to pretend that this is not a matter of the very greatest importance.
    The reason why we are somewhat disquieted is that we cannot help remembering that the Imperial and International Communications Company was brought into being in the face of violent opposition by hon. and right hon. Members opposite, and we feel that the Company has never had fair-play from this Government. What are the facts? As long ago as last August the Government were offered an inter-Imperial wireless telephone service at three or four weeks' notice from the placing of the order. They were offered a service in which a certain number of hours, I think 13 hours a day, was guaranteed just as in the previous beam contract. The Government made no response to that offer. Since then they have been searching for some alternative system, and they have been searching in the dark. They have had
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    a packed Cabinet Committee. Evidence has been given—
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence): I must ask the Noble Lord to withdraw the charge that it was a packed Cabinet Committee.
    Viscount WOLMER: It was highly improper, where there was a dispute between the Post Office arid the Communications Company, that the Postmaster-General himself should be one of the judges in that dispute. That is what I meant by the remark, and I think it is a perfectly legitimate criticism. Let me remind hon. Members that in the previous Administration, when there was a question at issue in which the Post Office was an interested party, e late Postmaster-General never sat as one of the arbitrators on the question. I think we are entitled to comment on this fact, especially as none of the evidence tendered before that committee has been published or, as I understand from the speech of the hon. Gentleman this afternoon, will be published. Therefore. we are entitled to be somewhat disquieted by the feeling that political prejudice has been allowed an undue place in the consideration of this matter, and that this great Communications Company has not been given fair play. It has not been given fair play this afternoon in the speeches of hon. Members opposite. The Postmaster-Genera himself repudiated the idea—I do not think I urn misrepresenting him—that the Communications Company was in any sense a partner with the Government in the problem of Imperial Communications. I shall be glad to know if I have misunderstood the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: The actual words I used were that I repudiated the idea that they were on an equality with the Post Office.
    Viscount WOLMER: The hon. Gentleman in another passage of his speech also repudiated the idea that the Communications Company was a public utility service in the ordinary sense of the term, and that is a point which I desire to press upon the House of Commons at the moment. It is absurd to regard the Communications Company as a kind of monopoly which is going to filch something valuable from the taxpayers of this

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    country. What are the facts? This Government is in partnership with the Communications Company. The taxpayers of the country have an interest in all the profits that are made by the Communications Company. After the standard rate is paid they are divided on the basis of equality. There is no conflict of interests at all; and therefore we come down to the question, what is the commonsense plan which ought to be adopted? When you are offered a system where you already have four beam stations fulfilling every single thing that was said for them, and more than fulfilling them, is it wise or prudent to disregard that offer in the way the Government have disregarded it?
    The hon. Gentleman the Postmaster-General also laid great stress on the fact that the aerial he proposed to erect at Rugby differed materially in design from the aerials of the beam stations. He claimed that the Post Office engineers repudiated the idea that a high aerial of 280 feet was necessary for the best service. I must remind the House of two facts, first, that the Marchese Marconi has staked his scientific reputation that an aerial of this pattern is necessary for the greatest measure of efficiency; secondly, that the prophecies of the Post Office engineers about the Marconi short-wave invention have not been uniformly happy in the past. The Postmaster-General knows perfectly well that the technical advisers of the Post Office were entirely wrong about the beam system from the beginning.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: The Noble Lord says that I know that perfectly well. I entirely deny his statement. It is a myth and a legend.
    Viscount WOLMER: Then I must refer to some quotations which I have here. They are quotations from the technical experts of the Post Office in 1924, and again in 1926, on the value of short-wave telephony. I have here the presidential address to the wireless section of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, as reported in the institute's journal of December, 1924. The Postmaster-General is pushing his technical advisers as against the authority of the Marchese Marconi.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: The expert referred to was not one of the technical advisers who advised the Cabinet Committee, as
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    the Noble Lord knows. he was an ordinary member of the Post Office staff.
    Viscount WOLMER: The hon. Gentleman said that the Post Office engineer thought that aerials of 150 feet were quite as efficient for this purpose as aerials of 280 feet. That is the opinion of the technical staff of the Post Office. My comment on that is that, in view of what happened in 1924, 1925 and 1926, 1 do not think we can be satisfied with that opinion, seeing that we have the unequalled authority of men like Sir Ambrose Fleming and the Marchese Marconi, who say exactly the opposite. Then we come to the finance. The hon. Gentleman gave no details. He said that he was going to save money by concentrating all the telephone plant at Rugby. He did not tell us how much these new aerials are to cost. He has the aerials waiting for him at the beam stations, but he is going to spend, I venture to say, scores of thousands of pounds, possibly hundreds of thousands of pounds, in erecting new aerials for this service.
    Mr. LEES-SMITH: I did give a figure; I said £3,500 per aerial erected.
    Viscount WOLMER: Per aerial erected—well, I must say that I am very much surprised to learn that it is as cheap. I shall be very glad to see the further details on which the hon. Gentleman makes that estimate. He went on to talk about the financial side of the question of land lines. His case is entirely disputed by the advisers of the Communications Company. The hon. Gentleman said in his statement that to use the beam stations it would be necessary to have over 4,000 miles of telephone circuits. That estimate is entirely disputed by the Communications Company, who say that the total would be considerably less than half that amount. It is no use the hon. Gentleman pretending that long telephone circuits are the difficulty in this matter. Telephone circuits are all there; it is simply a question of using the existing circuits. The Post Office has made telephone circuits up to the middle of Scotland in order to carry on this transatlantic telephony. The Rugby service has attached to it telephone circuits which are a great deal longer than the circuits that would be required to work the beam. Therefore, that is a very small point indeed.

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    We cannot help feeling that this matter has been judged from a small and partisan point of view, and that hon. Gentlemen opposite have not appreciated the very great issues which are involved. There is one point in particular that I would mention. That is in regard to the effect on employment. The whole of this plant that the hon. Gentleman proposes to order is going to be made by the American company in subsidiary works in England, and the hon. Gentleman asks therefore: How are we injuring British trade and employment? The point is this: There are two great alternative systems of wireless telephony. There is the system put forward by the Marconi Company and the Imperial Communications Company on the one hand, and there is the system put forward by the American Company, the Standard Telephone Company on the other. It is not only a question of what is happening in this country. The question is what is happening in other countries of the world. In South American and Rumania the governments have yet to decide whether they are to use the Marconi system or the American system, If they decide to use the Marconi system we know that the whole of the work will go to the people of this country, because the works are in this country. But does the Postmaster-General mean to say that if the people of Rumania or South America or China employ the American system the plant is going to be made at Woolwich in the works of the Standard Telephone Company? Of course not; it will be made in America.
    The Government are doing two things. They are giving a vast advertisement to the American article as opposed to the British article. Secondly, they are preventing the Communications Company from giving a demonstration to inquirers from other parts of the world as to the efficiency of the system which they have evolved at home. Therefore the Government are doing their utmost to thwart this company, and are putting a spoke in the wheels of British trade and prosperity.
    Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: Nonsense!
    Viscount WOLMER: Can the hon. Gentleman deny a word of what I
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    have said? I should be glad to hear in what respect that statement is false. That is why the company feels particularly sore about it. They are being degraded in the eyes of their competitors in the face of the whole world. They are being denied the opportunity of demonstrating the efficiency of their system to foreign countries. We say that such a grave decision ought not to be taken in a hole-and-corner manner. We ask that the evidence and the whole evidence on which the Government have come to their decision should be published and that the estimates which they have accepted should also be published. We further demand that the facts should be examined by an impartial Committee of inquiry and not by a body on which the Postmaster-General himself sits.
    Mr. BOWEN: This question is not a party question because it has been made so by hon. Members on this side of the House. If there is a party spirit in it the party opposite must accept responsibility, be cause the foundation of any trouble that arises in this connection was laid by the late Government when it transferred the beam wireless service to a company. Now that hon. Members opposite find that the bargain is not working out quite as satisfactorily as they anticipated, I do not see that they have any cause for complaint against the Post Office. It is an amazing thing to me to see the ex-Assistant Postmaster-Genera rise in this House and attack the very State Department over which he had some control a few years ago, for looking after its own business. He says that the Post Office has denied to the Imperial Communications Company the right to a demonstration. Does he suggest that the Post Office has not the right to a demonstration too? It seems to me that if the Post Office has the power to decide as to the means by which certain work shall be done, the Post Office should at least try out its own strength before calling in someone else. If the Company's offer were accepted, what would the noble Lord suggest in regard to the scrapping of Rugby? That is what his policy certainly envisages.
    I would like to compliment the Postmaster-General on his brilliant speech, which was one of the finest defences of

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    the British Post Office that I have ever heard. It will stand to the credit of the Labour Government on this occasion that it can stand up for the British Post Office when other people choose to attack it. It is something for which we have been waiting for many years. We are accustomed to being told by Ministers of the opposite party that Departments of the State are almost sacrosanct. But the Post Office has always appeared to be the black sheep, and we have never had any real defence of it at all up to now. Therefore, I welcome the speech of the Postmaster-General on this subject. I do not presume to deal with the technical questions before the House, but I am very much concerned with the suggestion that was made by the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery), when he accused the Postmaster-General of disingenuousness and lack of candour.
    Without presuming to offend anyone let me say that the whole basis of the attack upon this policy is a lack of candour. The whole basis is the fact that the scheme for the transfer of Post Office services went a little bit wrong. It was said to be all right when power was sufficient to take away from the Post Office a very paying proposition, and to give it to a commercial company, a so-called public utility company, even with restricted profits, and opportunities for making profits. But I think that this mistake was made. It was not anticipated that wireless telephony would be such an immediate success as it has become. It was not expected, when the subject of beam wireless was being considered, that telephony was worth bothering about at all. The telephone services, and particularly the trans-Atlantic telephone service, were being run at a loss at that time, but to-day the trans-Atlantic telephone service is being run at a profit approximating to £45,000 a year. Is there any connection between that profit and the claim that the service should be taken over by the Communications Company?
    It has been suggested from the opposite side of the House that the inquiry made by the Cabinet was a secret and unfair inquiry, and one speaker asked, why was not the Communications Company called into this discussion. Let me answer that question by asking another. Why was not the Post Office called in when the question of Imperial wireless was being
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    considered [HON. MEMBERS: "It was!"] According to the report there were witnesses from the Eastern Telegraph Company, from the Marconi Company, from the Canadian Marconi Company—in short, out of 11 witnesses, seven represented these merger concerns—but not one name of a witness for the Post Office appears in that report. In the circumstances there is no real complaint against the Post Office or the Cabinet for not consulting the Imperial Communications Company on this occasion and it seems to me that the Post Office would deserve attack and censure if it failed to arouse itself to a sense of its responsibility in this matter, and if it was not able to come to this House and say, as a State Department, that it could guarantee to give as good a service as that which has been outlined.
    There is another point. The Post Office, according to the admirable statement of the Postmaster-General, bases its case upon efficiency and economy, and, as a matter of public interest, that is deserving of appreciation. I do not wish to push this next point too far, but I would draw the attention of the House to the fact that when the general manager of the Imperial Communications Company addressed a letter to the Prime Minister on 28th February, which was reproduced in the "Times" on 29th February, he prefaced his remarks with these words:
    "In justice to the 3.5,000 shareholders."
    He went on to mention, as a secondary consideration, that the interest of the efficiency of Imperial communications should be taken into account, but the first proposition was that justice must be done to 35,000 shareholders. The Post Office engineers do not need any defence from me, because their work, over many years, speaks for itself. Reference has been made to a letter written by Sir Ambrose Fleming, but I think it can be said, with every due respect to him as an authority, that his view cannot be unbiased, seeing that for years he was consultative engineer to the Marconi Company. It might be worth while, however, remembering that the right hon. Gentleman who was Postmaster-General in the last Government, signed the Second Report of the Wireless Telegraphy Commission of 1926, which contained a statement to the effect that the develop-

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    ment of multiplex working at the Rugby station could be confidently left in the hands of the Post Office wireless engineers. The Noble Lord had not much to say in favour of the Post Office engineers, but the right hon. Gentleman, who was his chief under the late Government, distinctly uttered a word of praise which is, I suggest, worthy of the Noble Lord's consideration.
    That Report was also signed by Mr. W. H. Eccles, vice-president of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and vice-president of the International Union of Radio-Telegraphic Science—a very authoritative person who is able to speak, I believe, with knowledge on the subject. If he can praise the Post Office engineers no amount of speech-making from laymen on the opposite side of the House will do the Post Office engineers much harm. They have been consistent in their efforts in research; they have applied their minds, as the Noble Lord knows, strongly and loyally to the work of developing all sides of science in connection with Post Office telegraphy and telephony and, had they been given a little more opportunity in the past, I am sure the results of their work would be even greater than they are to-day. By the enterprise and technical ability of the Post Office very satisfactory experiments have been made which have established a direct radio-telegraphic service with Australia. That is now working every day, I am informed, and should very soon be utilised by commercial undertaking.
    My last point N in continuance of the references which I have just made. The Post Office has been accused in this Debate of flirting with American interests to the neglect of British interests. It is the first time I have heard it suggested that the Post Office must confine itself to the shores of this country and pay little or no regard to anybody outside. If you set up direct communication with America. how can you help taking into account that the American people will have something to say to it? Is it to be suggested that, if you have telephonic communication with America or submarine cable communication, or any kind of communication that America is to be left out of account? In this connection may I say that the trans-Atlantic radio-
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    telephone circuit is one of the finest of recent achievements for which the Post Office can claim a good deal of responsibility. It is an indication of their technical ability that their engineers have made this circuit a complete success. They have done something more than that. They can guarantee a call to America at almost any time of the day or night, By that means, practically the whole of Europe is in communication with America, through the British Post Office stations at Rugby and Baldock, and 50 per cent. of the work done is from Continental countries. London is therefore, through the British Post Office, made the centre of international radio-telephony.
    No one is going to accuse the Post Office of being backward in that connection but it is an unfortunate thing that the first love of hon. Members opposite is now being neglected. I am sure if it had been anticipated that wireless telephony would have been made so successful, technically and administratively, in so short a time, hon. Gentlemen opposite would have had no hesitation in passing it into the hands of the Imperial Communications Company along with wireless telegraphy. They would have given it away in the same manner; and now that it has become a commercial proposition, the State Department for which we must all stand, Government and Opposition, is being maligned in this House because it is doing something for the protection of public interests. I hope the House will support the Postmaster-General in what I conceive to be the enterprising decision which he has taken in connection with this matter.
    Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: The Debate on this very important issue has lasted for a considerable time, but very few arguments have been raised in addition to those which were stated quite temperately by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir H. Young) at the opening of the Debate. When he spoke, those who were present, and who were unaware of the facts, were perfectly entitled to consider that he had made out a very good case; but I think it will be the general admission of those who have heard the Debate with unbiased minds, that his case was demolished in the admirable speech of my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General, who showed that the statements which

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    apparently justified the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks were without foundation. In spite of that fact, we have had two speeches from the Front Opposition Bench, not bringing forward much fresh argument, but reiterating the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks. We heard the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) speaking with his accustomed vigour and power, and the Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer) speaking with that violent partisanship which we have become accustomed to hear from him when he endeavours to foul his recent nest. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook accused us, as he said, not so much of what we had done, as of the way in which we had done it. We had not dealt with the matter, he said, impartially; and the Noble Lord went so far as to accuse us of having packed a sub-committee of the Cabinet. I should imagine that every committee of the Cabinet, if the Noble Lord's view is to be accepted, must be regarded as packed because it contains members of the Cabinet and of the Government and must be prepared to recommend a decision to the Government of the day.
    What are the facts? The late Government handed over the wireless telegraphy services to the Communications Company. I am not going to express any opinion on that. It is an accomplished fact and I take it as such. But the late Government expressly reserved the telephone service and did not hand it over to the Communications Company and we are perfectly entitled to assume that when they reserved that service, they did so with the intention of reserving to any Government which had to decide the issue, the right either to hand the service over to the Communications Company, or to use the Communications Company in any way which it thought fit, or to deal with the service through its own machinery. The present Government came to no hurried decision on this matter. It went into the question fully. It appointed a committee and, on the technical issues involved, it took the trouble to invite the views of experts. I cannot see what more it could have done.
    I think it was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sevenoaks who said
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    that the Government ought to have appointed a Select Committee of the House. Surely it would have been an entirely incorrect procedure for the Government of the day, on a, straightforward issue regarding one of the Services of the country, to appoint a Select Committee in order to make up its own mind. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sparkbrook says that one of his objections is that we did not consult the Advisory Committee, and I observe that the Noble Lord shares that view. I wonder whether either the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook or the Noble Lord realises what the Advisory Committee is, on what principle it came into existence, and what are its 7.0 p.m. functions. The Advisory Committee is a body appointed not to advise the Government of the day but to advise the company. The Advisory Committee represents the Governments of the Empire and its business has nothing to do with telephony at all and nothing to do with the large issue of high politics. Its business is to advise the company on telegraph rates and the disposal of any surplus profits that may arise, and why on earth the Government should be expected to invite and be upbraided for not inviting the opinion of this Advisory Committee on this question, I am utterly unable to understand.
    From all the right hon. Gentlemen who have attacked the Government on this question there has been a kind of veiled suggestion that we cooked the questionnaire. That is a charge which I entirely repudiate. So far as I know, the only attempt to justify it was made by the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook. He said that we cooked the questionnaire because we had introduced into technical questions an economic issue. That charge is wholly without foundation. The sole question on which we asked the opinion of the Advisory Committee was on technical matters. We said, "It is perfectly evident that these wireless services can obviously be conducted more cheaply by lower aerials but it is alleged by the Communications Company and by Marconi himself that from a technical point of view the higher masts are very much better."
    Mr. AMERY: I pointed out that the questionnaire implied that a greater expense would be involved in the erection

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    of higher masts than lower ones when, as a matter of fact, the higher masts are already in existence and no extra expenditure could be involved. I also pointed out that the experts in their reply made no difference on the question of efficiency but, misled by the questions in the questionnaire, suggested that the Post Office system would be the cheaper under the impression that high masts would have to be erected, which was not the case.
    Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: The right hon. Gentleman need not have interrupted me because I was going to deal with those points. The point I was making was that the experts were not asked for an opinion on matters of expenditure. They were asked on pure matters of technicality and scientific knowledge whether, in their opinion, there was a technical scientific advantage in the higher aerial, and on that they gave an opinion that a system of low masts with powerful transmitters was at least as efficient as the Marconi system with the higher aerials. What they did further say was that, if there were going to be further development and further experiments, naturally the low masts system would be very much cheaper, and would then prove more efficacious, because it would enable experiments and further extensions of the scheme to be carried out with less expenditure. The financial question was not the question which we submitted to them. We neither submitted it nor were we influenced by their view on that matter at all. That was a matter for the Committee to decide on the information which was presented to them.
    What was the information? We had before us what is called the offer of the Imperial Communications Company. The offer, as it is called, was a proposal that they would give us certain services at a price. They were perfectly entitled to do that. We had to consider whether that price was worth paying. As against the Communications Company offer that they should render certain services at one figure, we had the possibility of carrying out the services by the Government machinery through the Rugby and the Baldock stations which were already in existence. On the purely financial question we did not need the opinion of the
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    experts, and we did not ask for it or get it. What we did was to work out the figures for ourselves. When the right hon. Gentleman suggests or implies that, in doing so, we did not take into account the capital charge, he is, of course, entirely mistaken. In comparing two sets of methods of doing the same thing it was our business to compare like with like.
    Viscount WOLMER: Will you publish the figures?
    Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: We have published the results of the investigation in figures, and we have told the House the principle on which those figures were based.
    Viscount WOLMER: The full figures?
    Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: Those are the full figures. The Noble Lord knows the way figures are dealt with in this House. The facts are perfectly straight-forward. The facts are that we have a figure which, according to the Communications Company, will be the cost of working their scheme. We have estimates of the cost, taking into account the erection of the necessary aerials, allowing for interest and depreciation on that capital cost, and for creating such land lines as will be necessary for working the service at Rugby and Baldock, and the net result is that there is a difference of anything from £17,000 to £22,000, according to the way matters are worked out between those two systems. It was our business, looking at the purely financial aspect, to recommend the cheaper system. So far as that was concerned, there was no doubt whatever, allowing for the fact that we had to make our own aerials in order to extend the existing telephone system to the other parts to which it is proposed to extend it, that there is this great saving in connection with the Rugby system
    The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook says there may, perhaps, be a saving in this country, but it is going to cost the Dominions hundreds of thousands of pounds. That is entirely fantastic. In the first place, even if they had to erect new aerials in order to get into telephonic communication with our stations at Rugby and Baldock, the figure of several hundreds of thousands of pounds is altogether beyond the fact. But the real

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    truth is that they will not have to spend money in that way at all, because they are perfectly capable, with their existing machinery, of getting into touch with the telephonic services which will be started at Rugby.
    I have dealt with the real questions which are properly pertinent to the issue as to whether the telephone service should be conducted by the Post Office itself through its existing stations, or whether we should accept the tender of the Communications Company to run it through their system, which is concerned primarily with telegraphy. There has, however, been imported into this Debate an entirely separate issue, and in a few words I propose to deal with that. It has been stated that, quite apart from the advantages of using one system of telephony against the other, we are deliberately cold-shoudering the Communications Company, that, as it is a statutory company and a British company, it ought to receive every support but that, instead of that, we are not giving it orders but are creating a system which will mean it will be entirely pushed out of the way and an American company substituted.
    Let us see what the facts are. The right hon. Gentlemen who spoke on the opposite side of the House spoke as if the Communications Company was a company that fulfilled orders, to which orders could be given and by which orders could be executed. That is entirely incorrect. There are two entirely separate companies. The Communications Company is a company to which this House in the last Parliament delegated wireless and cable telegraphy. The company which executes the orders is not the Communications Company at all. It is an entirely separate body, the Marconi Company, and it is really rather disgraceful that the right hon. Gentlemen opposite, who must know this, have attempted to confuse the issue by speaking as though those two concerns were one and the same. The Communications Company, which is concerned with international telegraphy, is a statutory company, a public utility company subject to the limitations which have been described. But the company which gets orders is not this Communications Company at all; it is the Marconi Company, which is an entirely different proposition.
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    I am not going to say one word against the Marconi Company. We respect the genius and the wisdom of the Marchese Marconi. I am not going to say a word against the Communications Company. I will only say that the Communications Company through one of its officials has been attacking the Post Office in many of the papers of this country and the Noble Lord and his friends see no objection in that. If the Post Office in this House shows why its own methods are superior, then right hon. Gentlemen opposite come down and say, "This is a most disgraceful thing to set one part of His Majesty's Service against another." With regard to the Marconi Company, the Noble Lord challenged me on these facts. He said, "You must admit that the effect of your decision will be to take away from a British company orders, and that it would mean that the apparatus which is required, instead of being made by a British company, will in future be all made by an American company." There is not a shadow of fact in that assertion. In the first place, as I have already pointed out, the Noble Lord has confused the Communications Company with the Marconi Company, which is an entirely separate thing.
    Sir H. YOUNG: Does the hon. Gentleman really say there is no connection between the Marconi Company and the Communications Company?
    Mr. PETHCK-LAWRENCE: I did not say there was no connection. But the whole argument of the right hon. Gentleman opposite was that this company which executed orders ought to be especially favoured, because it was a statutory company and its profits were regulated in a certain way. That is not correct. I was coming to the second point, which is that it is untrue to suggest that because the international telephone service will work through Rugby and Baldock, therefore the Marconi Company cannot get any share of the orders. The only order which my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General has had to give during his term of office has been given to the Marconi Company, and he has already stated in his speech that, as there appears to have been in times past some slight misunderstanding about orders, he has arranged that an opportunity will be provided to the Marconi Company to discuss the specifications

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    before they are issued, in order that the Marconi Company may have a perfectly equal chance with its American rivals of tendering for and securing contracts, so that there is not a tittle of ground for the statement which the right hon. Gentleman and the Noble Lord made.
    In the first place, the Marconi Company must be entirely separated as a profit-making body from the Communications Company. In the second place, the Marconi Company itself will, under the system which the Government propose, have a perfectly equal chance of tendering for and making any apparatus that may be required. The idea, which the Noble Lord endeavoured to put over, that there was one complete set of apparatus that belonged to the American organisation, and an entirely separate apparatus which belonged to the Marconi system, is absurd. It is not so at all. There will be every opportunity and every facility for the Marconi Company to make the aparatus and the profit, and to give employment to British labour through its channels, just as there will be opportunities to the American company to make profits and to give employment to its subsidiary company here in this country.
    Viscount WOLMER: I admit that all the stuff to be made for our own use will be made in this country—whether by the Marconi Company or the Standard Company does not matter—but what is going to happen with regard to foreign countries which are ordering this stuff?
    Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: How can I be expected to know how foreign countries which are ordering telephone apparatus will deal with the matter? I cannot judge. The only point that is relevant is this, that the fact that we use one particular type of aerial and that we work a telephone system from Rugby and Baldock instead of going to the stations of the Marconi Company has nothing to do with securing contracts for the Marconi Company from different Governments other than our own. But these issues take us a very long way from the main issue of this discussion. I claim that the Government were perfectly justified in taking the steps that they did. They considered the matter from a scientific point of view, from a financial point of view, and from a general point of
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    view, and they took the right steps in each case to come to a right decision. The Opposition have endeavoured to show that we failed in our duty, but I am confident that the House will agree with me that we took the only course, in view of all the facts, that, could have been taken.
    Mr. AMERY: Before the right hon. Gentleman sits down, will he answer one question, which has been put to him from this side, and say whether he proposes to publish the whole of the evidence and the documents submitted to the Cabinet Committee?
    Mr. PETHICK - LAWRENCE: Certainly not. It would be quite without precedent and quite unusual for a Cabinet Committee to publish the whole of its proceedings. I am perfectly certain that the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook, who has been a distinguished Cabinet Minister in previous Administrations, could not possibly suggest that that has been the practice in the past.
    Mr. BENSON: The late Assistant Postmaster-General, in his opening remarks, regretted that the Post Office had once again come into the arena of party politics. That is a point of view we should naturally have expected from him, because it is not so very long ago since he not only suggested that the Post Office should be excluded from party politics, but that it had better be landed over to a private concern and out of the hands of the State altogether. The present proposal, that we should merely give up the wireless telephone system of the Post Office, is very moderate in comparison with that. He claimed that the Communications Company had not had fair play, and further in his speech we gathered that he meant by fair play that it was to be put upon an equality with the Post Office, which is the greatest Department in the State. A mere private company, a limited company, a company, it is true, which will share certain profits with the State—after it has paid a very fine rate of interest on a very inflated capital, it will hand over one-half of its excess profits to the State—but what is essentially a profit-making concern, the party opposite propose to put on an equality with the Post. Office, and demand that if the Post Office refuse to

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    give them what they require, the Post Office shall be compelled to go to arbitration.
    We have heard a good many technical details during this Debate, but, so far as I am concerned, this is not a technical question. It is a question of high moral policy. The whole question of the purity of our political life is involved. For months we have had a steady pressure in the Press, we have had insidious attacks upon the Post Office, we have had an attempt to crab the Post Office, we have had all kinds of backstairs methods used to bring influence, in order to compel the Government to hand over a valuable property to private interests. That sort of thing, I understand, goes on in America, but it is essential that we should set our faces like flint against the same spirit developing here. There has been an attempt to develop it, and the party opposite have lent themselves to it, but this party, I am certain, will never do that.
    Reference has been made to the Marchese Marconi. He is a great man, and he has rendered great service to science, but Marconi the scientist is not the same person, the same body, as, Marconi, Limited. The name "Marconi," so far as public finance is concerned, has come up in this country's history before now. The Marconi Company are fighting, and fighting unscrupulously, for a world monopoly. An enormous amount of the progress and advancement made in wireless has not come either from the Marconi Company or from the Marchese Marconi himself. Inventions are bought up, and the whole policy of the company is to establish a world-wide monopoly, and that is why at the present moment there is a steady attack upon the Post Office, because the Post Office is developing, with wonderful ingenuity, fertility and invention, a parallel and competing system to the Marconi system. The Communications Company received, and, I suppose, received thankfully, the whole of the wireless telegraph system of the Post Office from the late Government. They have tasted blood, and now that the Post Office, having been shorn of its wireless telegraphy, is developing, through its own innate energy, a magnificent wireless telephone system, the demand is put forward that that also shall go into the maw of this great
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    private interest. I am convinced that the Communications Company will not receive the wireless telephone system of the Post Office, for one very good reason. It is not a technical reason, but a political reason, and that reason is that the party in power to-day has some recognition of public interest as against private.
    Mr. WALLACE: I want to confess at the outset that I am biased entirely in favour of the public operation and control of essential public services. The Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot (Viscount Wolmer) is biased, in my opinion, just as strongly in favour of private interests. I have been struck by the similarity between the campaign which has been going on in this House in the last few months and what happened before the present Government came into office. The Post Office, thanks to the influence of the Labour Government in 1924, developed the beam wireless service, and then, not the Marchese Marconi, but the Marconi Company and the cable companies, found a reason for acquiring control of the beam service. It was not until August of last year, as the Noble Lord has admitted, that the Communications Company wrote to the Post Office on this particular subject of wireless telephony. As soon as the Post Office had demonstrated, after three years' hard work, that the beam wireless service was going to be a commercial success, then this company comes in and wants to secure it on favourable conditions. I understand that I cannot go on beyond half-past seven—
    It being Half-past Seven of the Clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed, without Question put.

  PRIVATE BUSINESS.

    GLASGOW CORPORATION BILL (By Order).
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
    Mr. MAXTON: An Amendment in my name is on the Paper, "That the Bill be read a Second time upon this day six

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    months," but I see that some of my hon. Friends have also given notice to move an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill to leave out Clause 54. My antagonism to the Bill is limited entirely to that Clause, which proposes to make some rearrangement in the method by which Glasgow is supplied with gas. The proposal has been the subject of great discussion in the city of Glasgow. It has aroused considerable controversy, and a large proportion of citizens are in opposition to it. There have been grave suspicions about the bona fides of the persons concerned in the promotion of certain contracts which are referred to in this Clause. If my purpose can be secured by the Instruction to the Committee, I do not propose to oppose the rest of the Bill, with the provisions of which I am in absolute accord, and for some of which I have great enthusiasm. I recognise, however, that an Instruction to the Committee is a very weak way for this House to maintain its control over such a Bill, but I recollect that the Bill will have to receive a Third Reading before it becomes law, and should Clause 54, which is a very obnoxious one to me, remain in the Bill in its present form, when the Bill returns to the House for its Third Reading, it will be imperative for me to oppose it, and to vote against the Bill at that stage.
    Mr. SPEAKER: Do I understand the hon. Member to move his Amendment.
    Mr. MAXTON: I do not move.
    Mr. HAYDAY: I do not rise to oppose the Second Reading, so much as to ventilate a question which has caused much concern to many Members, because of the effect that one of these Clauses might have in displacing a, large number of employés. I understand that the arrangement is that a contract has already been entered into, known as the Gardner contract, with a company undertaking to supply bulk gas to the Glasgow Corporation to the extent of something like 20,000,000 cubic feet of gas per day. It is common ground that, in the course of time, 800 of the present employés of the Glasgow gas department will have their employment threatened, and will either be compelled to be absorbed in other departments of the corporation, or left without that degree of protection which
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    we would desire to see meted out to them. It is said that the company which has entered into the arrangements to supply this 20,000,000 cubic feet of gas in bulk will eventually take 500 of these men, but that is purely speculative, and it may be that only from 100 to 200 would be absorbed. That would mean that 600 would be affected.
    It may be an oversight on the part of the Glasgow Corporation in not being complete enough in their safeguards to their old servants, but I am sure that the corporation have no desire by any act of theirs to create hardship among such a large number of their employés. It is thought that, if the company took 500, the remaining 300 would be absorbed in other departments as opportunity is afforded. Our principal concern, however, is with regard to the uncertainty of the whole position. The company will have a selective right in choosing the 500 men. In most of the corporation's undertakings there are men who have given long years of good service to the citizens, and it is fair to assume that the company which is undertaking the supply of gas would not take the men with the longest service in the gas department, but would select the younger and more able-bodied. That would be a penalty for long service. I feel that we ought to say definitely that employment should be provided at no less favourable terms than the existing conditions of employment, and that that undertaking should be given by the Glasgow Corporation. We have every reason to believe that they intend sympathetically to consider this point of view.
    We had an interesting interview with representatives of the Glasgow Corporation to-day, and we found that, while they cannot pledge their corporation, they were willing strongly to recommend something definite being done in the direction of securing employment on conditions no less favourable than those at present enjoyed, or, in the alternative, some adequate compensation for loss of employment for those who cannot be absorbed. While my name and that of other hon. Members are associated with the Instruction to the Committee, we do not propose now to force the Instruction, because if the committee of the Glasgow Corporation will undertake to safeguard the interests of these 800 members of our organisation, we might feel that our duty

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    and responsibility might be reasonably said to have finished there, as we have no desire to hold up a Bill that has so many very useful provisions.
    We would like the Committee to take into consideration the necessity of seeing that provision be made in the Bill to secure that the workers who might be displaced or discharged by the operation of Clause 54, should be provided for either by way of alternative occupations on conditions no less favourable than at present exist, or some adequate form of compensation for loss of employment. That would only be in general keeping with what we hope will become, on 8th April, a ratified agreement between the trade unions in the national gas industry and their employers, through the National Joint Industrial Council for the industry. The employers, I believe, have agreed to the draft proposals, and it is intended, where amalgamations and developments for this bulk supply might have the effect of adversely disturbing the industrialists engaged in the gas industry, that they should either be maintained in some other form of employment suitable to them at their existing conditions, or that the scale that we propose shall be applied in order to give adequate compensation to them.
    If any hon. Member speaks on behalf of the corporation, I hope that he will be able to strengthen the point of view which I have submitted. We cannot afford to have 800 workmen disturbed in their employment, no matter how beneficial the scheme to be introduced might be to the people of Glasgow. The bulk supply of gas is a developing idea throughout the country, and we shall, at some stage or another, be compelled to investigate the details and circumstances a little more than we shall be able to do to-night. It is a very significant state of affairs, and we shall have to face up to the effect on employment if this practice of bulk supply of gas becomes general. I am sure that every hon. Member is in sympathy with our purpose, but we want a little more than sympathy; we want something very definite, so that these 800 workmen shall not be left in a state of uncertainty during the next two years, each wondering which of them will be the first to face adversity after many years' service.
    Mr. WALKER: I want to support the Second Reading of the Bill. I am rather surprised that those who put down the Amendment for its rejection have decided not to proceed with that Amendment, but sufficient of what was in their minds was indicated when the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), referring to a contract, said there was grave suspicion as to the bona fides of those who were promoting it. If you do not like anything in this world, but have not a good reason against it, one of the best forms of argument is to throw doubt on the bona fides of the people who are advancing the opposite point of view. However, he and his friends have not gone very far in that direction, and therefore I do not intend to pursue that particular side of the matter. What is it the Glasgow Corporation are asking for in the particular Clause which has aroused the resentment of certain hon. Members? I am speaking as the ex-chairman of the Glasgow Gas Committee, and as a member of the Glasgow Corporation for the past 17 years. I claim to know something about the workings of the gas department of Glasgow, because I was a member of that committee during the whole time I was a member of the corporation. The Glasgow Corporation are buying gas in bulk to-day; have been buying it for the past five years are buying it from tile firm of Adam Nimmo and Company, a very well-known firm of colliery proprietors in Scotland.
    The scheme went through the Glasgow Corporation without a single dissentient voice from any quarter of that body. A second scheme was brought forward for the purchase of bulk gas from a new company that was to be created at New Main, and again the gas committee unanimously, and the corporation unanimously, decided to accept the scheme and to make a contract. There was not a dissentient voice from any side of the corporation. A third scheme comes along on more advantageous terms to Glasgow than the scheme under which they are at present working, the one with the Adam Nimmo Company, under which they buy gas from the company at 11d. per 1,000 cubic feet. The new offer from the new company is 8.4d. per 1,000 cubic feet. Glasgow is producing gas in its own gas works, with the most modern appliances, the latest vertical retorts,

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    and last year the cost was ls. 1.6d. per 1,000 cubic feet; so that if they carry out this contract with the company that is being formed there will be a direct saving of over 5d. per 1,000 cubic feet.
    Surely Glasgow is entitled to take advantage of more modern methods of dealing with coal carbonisation than the old method of taking coal to the gas works and carbonising it there. We have to remember, also, that if the Coal Bill becomes an Act of Parliament, as I sincerely trust it will, an increase will take place in the price of coal to gas committees and gas companies. That has been said by the promotors of the Coal Bill. If half-a-crown goes on to the price of coal to the Glasgow Corporation, it will mean 2½d. more per thousand cubic feet for gas; so that if this contract were prevented from going through the citizens of Glasgow would be prevented, by representatives in the House of Commons or in other places, from getting a direct advantage of something like 7d. per
    thousand cubic feet. Further, we are faced with this position in Glasgow. Only 13 per cent. of the total gas production is used for industrial purposes. In Sheffield, Birmingham and other towns over 40 per cent. of the gas produced is used in industry.
    The reason why Glasgow does not sell more gas to industrial undertakings—a form of demand which has a tendency to reduce the price of gas to domestic consumers—is that the price of gas is too dear for those industrial undertakings. The corporation already have the power to purchase gas in bulk and are acting under their powers to-day, but they can only purchase gas in bulk if that gas is a by-product of some other undertaking. If, for example, the Lanarkshire County Council, which owns gas works, had a surplus of gas to sell, Glasgow would not, under its present powers, be able to purchase that gas, because that gas would not be a by-product but a main product. All the Clause is seeking to do is to widen the powers of Glasgow, and to make it perfectly clear as to what those powers are so far as the purchase of gas is concerned.
    The proposed contract, about which there has been so much discussion, safeguards the interests of the men. The
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    new company is a colliery company owning coal pits on the border of Glasgow. It is going to erect coke ovens there in order to produce metallurgical coke, which is needed in Scotland for blast furnaces which are working with crude coal and are at a disadvantage with blast furnaces using coke. The contract contains a definite Clause stating that the company agrees to take over the men displaced from the Glasgow gas works, and to take them ever on the recommendation of the management. The selection will not be made by the manager of the new company, but they agree, under contract, to take over the men who are recommended by the manager of the Glasgow gas department. It is estimated that in the new concern 500 men will be employed directly on the retorts and the coke ovens, and that an additional 200 to 300 men will be employed on the by-products side of the works. Before I left the corporation the gas committee passed unanimously a recommendation to the corporation exactly on the lines asked for by the hon. Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Hayday), and I can assure him that the corporation will do their best in every way to safeguard the interests of the men whom the hon. Member is representing in his capacity as a trade union official. As a matter of fact, one of the officials of the National Union of General Workers was a member of the gas committee, and the safeguards that are in the contract were put in by me at the request of this particular official. The gas committee agreed to them unanimously. Everyone realises that we have to develop on newer lines in gas making in big towns.
    Mr. STEPHEN: The hon. Member stated that the employés would not be selected. Am I right in saying that the provision in the contract is simply this?
    "The company shall, at the said works, give preference for employment to workers of the Corporation who may be thrown out of employment as a result of the coming into operation of this agreement."
    If that is the only thing in the contract about which he has been speaking, does it not show that the hon. Member below me was right?
    Mr. WALKER: No, it does not. It states quite distinctly in the contract that they shall give preference. There is no other words that we can use, except that

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    they shall give preference; and as one who was through all the negotiations I can say that preference will be given on the basis of the men who are sent along by the manager of the Glasgow gas department. The members of the corporation who have been in the Lobby this week are quite prepared to see that that side of the contract is carried out, and I have no doubt at all that those men who are prepared to transfer to the new company will have no difficulty at all in getting a job, for the very simple reason that it will pay the new company to get practical men who understand the work in preference to men who have never had any experience in making gas. Therefore, the position seems to be adequately safeguarded so far as the men are concerned. The question of compensation is one that the members of the corporation are prepared, on the recommendations of the Glasgow gas committee, to deal with in a very sympathetic manner.
    Glasgow is in this position. This contract fixes the price of gas at 8.4d. for a period of 15 years. There is a break at the end of seven years in favour of the Corporation to claim a reduction, but there is no break in favour 8.0 p.m. of the contractor to claim an increase. There is another Clause which gives the Glasgow Corporation the option during that period of taking over the whole system lock, stock and barrel, at an agreed valuation or, in the event of no such agreement being arrived at, it can be taken over at a price fixed by the arbitration court. Therefore, the Corporation is safeguarded in every way, and the amount of gas that the Corporation will be able to purchase from this particular company, and the annual saving which will be effected of something like £140,000, will enable Glasgow in 10 years, on the basis planned by the new company, to save something like £1,000,000, which will enable Glasgow, out of the savings made, to purchase the whole of that undertaking on a valuation basis of the actual capital value of the company at that particular time. During that period the present gas plant of the Glasgow Corporation, which might otherwise be thrown idle and depreciate, will be maintained in a perfect state, so that at any given moment the Corporation may be able to put on the gas works again in the event of any crisis or emergency. A similar state of affairs exists
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    in Middlesbrough, which purchases all its gas from the colliery companies surrounding the town, and they have the cheapest gas supply in this country, namely, 1s. 10d. per thousand cubic feet. They keep their old plant in good order ready for use in case a crisis arises. Glasgow is asking to be placed in that position.
    So far as the wider powers of this Clause are concerned, I repeat that Glasgow is purchasing bulk gas to-day. I can quite imagine why Messrs. Nimmo and Co. would be opposed to this scheme, because, if Glasgow purchases gas at 8.4d. per thousand cubic feet, she will not continue to pay 11d. per thousand to Messrs. Nimmo and Co. I can understand why that Company is opposed to this scheme, and why it is opposed by a number of coal agents who may be supplying Glasgow with coal, and who will not be likely to supply coal to Glasgow in future, if Glasgow buys its gas from the concern which is to be set up under this Bill. I ask the House, on the facts presented, which show clearly what is taking place under the past contract and the proposed new contract, to give this Bill a Second Reading. I would like to point out to those who object to Clause 54 that even if they get their own way Glasgow will go on with this contract. The contract has been signed on behalf of the Glasgow Corporation and on behalf of the Company, and, according to all the opinions which have been expressed in connection with the previous contract, we have been informed on the highest legal authority that we have already the power to purchase bulk gas. We are asking in this Clause for power to enable us to purchase that gas on a wider basis as a main product and not as a by-product.
    Mr. STEPHEN: Will the hon. Member tell us the legal authority who was consulted by the Glasgow Corporation?
    Mr. WALKER: It was the usual legal authority employed by the Corporation to give them advice, on all these matters. The same authority has given the Corporation advice on many other matters, and we always go to them, because they are the people whom we pay.
    Mr. STEPHEN: In conversation with the Corporation delegates in respect of this Bill, we were assured by the deputy town clerk that no counsel had been consulted in connection with this matter.
    Mr. WALKER: I do not know what the hon. Member was assured, but, as chairman of the Glasgow Gas Committee, I know that we took counsel's opinion before we went on with the scheme five years ago, and we were informed at that time that we had power to purchase bulk gas; we made our contract with Messrs. Nimmo and Company, and that contract is still running, and it has never been challenged by any member of the Corporation or by any person outside. I recognise that hon. Members have an interest in this matter from the point of view of the workmen, but may I point out that it is laid down in the contract that the standard rate of wages will be paid to the workmen.
    Mr. HAYDAY: Which standard rate?
    Mr. WALKER: The gas industry standard rate, and a clause to that effect has been incorporated in this particular contract. All these matters were threshed out in the presence of Councillor Peter Campbell, who is the organiser of the men concerned, and, as the representative of the men, he expressed his satisfaction with the town clerk's assurance that the Fair Wages Clause would apply, and that our interpretation of that Clause would be the wages paid in the gas industry of this country. Those of us on the committee who represent Labour interests were satisfied that the contract would be carried out in a perfectly fair and straightforward manner. I can assure the hon. Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Hayday) that everything that was possible was done to safeguard the interests of the men. I appeal to the House to recognise that, whether we like it or not, the tendency is in the direction of carbonising the coal at the pit-head. Those who claim to be experts in advising industrial leaders as to the proper method of developing industries and rationalisation in order to be up-to-date say that it is a stupid way to take the coal from long distances, carbonise it, and then send it over the same ground again in the shape of gas.
    I ask the House to give a Second Reading to this Bill, because, so far as this particular Clause is concerned, it is on the right lines, and gives Glasgow freedom of action so far as uniting with the Lanarkshire County Council is concerned,
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    and that council are in negotiation with the same company for the purpose of purchasing gas in bulk rather than erecting new plant in different parts of Lanarkshire. This question has been three times debated in the Glasgow Corporation, and has been carried three times by a majority of about two to one. On no occasion was a motion or amendment put down to reject this proposal, although amendments ware moved to delay the scheme and asking for more information. I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading containing this Clause, as well as all the other Clauses, because it is in the interests of the citizens of Glasgow.
    Mr. DUKES: Although I welcome the assurances which have been given by the hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Walker), I should like to call his attention to the actual language of the contract to which he has referred. All along, I have felt that the assurances which the hon. Member has given are assurances which the Glasgow Corporation are prepared to implement. Therefore, it is more necessary that we should direct the hen. Member's attention to the actual wording of the contract, and I purpose calling his attention to the memorandum which the Corporation have been good enough to issue giving the actual wording of the contract, which is as follows:
    "The Company shall on the said work give preference of employment to workers in the Corporation Gas Works who may be thrown out of employment as a result of the coming into operation of this agreement."
    In the second Clause, it proceeds to give the usual formula relating to what is known as the Fair Wages Contract Clause, but there are no words in this contract which give to this particular class of workmen the guarantees which have been stated by the hon. Member for Newport. The Fair Wages Clause definitely relates to the standard rate of wages, or piece prices in each branch of the trade. Obviously, carbonisation by coke-oven processes may or may not be regarded as a distinct trade or calling from the point of view of carbonisation in gas works, and personally I am in doubt as to whether, assuming the contractor fails to keep the obligations and assurances which have been mentioned by the hon. Member for Newport, and pays less than the standard rate apply-

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    ing to gas works agreed to by the National Joint Industrial Council, legal proceedings could be taken against that contractor on the grounds stated by the hon. Member. The fact is that, if we have—
    Mr. WALKER: It is not a question of assurances from me. The Glasgow Corporation and the company are the two contracting parties. The Fair Wages Clause of the Glasgow Corporation has been incorporated in the contract, and the trade union official concerned was assured by the Town Clerk of Glasgow, at the committee meeting when the matter was discussed, that the interpretation that Glasgow would put upon that Clause was that the wages would be the wages ruling in the gas industry.
    Mr. DUKES: We are very much obliged for that statement of the hon. Member. My statement was made deliberately in order to draw that observation. We are very anxious to know the actual mind of the Corporation of Glasgow, because, when the development of these new processes is spoken of—and, as I gather from the hon. Member's speech, this appears to be the forerunner of further developments—we are entitled to direct the attention of the House to the existing circumstances in, say, electrical supply undertakings, where the workmen have a statutory right to alternative employment on conditions not less favourable than those from which they are displaced, or, in the alternative, to compensation. If rationalisation in the gas industry is to be developed, as apparently it is, obviously the time has arrived for coming to this House with a request that similar statutory rights shall be established for the gas workers to those which now exist in the case of those employed by electrical undertakings.
    There is some ambiguity with regard to the arithmetic of displacement. The hon. Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Hayday) informed the House that we met to-day the representatives of the corporate body, and they were not at all so definite as the hon. Member for Newport. [Interruption.] The hon. Member says that he was in the negotiations, but obviously the head officials of the corporation ought to know just as definitely as the Chairman of the Gas Committee exactly what the corporation
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    have in mind. We stated that this implied the displacement of 800 men—
    Mr. WALKER: I did not deny that.
    Mr. DUKES: I understand that this is going to be a displacement extending over a period of three years. This is a scheme which will take approximately three years to develop—[Interruption]—if it ever develops. The corporation employ, roughly speaking, a total of 24,000 men. There is an annual displacement of approximately 1,500 men, and I think we are entitled to know why, if the Corporation of Glasgow is to benefit by these economies, the liability should in any part be passed on to the employés, and uncertainty created as to their future, in order to bring about the economies which the corporation seek to effect. Surely, there ought to have been no difficulty about the Glasgow Corporation coming here and saying, to those who are very anxious about the displacement of these 800 men, not that they will give a preference of re-employment, but that they will assure employment. [Interruption.] Let me remind the hon. Member for Newport that there is just about as much similarity between low carbonisation in a coke plant and the operation of vertical retorts as there is between a low carbonisation plant and an up-to-date steel plant. The very experience of an employé in a gas works, with 10, 15 or perhaps 20 years of highly specialised effort, may be just the disabling influence that would deprive him of preference in the new coke oven plant.
    This is what is actually going to take place. Eight hundred men will eventually be displaced. The company will select, and the man who to-day is the regular employé, owing to his years of service, will, in all probability, be numbered among those who will be left out. What is going to compensate that man? Any one of these men, with, perhaps, 15 or 20 years' service in the employ of the corporation, has to-day reasonable security of employment, and, of all the difficulties that beset the worker to-day, the worst is uncertainty. Such a man, with his 15 or 20 years' service, and probably 50 years of age, making application for employment as against one of the casual employés at 25 or 30 years of age, has, in my judgment, not too much guarantee of employment in this company, which,

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    as an ordinary capitalist enterprise, will be far less scrupulous in dispensing with the services of men under the usual processes with which many of us are only too well acquainted, and this is really what we have to face in the course of a very short time.
    The corporation seek to effect an economy by taking bulk supplies of gas from a coke oven plant. Part of the economy is the displacement of labour. In the explanatory memorandum which has been circulated, the language is as ambiguous as it is possible for any language to be. There is no assurance. Let us understand that at least 600 of these 800 men have security of employment now, and we think that, if this change in method of production were being carried out by a corporate body, it is safe to assume that very few of those who to-day are the permanent hands would be put out of employment at all. There is, therefore, a vast difference between the change from the old horizontal retort to the vertical retort, which means opening up new avenues for alternative employment within the same corporate body, and handing these people over to the tender mercies of private enterprise as it is operating to-day, with all the difficulties of a competitive labour market.
    Mr. KIRKWOOD: It is a change from municipalisation to private enterprise.
    Mr. DUKES: That is exactly what I say. We welcome the assurances of the hon. Member for Newport, and I hope that we are safe in assuming that, as the ex-Chairman of the Gas Committee who carried through the negotiations leadin9 to the stage at which we find this Bill to-day, the guarantees that he has given here will present no difficulty to the Glasgow Corporation in carrying into effect at the coke oven plants the minimum rates which exist to-day in the gas works, and that not only will the men receive preference in regard to employment under the new company, and not only will the Corporation give a preference to whatever number may be left as a margin between the new coke oven employés and the 800 men displaced, but that the Corporation, following this Debate, will be prepared to give to all men so displaced a definite guarantee of employment. If this were a change that
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    was being undertaken by any of the great industrial combines of to-day with a total employment list of 24,000, there would be very ltitle difficulty in finding jobs for the 300—accepting the figure of the hon. Member for Newport—who would represent the margin between those employed by the coke oven company and the total number employed to-day by the Glasgow Corporation.
    In view of the assurances which have been given, I sincerely hope that the Corporation will find no difficulty in making such provision for those for whom it is found impossible to provide alternative employment at the existing status, and that the statutory right which to-day exists in the case of elect rival supply undertakings will he taken as the basis of computing the degree of compensation which these workmen are entitled to receive. It is in the spirit of a compromise along those lines that I suggest that the representatives of this great and wealthy Corporation should in a generous spirit meet the obligation that they have to their own employés, and I trust that we shall experience no difficulty in that regard.
    Mr. WALKER: May I say that the representatives have agreed to go back to Glasgow and recommend an agreement on the lines suggested by my hon. Friend?
    Mr. HARDIE: There is another point of view in dealing with the subject that is before the House. It is that of the rights of citizens. The citizens of Glasgow are extremely proud, like those of many other cities, because the fact of municipal powers meant that the city, which at one time, paid at the highest possible rate for diseased-laden water, were able, by combination as a municipal power, to obtain the greatest water supply in the world at the cheapest rates. We did the same with trams. Trams under private enterprise had the longest hours, the lowest wages, and the highest. charges for the distance travelled. When the municipality came into power, it changed not only the conditions under which the men worked, but the wage-earning conditions and the type of tramway, and improved everything in every direction. This Clause that we are debating is the one Clause that seeks to take something out of the control of the Glasgow citizens, and that is why I am

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    on my feet to protest. The hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Walker) made it quite clear when he said the Glasgow Corporation had already been purchasing bulk gas. If they have been purchasing bulk gas since 1925, why do they now seek power? If the corporation have power, why come to ask for it? In addition to that, they defy the House by saying, "Whether you give us this power or not, we are going on."
    Mr. WALKER: I do not think the hon. Member is intentionally misrepresenting me, but I did not defy the House. I was making clear the difference between what is asked for in this Clause and the power that we already possess. This Clause is asking for a wider power than we already possess.
    Mr. HARDIE: That confirms what I was saying that, no matter what happens to this Clause to-night, the corporation are going on.
    Mr. WALKER: Because there is the power.
    Mr. HARDIE: If they have power, why do they come to seek it?
    Mr. WALKER: I cannot keep on explaining
    Mr. HARDIE: I know that is the impossible position you are in. This power that is being sought is not so much to get the right to supply as to buy gas in bulk. When the Glasgow Corporation previously entered into a contract to purchase gas in bulk the plant from which they were to buy it existed. It was a working plant, and no system of low-temperature coking, but gas of a quality which met the needs of the corporation. The reason why this Clause is being pressed to-day is that there is no plant in existence for which a contract has been made. Statements have been made that it was a low-temperature plant that was to be used. Of course, no low-tempera-ture production of gas can meet the needs of the corporation. Then we were told that the company was going to crack oil so as to enrich the gas from the low temperature. Now we are told that is wiped out, so there is nothing for which a contract is made. The danger I foresee is that, if this power is given, a
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    private enterprise group, without having a single brick in position and without being able to say what type of plant is to be used, will proceed to collect money for the purpose. I want to protect, not only the citizens of Glasgow, but the whole of the citizens, because this kind of speculation is what not only prevents the community from having the cheap things that are brought forward, but prevents the general development of really good plant and instruments of that kind. In ordinary methods of decency, it would become beneficial to the whole community.
    This takes from the citizens of Glasgow the principle of control. We have heard the case stated for the men. I want now to state the case on behalf of the citizens. The hon. Member for Newport pointed out that there was a gas works, I think in Sheffield, which was being kept in working order but buying all the gas it required to supply the citizens with from outside. I am all in favour of the scientific treatment of coal, I was one of the earliest advocates of it, but it is not going to make it easy for the development of the scientific treatment of coal if it is going to go into pockets as suggested in this contract. The nation lost its opportunity through the action of the last Government. Under the Electricity Act of 1926, there was a great opportunity for a real constructive consolidation of the scientific use of coal. Then we had a chance of getting the immediate use of all gas produced. We could have put stations immediately in the coalfield. We could have put the gas wherever we wanted it. It would have been under national control and not, as in this Bill under various different kinds of private enterprise. If a stoppage takes place or the company fails to carry out its contract, what will take place? Are we still to carry our maximum stocks of coal in the gas works in order to be ready to start at any moment? If it, lies for a year, it loses 10 per cent. of its value in the production of coal gas. What is the real basis of this? I should like to know a lot more than we are going to get to know to-night. The whole of this is based upon the non-existence of the plant. People knowing their business would have been able to come forward and say, "We are going to use some well-known plant and are going to give a guarantee

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    that before we ask you to sign the contract we will show you contracts for the erection of the plant."
    Mr. HAYCOCK: On a point of Order. May I draw your attention, Sir, to the fact that there is only one Liberal and one Conservative present?
    Mr. HARDIE: I am worrying about Clause 54. This gas from nowhere becomes a very serious item so far as the Glasgow citizens are concerned. As citizens of Glasgow, we have to protect our municipal rights. We have to protect everything which Parliament has given to Glasgow citizens. The Glasgow citizens had powers given to them by this House to manufacture gas either for domestic or industrial consumption. Now we are being told that gas can be made more cheaply outside, and that for a certain reason—it becomes a by-product. We have been told that if the corporation, or any community anywhere, had had sufficient foresight, they would to-day have been making by-products inside their own works. It is the lack of foresight on the part of those engaged in the municipal business of Glasgow. Tonight the question of by-products has been mentioned. Are we asked to believe that, since the market just now is stagnant in regard to the by-products of coal, if we give this right of contract outside the corporation, the new people are going to have a great, unlimited market in byproducts.
    Is it not a fact that just as the byproducts fall in market value, so must the price of gas be raised to the consumer? Are they giving a guarantee that they will be able to stock all the oil which they cannot sell? The continuous production of crude oil is causing the tanks in this country to overflow. In fact only yesterday 2d. per gallon was being offered for what previously was 6¼d. a gallon; and the only basis on which it can be made to pay is a price of 6d. per gallon. What is the relation of the corporation in regard to the contract It is all very well to say that fines are going to be paid, but if people become bankrupt, from where are you going to get the money for the fines? It is said that you will get the coal pits. The hon. Member for Newport should note that the colliery of which he spoke is a depleting
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    asset. In 15 years, which is stated to be the duration of the contract of the Glasgow Corporation, you will not want to take the coal pits. It will be something of which you want to get rid.
    Mr. WALKER: I would remind my hon. Friend that the contract is for 15 years. He is arguing that if the contract failed before 15 years we should have no assets at the end of that period.
    Mr. HARDIE: If the company came to grief, the nearer would he the point when that which was left would be of no value as an asset. The change from civic employment to private employment is one of the things from which we cannot very lightly depart. We stand for the rights of the community, because we have improved the conditions of all these services which we have taken over, including gas. It was due to municipal ownership that we had the power to organise the gasworkers. On this basis, we were able to get men who had not the same fear of being dismissed as they would have had under private enterprise. If this Clause can be withdrawn there will be no difficulty at all about the Bill. I think that the hon. Member for Newport, by his statement, has shown that the Clause is absolutely useless as far as the corporation are concerned, because, he says, they are buying bulk gas, and that whether this Bill is passed or not, this will go on. The contract has been signed, and will go on. I do not see why he and his friends should seek to jeopardise other parts of the Bill, which in other respects is an excellent Measure.
    Mr. WALKER: Do yin want me to explain again?
    Mr. HARDIE: Seeing that this was his statement, I hope that before this matter is finally settled in this House, the hon. Member for Newport, in consultation with his friends from Glasgow, will see that this Clause is withdrawn. This is not all that could be said. I am certain that on these benches, if this matter had been left to an organised opposition, there would have been much more said. When you consider the facts, small as this contract may seem, it is the beginning of going outside the municipal power for the purpose of looking after the citizens' needs. We have heard a statement about coal at the pit being 5s. a ton cheaper,

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    but Glasgow, in buying coal from that same pit, has been mulcted to the extent of 5s. on every ton of coal.
    Mr. WALKER: I did not say anything of the kind. You have anticipated that I would say that.
    Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Robert Young): Really, these repeated explanations are going too far. It is also customary that hon. Members address each other as hon. Members.
    Mr. HARDIE: The hon. Member may not have said that, but it is contained in the statement in this envelope. Here are the minutes of the Glasgow Corporation. I know that my word will be taken by my hon. Friends. Five shillings a ton! I wonder if the officials of the corporation, or those who have been going into this matter, have made a calculation on the basis of the price of gas sold in Glasgow. Those who have done that calculation will understand why the hon. Member for Newport did not mention it. Those who study this a little more, and realise that there is a possibility of taking 5s. off the price of a ton of coal at the coal pit, will see why gas has always been so dear. They now come forward and say, "Here is our coal pit; it is not of very much worth, but we can make it of greater worth if we can get the Glasgow Corporation to enter into contracts."
    It is no use saying that you will get cheaper gas. That thing is still in the air. Nothing has been shown, no plant, nothing tangible has been shown, to those of us who have acquaintance with both high and low temperature. The ordinary people are trusting to the people who know, and who are making it quite evident that they feel that the one thing they do understand is that the municipal rights are being taken away and being transferred to private enterprise. They understand that, although they do not understand the other part of the question about which I have been speaking. If they did understand that, it would not be possible for that to which we object to be set forth in a Clause. I hope that those who desire to get this matter amicably settled will see to it that Clause 54 is withdrawn from the Bill.
    Major ELLIOT: It is evident from the speech of the hon. Member for Spring-burn (Mr. Hardie) that the arguments for
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    passing the Second Reading of the Bill and going into Committee are irresistible. The House has found it almost impossible to desist from a Committee discussion. It is quite clear that the points raised are more suitable for Committee than as argument against the Second Reading of the Bill.
    Mr. HARDIE: Has the hon. and gallant Member noticed that my name is down in support of a Motion for giving an Instruction to the Committee?
    Major ELLIOT: I cannot assume that the hon. Member, having made his speech on the Second Reading, will make the same speech later on in connection with the Instruction. The hon. Member agrees that the Bill must have a Second Reading, although he has an objection to a particular Clause. The occasion on which to take exception to a particular Clause is when the Bill goes into Committee. All the speeches have indicated that the Bill has the support of hon. Members. Although certain hon. Members take exception to a particular Clause, they are willing to accept, in so far as they went, the assurances given on behalf of the Glasgow Corporation, and to have the matter thrashed out in Committee. It will still be open to hon. Members, if they dislike the agreement then come to, to vote against the Bill on the Third Reading. To deal with the Second Reading of the Bill in this way to-night, is tantamount to saying that we know the business of the Glasgow Corporation much better than the Glasgow Corporation knows it.
    Two very interesting points have arisen in connection with the dispute regarding Clause 54. The first point is in relation to the new developments into which municipal organisations in the City of Glasgow, the City of Sheffield and the town of Middlesbrough have taken—new developments in industry into which they have been led by the necessities of twentieth century production into contracting for supplies of power and fuel outside the manufacture of those supplies for themselves. That is a very interesting line of development. I do not think that anyone can say that the future of industry, even the electrical industries, such as the gas or electrical industry, is purely a municipal one, or that the possibility of a large company, whether a public utility company or a private

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    enterprise concern, transcending many of the smaller boundaries to which we were accustomed in the municipal unit, is not becoming more and more evident as the twentieth century develops.
    The other point was the question of rationalisation, which is very much in our minds nowadays. I can imagine no more interesting discussion and no discussion more worthy of the attention of hon. and right hon. Members than the working example which has been given to us to-night. To the worker, rationalisation has very often meant the same thing as demobilisation in the middle of a desert would seem to the private soldier in the Army. It is true that in discussing this question of the remodelling of industry so as to save labour, which we all desire to do, but seeking at the same time not to betray the interests of those who have operated the industry, the responsibility falls upon all of us, whether in politics or in business, who are in the position of leaders. We are only at the beginning of these disputes, and the charters of one kind or another which are being worked out will be precedents upon which develop will proceed for many years to come. Again, that is a matter for Committee and not for Second Reading.
    The position which the hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Walker) was able to put before the House, and the history of the discussions which he gave, was very interesting to anyone interested in the development of industry and in the relationship of labour and capital in this country. I should like to compliment the hon. Member on the clarity and vigour with which he presented his case, and I am certain that the whole House will agree with me in that view. Let us not imagine that we can deal with these things by inserting provisions in a Clause of a Bill. These are matters which have to be left for negotiation. Agreement between skilled negotiators will be of greater value in protecting the interests of the employés than any safeguard which this House can insert, such as the instruction to leave out Clause 54, or even an instruction to consider something when Clause 54 comes up for discussion.
    From the temper of the discussion, from the assurances which the members of the Glasgow Corporation have been able to give to those of us who have discussed
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    the matter with them, and the assurances which the hon. Member for Newport has given to-night, I am certain that it will be possible to come to an amicable settlement of these difficult questions. The problems involved in this Bill are problems which there is every probability we shall be able to settle. In regard to the new developments of industry and the relationships between capital and labour, the developments which are foreshadowed in this Bill may be of great and wide interest and may be the subject of many other Debates in this House. I hope that the House will now decide to give the Bill a Second Reading; then we can concentrate upon the point of Clause 54 and when the Bill comes back for Third Reading, hon. Members will be able to decide whether or not it should be rejected, having regard to the assurances which have been given.
    Mr. MACLEAN: I agree that, practically, the main points of objection that have been made against the Bill have been met by the corporation, with the exception of the point raised by the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) as to taking away from municipal control the gas undertaking and placing the operation of it under a private company. If you were taking the entire gas supply of Glasgow from municipal control and placing it under private control it would support the hon. Member his objection, but as this is only one particular item, and as there arc other gas works left under the control of the corporation for the production of gas, I fail to see that there is much point in the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Springburn.
    The Debate unfortunately took rather an acrimonious turn on account of certain statements which were made. Certain hon. Members believed that they were being misled because of the assurances which were given them by one party outside the House and the statements that were made, presumably on behalf of the same party, by an hon. Member in this House. The negotiators who made representations to the corporation had pretty well in their minds the promise of the representatives of the corporation before they came into this House, and so far as they are concerned I am confident that the representatives of a e trade union will leave it to the representatives of the

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    corporation to implement the bargain they made; which was to go back to the Glasgow Corporation and do their best to see that the company from whom the bulk supply of gas is to be purchased will find employment for as many of the displaced men as possible, and that those who do not find employment with the company will get alternative employment in other departments or in other works under the gas department of the corporation.
    I fail to see why, with a displacement every year of 1,500 employés under the Glasgow Corporation, alternative employment cannot be found for the 300 who are likely to he displaced when this private company takes over. I hope the representatives of the corporation will see to it that adequate compensation is given to those displaced employés for whom no alternative employment can be found, either in other departments of the corporation or with the bulk supply company. If that is done I am certain that the representatives concerned will be willing to place full trust and reliance upon the promise given by the representatives of the Glasgow Corporation, and as that disposes of the main objection to Clause 54 I think the Second Reading of the Bill might now go through without any objection at all, indeed, with the unanimous consent of hon. Members.
    Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.
    Bill read a Second time, and committed.
    Mr. HARDIE: I beg to move,
    "That it be an Instruction to the Committee on the Bill to leave out Clause 54."
    Mr. McKINLAY: I beg to second the Motion.
    The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. William Adamson): This is a
    private Bill and one for which the Government have no responsibility. I am speaking now in my individual capacity, and not as a Minister. We have just given this Bill a Second Reading, 9.0 p.m. and I do not think the further
    consideration of the Measure should be complicated by the passing of the Instruction which has been moved by the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr.
    Hardie). As far as the Bill is concerned it would be better to give the Corporation of Glasgow the opportunity of put-
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    ting before the Committee their case for the insertion of the various provisions in the Measure without being tied by the Motion which has just been moved. I hope the hon. Member will not persist in his proposal. Every one of the criticisms which have been advanced so far can be threshed out in the Committee, and I hope he is not going to persist—
    Major ELLIOT: I understand the hon. Member intends to withdraw the Instruction.
    Mr. W. ADAMSON: If that is so I have nothing further to say.
    Mr. HARDIE: In view of the promise made and the definite statement in regard to the reconsideration of certain points I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

    CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 3) BILL.
    Postponed Proceeding resumed on Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
    Question again proposed.

    RUSSIA.
    Mr. GODFREY LOCKER-LAMPSON: Although hour is rather late I should like to raise a question which I think is not only important in principle but which has roused a great deal of comment and feeling in this House and elsewhere. I refer to the hostile propaganda against this country not only by official organisations and an official Press under the control of the Soviet Government, but also to the hostile propaganda by the Soviet Government itself. The issue is a comparatively simple one, and the duty of the Government is quite clear and staightforward in this respect. I should like to take the House over the story of what is known as the Protocol. At the risk of wearying the House I must quote the original statement made by the Prime Minister in 1924. I do not think that statement can be quoted too often, because on it depends, or should have depended, the whole policy of the Government in this matter since it has been in power. It seems to me that on this question the Government have no loophole of escape. Their pledges, their statements of faith and convictions, are perfectly clear and definite.

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    This is what the Prime Minister said in 1924, in a Note which he addressed to the Soviet representative:
    "His Majesty's Government mean that these undertakings"—(regarding propaganda)—" shall be carried out both in the letter and in the spirit, and it cannot accept the contention that whilst the Soviet Government undertakes obligations, a political body, as powerful as itself, is to be allowed to conduct a propaganda and support it with money, which is in direct violation of the official agreement. The Soviet Government either has or has not the power to make such agreements. If it has the power, it is its duty to carry them out and see that the other parties are not deceived. If it has not this power, and if responsibilities which belong to the State in other countries are in Russia in the keeping of private or irresponsible bodies, the Soviet Government ought not to make agreements which it knows it cannot carry out."
    It was said in the same Note:
    "No one who understands the constitution and the relationships of the Communist International will doubt its intimate connection and contact with the Soviet Government. No Government will ever tolerate an arrangement with a foreign Government by which the latter is in formal diplomatic relations
    of a correct kind with it, whilst at the same time a propagandist body organically connected with that foreign Government encourages and even orders subjects of the former to plot and plan revolutions for its overthrow. Such conduct is not only a grave departure from the rules of international comity, but a violation of specific and solemn undertakings repeatedly given to His Majesty's Government."
    Those two statements, taken together, make complete the case which I want to put before the House. It may be said that those statements by the Prime
    Minister in 1924 were made six years ago and that conditions have changed since then. But I do not think that argument can be used, because since those statements were made they have been repeated on several occasions. In answer to my right hon. Friend, the late Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister in the Debate on the Address of last year used these words:
    "These conditions"—
    the conditions of recognising diplomatically the Soviet Government—
    "are laid down in a published despatch. Everyone who has read the despatch knows what they are. My colleagues know, my opponents know, and the representatives of Soviet Russia know. We stand by them; of course we do."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd July, 1929; cols. 68 and 69, Vol. 229.]
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    Three days later the Foreign Secretary repeated that pledge. He said in the same Debate:
    "In 1924 I think the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary of that date made it unmistakably clear that we were not going to tolerate any form of propaganda that interfered in the internal affairs either of this country or of any of the Dominions of this country or of any part of the British Empire. I have no hesitation in saying that that is our position to-day, and that it will continue to be our position."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th July, 1929; col. 420, Vol. 229.]
    That is perfectly explicit and clear. Since those statements were made the present Foreign Secretary has deliberately signed a Protocol on behalf of His Majesty's Government, binding the Soviet Government to cease from hostile propaganda against this country. In case hon. Members may have forgotten the words of the Protocol I quote its terms:
    "Immediately on the actual exchange of Ambassadors, and not later than the same day as that on which the respective Ambassadors present their credentials, both Governments will reciprocally confirm the pledge with regard to propaganda contained in Article 16 of the Treaty signed on 8th August, 1924."
    That refers to Article 16 of the General Treaty of 1924. The words of Article 16 are as follows:
    "The contracting parties solemnly affirm their desire and intention to live in peace and amity with each other … to refrain and to restrain all persons and organisations under their direct or indirect control, including organisations in receipt of any financial assistance from them, from any act, overt or covert, liable in any way whatsoever to endanger the tranquillity or prosperity of any part of the territory of the British Empire or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or intended to embitter the relations of the British Empire or the Union with their neighbours or any other countries."
    Therefore, in signing the Protocol the Government's intention is abundantly clear. If in any way we require further proof of their intention, the present
    Foreign Secretary provided it in the Debate which we had in this House on the question of the exchange of Ambassadors. On that occasion, he used these words:
    "We stand by the Declaration we made in 1924, to the effect that we could not allow any direct interference from outside in British domestic affairs. and would insist that the promise given by the Soviet Government to refrain from any act liable to endanger the tranquillity or prosperity of the British Empire and to restrain from

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    such acts all persons and organisations under their direct or indirect control, including organisations in receipt of any financial assistance from them, such as the Communist International, which is organically connected with the Soviet Government, should be carried out both in the letter and in the spirit. This is, in fact, an undertaking that Soviet propaganda will not be tolerated in any form or at any time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th November, 1929; col. 901, Vol. 231.]
    It seems to me that nothing could be more explicit or satisfactory than that statement. The only pity is that the Foreign Secretary did not extract an equally clear statement from the Soviet representative. What has happened since? The ink on the Protocol was hardly dry when a Communist daily paper in this country published a message from the Presidium of the Third International, greeting it on its inauguration.
    The message described the newspaper as
    "a new and powerful weapon in the hands of the British working class in its fight against capitalism, against rationalisation and the Social-Fascist Labour Government."
    The paper, the message stated, was to be a rallying point
    "against the Labour Government of rationalisation, anti-Soviet intrigues, Colonial brutalities, and preparations for another Imperialist war."
    [Interruption.] This is not the only instance. I could give others, but if hon. Members do not think it important that I should give the terms of this message, I will not proceed with it. I say, however, that that message is a direct breach of the Protocol. This is not an attack by the Third International on the Tory party. It is an attack by the Third International, which is organically connected with the Soviet Government, on the Labour Government in this country and on the right hon. Gentlemen who occupy the Front Bench opposite. That is not only my opinion. This was so clearly a violation of the pact, that the Foreign Secretary himself drew the attention of the Soviet representative to it. Unfortunately, the right hon. Gentleman did so only too mildly, and what was the reply of the Soviet Government? I quote from the "Isvestia," which is the official organ of the Soviet Government. Sometimes it is said that the "Pravda" does not express the official view, but the "Isvestia" can undoubtedly be taken as the official organ, and a few days later
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    that paper stated that the reply of the Soviet representative to the British Foreign Secretary was unequivocal. This is what appeared in the "Isvestia":
    "Mr. Henderson's slippery attitude exposed his complete helplessness and confusion on the question of propaganda. It was rendered all the more conspicuous by the fact that, in spite of the reiterated questions of the Conservatives concerning the nature of the Soviet Ambassador's reply to Mr. Henderson's representation, the latter by his silence implied the absence of one, whereas, in reality, the Soviet Ambassador gave him a definite and wholly unequivocal reply to the effect that Mr. Henderson's point of view, on the activities of the Comintern, never was and never could be accepted by the Soviet Government, and therefore was always repudiated by its representatives abroad."
    There was no mincing of words there. It was a brutally frank statement and, a slap in the face to the Foreign Secretary, if ever there was one. When the Foreign Secretary was asked in the House to give us the reply which lie had received, he not only refused to give us the words of the reply, but even refused to give us the substance, and, ever since, he has evaded all questions on the subject. He told us that it was not in the public interest to give us the terms of the reply. Why is it not in the public interest? Is it in the public interest, or does it redound to our national reputation, that our Government should be publicly insulted and flouted by the Government of another country? Surely we have a right to know from our own Government and not indirectly from another Government the reply of the Soviet representative.
    Personally, I have little doubt that the Soviet representative told the Foreign Secretary that the Soviet Government refused to exercise any control over the Third International. I have very little doubt that the Soviet representative declared that it was not the business of his Government to do so, and that he declined to give any guarantee that hostile activities in the way of propaganda against this country were going to cease. I think we ought to be told where we are. It is the right of the House to be told how we stand in this matter. It is not in the public interest to withhold information affecting the reputation and credit of this country. But this is not all. A little over a month later a further breach of the Protocol took place. I

    531
    hope I am not speaking in any bitter or inflammatory manner, because this is a serious subject, and I wish to put serious arguments to hon. Members opposite. Replying to a group of students of the Communist University Mr. Stalin used these words:
    "The present policy of converting the peasants into farm labourers hired by the State must increase Soviet military power, shorten the lull, and hasten conflicts of the Soviet State with foreign capitalist States. It was not intended to wait until the revolutionary situation developed, but to urge the proletariat abroad to decisive revolutionary battles now."
    That report has never been contradicted, and it is not the statement of an underling. It is not even the statement of the Third International but is a statement by one who is the autocrat of all the Russians at the present moment. There is no circumlocution about that statement. It is a bare and brutal affirmation of Soviet aims and determination. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where is it from?"] I was quoting a report of Mr. Stalin's own words and they have never been denied. [HON. MEMBERS: "From where?"] It was a telegram from Riga. [Laughter.] I have no doubt that those words were used. When the Foreign Secretary was asked about the matter in this House he himself said that a certain importance was to be attached to the words used by Mr. Stalin. He did not doubt the accuracy of the words. His argument was that those words were not sufficiently bad for him to make a protest in the matter. If a statement of that kind, by the head of the Soviet Government, is not enough to make the right hon. Gentleman enter a protest where shall we go to find one? At least two breaches of the Protocol have taken place since then. The Third International early this month published an inflammatory statement calculated to stir up unrest, not only in India but in South Africa, Palestine and Egypt. I am not exaggerating my case but understating it. The Third International said that the terrorist regime in India had been intensified; that the negroes in South Africa were being suppressed; that Arab pogroms were organised in Palestine, and that an enslaving treaty had been made with Egypt—every word of which was slanderously untrue. Only a
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    few days ago the official "Izvestia" accused our police, under our present Home Secretary, of charging thousands of people with naked sabres, when fighting with demonstrators in the London streets. It called attention to the fact that the Communist programme for England was not completed yet, and was intended to include a burger march on London at the end of the month.
    Mr. WINTERTON; Doer that also come from Riga?
    Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: No, but there is no doubt about it. These facts have not been contradicted by the Soviet themselves, and I should not have quoted them unless I was certain they were true. The Foreign Secretary, in his answers to questions, has never tried to deny the facts. All he has said is that they are not sufficiently bad to warrant protest. Apparently these things do not go far enough, but I would like to ask how much farther does he want the Soviet to go? I would like to ask him—and I wish he were here—how long he is going to stand this almost weekly humiliation, and how long he is going to make his Government and this country cat dirt at the hands of the Soviet? The whole difficulty in which we find ourselves is due to the omission of the Foreign Secretary to get a clear understanding from the Soviet when he was conducting his negotiations regarding propaganda. The pledge in the Protocol rests on Article 16 of the Treaty of 1924. The pledge, therefore, means that the Soviet must restrain all persons and organisations under their control, direct or indirect, from hostile propaganda against this country. But the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary, unfortunately, neglected to get a definite statement from the Soviet that they recognised the position of the Third International as being under the control of the Soviet Government. He neglected to insist on a guarantee than henceforth the activities of that body should cease.
    The whole of the negotiations were conducted, to my mind, with incredible innocence on his part and with a sinister determination on the other, and it resulted in a diplomatic defeat as complete as it was humiliating. He first of all insisted he then climbed down, and has remained down ever since. That is the root of the whole of our present difficulty.

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    Until the Foreign Secretary—and I say this seriously, without any hesitation—gets that understanding with the Soviet Government, and until he receives that guarantee, the pledge in the Protocol is waste paper, and by now I am sure he is perfectly aware of that fact. What is the Foreign Secretary going to do? Is he going to keep up the pretence of friendly relations with the Soviet, and swallow humiliation after humiliation, week by week, for it is clear from the facts—and hon. Members opposite if they could really speak from a non-party point of view would absolutely agree with me—that it is sheer pretence? There are no friendly relations between the Soviet Government and the Government of the Foreign Secretary.
    The only honourable course for the Government to pursue is immediately to set about to try to arrive at a definite understanding. The Soviet may refuse to give the guarantees that are asked for. If they refuse, the only proper course, if the Third International or the Soviet official Press, or the Soviet Government themselves continue their hostile propaganda, is to revert to the situation of a year ago, to withdraw our Ambassador from Moscow, to bring to an end the hypocritical farce of friendly relations with a Government which all the time is wilfully trying to undermine this country in every part of the world, and not to resume diplomatic relations until it is made perfectly clear that the Soviet are going to treat us as all civilised and friendly States are accustomed to treat one another in their daily intercourse. That is my last word. Any other course seems to me not only stupid but humiliating and cowardly, and if persisted in will not only make this Government the laughing-stock of the Soviet Government, but a matter for jest in every Chancellery in Europe.
    Mr. HAYCOCK: The last speaker has been talking about hostility existing for years between this country and Russia. There is no question that ever since the November revolution there has been hostility, and that hostility has been based on rumour and propaganda, and on the fact that ever since then there has been nothing but lie after lie told about the Soviet Government of Russia. Since the Bolsheviks were installed, I think Mr. Kropotkin has been murdered at least 17
    534
    times. They murdered him one week, and tore him limb from limb. He was murdered again and again until he died a peaceful death. Then the Empress Marie was murdered time and time again. Her limbs were torn off, and her eyes gouged out, and it was a terrible slaughter. She was murdered one week, and the "Daily Mail" murdered her at least four times, and the only way the dear lady could save her life was to leave the country altogether; so she came to this country and then went to Copenhagen. I remember looking in the illustrated papers to see her funeral there, though her funeral had taken place many times in Russia before.
    Propaganda, and lie after lie, was waged during the War between this country and Germany. The Germans were cutting the hands off Belgian babies, and then some wicked Germans cut the breasts off Belgian nurses. They tattooed men and when the wicked Germans were short of glycerine, they boiled down their corpses to get it. Whenever we want a certain policy pursued, then the lie factories get busy, and not even a Government Department has been free from it. I would remind hon. Members of the fact that Scotland Yard, a Government Department, was at that time controlled by Sir Basil Thomson. I know of nothing more serious that has been done than that which was done by a responsible Government Department controlled by a responsible Government official. In order to prove that the Russians were incapable of civilisation and were super-devils they arranged for the importation of Russian type and headlines and so on, to forge a complete issue of "Pravda," and in that "Pravda" there were all sorts of stories to show that the Russians had no interest in family life, that they believed in free love, that they believed in murdering priests, that they were a lot of impossible bounders. The whole story was beautifully complete, and everything was lovely until the London printer who set it all up, on the orders of Sir Basil Thomson, made one little mistake. He put the name and address of the London printer in the last column. But even then Sir Basil Thomson carried on and ordered that the name and address should he cut off. Those forged "Pravdas," forged by a Government Department, forged by Scotland Yard,

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    forged under the inspiration of Sir Basil Thomson, were put on a British gunboat and sent to Riga, whence the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken has given us some more rumours, for world consumption. Everything would have gone according to plan, if two compositors in this printing office had not come into the "Daily Herald" office with two copies of the original forgery. It was then brought up in this House; there was no answer, the game was up, Sir Basil Thomson was retired.
    I am trying to tell you that there has been nothing but propaganda, lie after lie. Just as we were told lies about the Germans, lies about the Boers, and lies about everybody where our policy was not altogether acceptable, so we are now told lies about Soviet Russia. If we criticise Soviet Russia, if we believe that Soviet Russia comes short of the glory of complete liberty, if we believe that Soviet Russia is not all that Soviet Russia ought to be, then, for Heaven's sake, let us remember what Soviet Russia displaced, and even when we talk about religious persecution, let us realise what took place in Russia before the Revolution. There was no liberty for anything or anybody but the Russian Orthodox Church, an immoral Church, a Church that had nothing to do with the four Gospels, a Church that had nothing to do with the Sermon on the Mount, a Church that did this sort of thing: Do you know that in Russia, brothels were kept by the State, and the Russian Church and the Russian priests poured the holy water on the beds in those brothels—the Rasputin brigade that ran the Church in Russia before the War.
    When we talk about the questionable items of the Soviet régime, let us remember that the law of prima noctis was in force in Russia until 1917, when any Russian landlord could command that any girl born on his estate, on the first night of her marriage, had to go to him. This may be very dreadful, and may not be nice to talk about, but it is true that this law, this right of prima noctis, was in force in Russia until 1917, till the Russian Revolution. We had in Russia, in the Tsarist Russia that the Soviet Government displaced, a cesspool of persecution and corruption, with no liberty except for the Orthodox Church.
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    Baptists and others who just stepped over the line were sent off on a long walking tour to Siberia. I know, as I happen to be a Canadian. I remember seeing the Dukhobors coming through Canada, and the Quakers of this country subscribed to take the Dukhobors out of Russia. There was no liberty at all, good, bad, or indifferent, for the Baptists, the Dukhobors, or the Catholics. There was no liberty except for the Orthodox Church, and, as far as the Jews were concerned, it would make your blood run cold to know what took place.
    I have read a lot of atrocities in history, I know something of the atrocities perpetrated by Philip II, I know something of the atrocities that took place at the time of Nero, but I know of nothing so horrible, so inexcusable, as the atrocities perpetrated against the defenceless Jews, particularly during the time when Denikin was subsidised by the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), behind the back of Parliament and of this country, which had no control. We spent our millions of money, we poured out money like water, backing Denikin, to whom they gave the K.C.B.
    The armies of Denikin went, backwards and forwards, forwards and backwards, and over 100,000 Jews were murdered in cold blood. If you want to read something about it, read what Rabbi Hertz has to say. There you had pogroms that lasted, not one day, two days, three days, but one week, two weeks, three weeks, and a month. You had old, helpless Jews—the young Jews were at the front—old men and old women, flogged to death. Young Jewesses, 10, 11 and 12 years of age, were outraged again and again and again and again, and then thrown helpless to die, and death was a relief. A very great friend of mine married a Russian Jewess, and this Russian Jewess told me that she saw her own sister outraged. She escaped. She spent three nights in a cemetery, and then got away. No protests from the Archbishop of Canterbury; no protests from hon. Members opposite; not a word! Not only did we spend £100,000,000 backing these monsters, but we have to find £5,000,000 interest on that money, and we gave Denikin the Order of the Bath. He ought to have had the order of a very, very cold bath. I ask you to time down

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    to earth. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I challenge any hon. Member opposite to dispute anything I have said. I have not overstated, I have understated the case.
    In the old days when we had the régime of the Tsar, when we had the most blood-curdling régime that the modern world has even known, when there was no liberty of expression, no liberty of the Press, when there were no trade unions, when anybody who tried to advocate any reform went in danger of his life, when they asked for the most modest of reforms, we all remember—everybody who has been baptised, so to speak, in the Labour cause will remember—that in 1905, St. Petersburg, as it was then, the people wanted a Duma, some sort of democratic Parliament. They gave the police warning that they were going to hold a procession. They gave the police warning for a week, and they arranged to hold that procession, and this is what happened. They got together, they walked through the streets, and they sang patriotic hymns. They were not organising anything in the nature of a revolution; they were going to appeal to the Tsar, whom they called "Little Father." They walked through the streets singing hymns, patriotic songs, something approximating to our "Britain rules the waves," and when they got to Tsarskoe Selo, under the windows of the Winter Palace, they shouted for the Little Father. The Little Father did not appear, but the Cossacks appeared, and they shot into that unarmed mob, and 2,000 were shot dead.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I must remind the hon. Member that the Consolidated Fund Bill deals with moneys that have been voted by this House, and the discussions that take place upon it are confined to criticism or otherwise of the Government with regard to subjects for which the money has been voted. The hon. Member is entitled to a certain extent to go back a little way, but we cannot have this long rigmarole of past events.
    Mr. THURTLE: Before the hon. Member resumes, may I ask him whether, when all these terrible things were taking place in Russia in the days of the Tsar, any organised religious body in this country protested?
    Mr. HAYCOCK: I do not want in the slightest degree to transgress the Rules of this House. I was merely trying to prove that certain gentlemen who strain at a microscopic gnat can swallow 20 menageries, and that persecution in Russia to-day is a very much smaller thing than ever it was in the days of the Tsar. [An HON. MEMBER: "But it is still wrong!"] Of course it is wrong, but two wrongs do not make a right. I only want to point out that we made no protest, and the Archbishop of Canterbury made no protest, but the Labour movement did.
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is, up to a certain point, in order in drawing comparisons, but he must remember that we are dealing with the present day and not with the past.
    Mr. HAYCOCK: We will deal with the present day then, and leave the pre-War and post-War persecutions alone. If we want to think in terms of persecution, we need not go to Russia, but to Czechoslovakia, Hungary and to other countries. I want to talk in terms of actual politics. Let the dead bury its dead; I am trying to throw a few clods of earth in the grave of old rumours and old scaremongerings. I believe that there is a mutual agreement that we are not to indulge in propaganda, but for weeks and weeks there have been questions on the Order Paper—hostile, suggestive and untrue in their implications—and we have had nothing but propaganda week after week from the benches opposite. I do not know whether hon. Gentlemen want war with Russia or not; I do not know whether another little war would do any harm. I do not know what they want. Do they want the Foreign Secretary to repeat the mistakes of the late Home Secretary? There is not the same Russian organisation in thin country that they had then, but shall we get out the dynamite, shall we get out the pneumatic drills, shall we commit an act of burglary, and tell the Russians to walk away. When the Russians were turned out and given their marching orders, they merely took their orders to Germany. Incidentally, we have financed these Russian orders from this country. [interruption.] I would remind the editor of "The Banker" of that fact. The Germans got the business, and we got the experience.
    Mr. BRACKEN: What business?
    Mr. HAYCOCK: I believe 60,000 tractors went to General Motors, and all kinds of business went to the United States. [Interruption.] I am asked a legitimate question, and I am trying to say that the Russians cut down their orders in this country, and that German and American trade with Russia increased. The managing director of one of the greatest engineering firms in this country—Mr. Loris Mather, of Mather and Platts—at the annual meeting of the company, tried to tell the shareholders that business was not quite so good as it ought to have been because the Home Secretary had usurped the power of the Foreign Secretary. The result was that we lost business. Things are not very flourishing at the moment, and we are in for a terrible time. If we do not get customers, we cannot live. We live by exports, and, if we do not find somebody to buy our goods, we cannot live. We are an island nation; we are not really a country at all, but a great big city, and we are not in a position to turn down orders.
    All that a merchant asks of his customer is, "Can he pay, and is his credit good?" We do not want to know anything about the religion of the Russian people, but we want to know whether they will buy our goods and pay for them. It is an actual fact that the Russians are the best payers since the War. I challenge any hon. Gentleman to give evidence of the failure of the Russians to pay 20s. in the £ in any of their commercial obligations. I was tailing to a director of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, and he told me that the society had done £13,000,000 worth of business with Russia, and that Russia had met their obligations to the minute and to the penny. Do we want business? We find it more and more difficult to get business, but we have to sell goods if we are to live. Russia ought to provide the best market for us; there is our natural market, and Russia ought to be our very best colony. [Interruption.] I mean, of course, commercial colony, because there is a difference between a political colony and a commercial colony. Russia should be one of the greatest outlets for our commercial enterprise in the world. She is one-sixth of the world, she has a population of 140,000,000, she has wonder-
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    ful natural resources, she is a producer of raw materials, and there is no earthly reason why we should not extend enormously the trade we do with her. We need Russia and Russia, needs us.
    Great difficulties confront us at the present time. We know that Canada, instead of being a customer, has become a competitor, that our previous customers are becoming competitors, and that we are no longer the Workshop of the world. It is not necessary for us to be the only workshop of the world, but we are not even the main workshop. Behind tariff barriers, other nations are trying to become economically self-sufficient, and it has become more and more difficult for us to pay for our imports. In Russia there is a wonderful market. We ought to ignore political propaganda and, realising that the great Russian people ought to be our best customers, do everything we can not merely to co-operate with Russia but to think in terms of a generous peace with Russia, with credits to Russia, which will mean benefits to the Russian people and benefits to ourselves. I know what hon. Members opposite want. They have had one war with Russia. We spent £100,000,000 on war with Russia. They would like another war with Russia. If there are going to be any more wars with Russia, let the people who want the war do their own fighting and their own paying, and let the common, decent people in Russia and in this country live in peace.
    Commander BELLAIRS: May I ask why no Cabinet Minister is present, and no one to represent the Foreign Office?
    Mr. GILLETT (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I may explain that an intimation was sent to the right hon. Gentleman opposite that the Foreign Secretary and the Under-Secretary were both detained elsewhere by the arrival of the Egyptian delegation in this country, and I understood from the right hon. Gentleman that he agreed that in the circumstances it was impossible for them to be present.
    Commander BELLAIRS. But why should the Under-Secretary be there to receive them as well as the Foreign Secretary?
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I did receive that intimation privately, and I gave my promise that I would not make any personal complaint.
    Mr. DIXEY: On that point of Order.
    Mr. SPEAKER: I have heard no point of Order raised.
    Mr. DIXEY: On a point of precedent
    Mr. SPEAKER: Mr. Brown.
    Mr. ERNEST BROWN: It is quite obvious that immediately the question of Russia is raised it is hard to get a reasonable and quiet Debate 10.0 p.m.—[Interruption]—from either side. The hon. Member for West Salford (Mr. Haycock), when he thinks of the old régimé in Russia, sees blue, and it is quite obvious from the questions on the Order Paper during the last month that many hon. Members on this side see red whenever they think of Russia. But Members of this House have a responsibility as representatives of one nation towards another friendly nation. The question of the Baptists has been raised, and I am taking part in this Debate in order to say something about the Baptists in this country and in Russia. The hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle) interrupted to ask why, in pre-War days, religious leaders in this country made no protests. My answer is that they did. If his memory had been as accurate as it usually is, he would remember that two great Baptist leaders, the late Dr. John Clifford and the late Dr. J. H. Shakespeare, the father of one of the hon. Members for Norwich, did make representations to the pre-War Government of Russia as regards the Baptists, and, as a matter of fact, there was some alleviation in persecution as a result of those representations. It is because of that precedent and of the fact that the Government of the day, through the usual channels, did make representations, that I venture to intrude in this Debate, not to ask that we should break off diplomatic relations with Russia, but to advocate that we should use our diplomatic relations to the full in order that the real feeling—not the political feeling, but the real religious feeling of Baptists and other Christians—in this country about their fellow-religionists in Russia, should, in a friendly manner. be brought to the
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    knowledge of tile representatives of Russia in this country.
    An hon. Member said the persecution to-day is a trifle as compared with the persecution of pre-War days, but I cannot agree with him. I agree that if we try to compare it in terms of violence that is so. The evidence to-day as to actual terrorism in terms of violence is very small; but the evidence about a subtle technique, a deadly technique, more deadly to religion than to those who practise religion than any outrage would be, is overwhelming. I refer to the technique of the slow suffocation of all religious organisations. Those of us who hold religious views similar to those held by our fellow-Baptists and members of other denominations in Russia are entitled to ask for an assurance—and that is all I do ask for—that the real feelings which are held so strongly in this country about this matter have been brought, or will be brought, to the notice of the representative of Russia in this country. I realise that it is extraordinarily difficult for one Government to interfere with the internal affairs of another Government. As a Baptist, and as a member of the Baptist Union Council, I have been asked to take part in protest meetings outside, but I have refused, because I do not desire my own religious convictions to be used by anybody in any movement which may be anything other than purely spiritual. I have not the gift of writing a sonnet equal to that written by Milton:
    "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints"
    and I am not willing to ask the present Government to emulate Cromwell—in one way. Cromwell did order a national fast. The Government might do that. Cromwell did order a national contribution of £40,000 to be made to the persecuted Christians of those days. Cromwell did more than that, more than I am willing to ask the Government to do, although the First Lord of the Admiralty is a Baptist. Cromwell did say that British warships should be sent in order to make a demonstration against those who were persecuting Protestant Christians. [Interruption.] No, I do not want to be involved in even a friendly wrangle with the hon. Member for West Salford. I want to do my best to put the case, as we know it in the Baptist Union, as clearly as I can, and I hope I shall get the assurance I ask for when

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    the Minister speaks. I take it no Member of this House, neither the right hon. Member or his friends, contemplate any action of that kind with regard to Russia. We can rule violence out, but how best can we serve the cause of those we advocate? My own view is that we can serve it best by keeping in diplomatic relations with the Russian people; and if any hon. Member above the Gangway holds a contrary view I shall be pleased to hear his reasons in support of that view.
    What are the facts? The Baptists are on strong ground, because under both regimes they have been persecuted. They were persecuted under the old regime and they are persecuted now. The effect upon the Baptist denomination in Russia now is very serious indeed. I am now stating what can be proved up to the hilt by evidence. According to the latest figures given to our World Alliance we have in Russia 3,219 churches; we had 800 pastors and we had 1,356 other preachers, some of whom exercised their ministries over wide areas, because they were evangelists. The ablest of all Russian Baptists, the Rev. P. V. Ivanoff-Klishnikoff, when reporting to the World Congress in Toronto, said:
    "The Constitution of our country decrees and realises in practice the complete separation of the Church from file State—a principle of peculiar value for Baptists at all times. Further, in accordance with the Constitution of the Soviet Republic every citizen can propagate any religion. Religious freedom and anti-religious propaganda is the right of all citizens. The freedom of worship with any religious rites is guaranteed in so far as they do not violate social safety, and do not involve infringments of the rights of citizens of the Soviet Republic. In view of this, we have the full right to hold meetings and teach in them the Word of God; and our evangelistic work has already spread beyond the confines of the Russian people and is gradually spreading among the heathen and Mohammedans living in our country."
    That statement was made two years ago, and I regret to say that to-day the eminent Baptist who made that statement is himself in exile and none of those statements is true. We are fortified in our private information by the official decree published on the authority of the Foreign Secretary. We point out to the House that what is happening in Russia now is as follows: You have a Government imbued with an entirely dif-
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    ferent theory of life and economics to those held by any other Government,
    and it is under the domination of men who are atheistic. The life of religious communities was tolerable until two years ago when a policy of subtle ruthlessness has been exercised against all religions, and
    Baptists have suffered especially. We get in Russia worship without witness. I am justified in saying that, active members of the Baptist denomination are, first of all, barred from electoral roll and from the membership of trade unions. The teaching of religion to young persons under 18 is denied to religious denominations. Baptists are not concerned in
    their form of worship with rights and ceremonies and shows of that kind and what is described as man millinery, and we depend upon the preaching of the word for its effect upon congregations. Therefore it is one thing to worship in a ritualistic church where no word need be spoken to satisfy the desires of the worshippers, but it is another thing to interfere with a preacher who believes that what he is preaching is the bread of life. It is not public worship which is the deadly thing that is having its effect upon the Baptist and other Protestant bodies in Russia. It may be said that when there is interference with Baptist pastors and members of that body that it is being done on political grounds. When celebrated Communists write upon this question, they talk as the Baptist denomination was organised by capitalists. I have here a report of a book published by the Soviet Press and written by an eminent Soviet writer, who says in a chapter about the Baptist world organisation:
    "An inquiry as to who are the real leaders of the Baptist denomination, which brushes aside a world alliance. shows that the big four are Rockefeller, Henry Ford, David Lloyd George and William Green."
    William Green was the president of the American Federation of Labour. I mention that very amusing episode, because it was seriously published by the Soviet Press and it shows the kind of argument put up when it is held that Ministers and Baptists who are exiled and taken by administrative order without trial and committed to prison are so taken, not because of their religious convictions, but because of their political views.

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    Let me say two other things. There have been appeals for prayer for Russia, and especially for the victims of religious persecution, in this country in recent days. May I point out to the House, however, that in May, 1929, while the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bewdley (Mr. S. Baldwin) was still Prime Minister of this country, so that there can be no question of bias or political influence here, the Executive Council of the Baptist World Alliance, meeting in Detroit, passed the following resolution:
    "It appeals to Baptists of every race and town, and to all other lovers of freedom in all parts of the world, to offer continuous and united prayer for their fellow believers in Russia, and for all others who in that land in the 20th century are denied religious liberty and exposed to disabilities and persecution because of their loyalty to their consciences and to their Lord."
    That was in May, 1929, before there was any organised movement in this country appealing to the spiritual forces of Christians here on behalf of their fellow Christians in Russia.
    Let me briefly sum up what I understand to be the situation. It is that services can be held, but any other kind of religious activity is barred; that the Baptists are steadily losing their places of worship; that persecution is widespread, carefully organised, and more effective to-day than ever before. I am speaking now up to within a month—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member knows anything about the Tsarist days, he will allow me to say that there is evidence which we have and which we cannot publish, and he will respect my reasons as I respected his and those of his friends in the old days. I am not making any statement that cannot be proved, and, indeed, every one of the statements that I have just made can be proved by the decree published by His Majesty's Government in the White Paper No. 3511. The campaign is against religion. Atrocities are rare. The Baptist appeal has nothing to do with politics; it is purely religious, and it points out that there have been three policies advocated during the last 11 years in Russia—firstly, to treat religion with utter contempt; secondly, to fight it by counter-propaganda; and, thirdly, to crush it gradually and by legislative and administrative machinery.
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    I want to add one other point to the decree. Information about these matters must be sought, not only from the decree, but from the change which was made in the Constitution of the Soviet Republic in the month of May last. Up to that time there had been liberty of conscience and of propaganda both for and against religion, but, by the alteration in question, that was removed from the Constitution, and, instead, the phrase "liberty of worship"—a very different thing—was inserted. Hon. Members must bear that in mind in trying to weigh evidence about the statements which are made, some of them very casually and carelessly.
    With regard to individual cases of suffering, we can say that there are definite cases of imprisonment and exile. Definite statistics are not available, but there are people coming out of Russia who make names known to us gradually one by one. We know of our friend, Ivanoff-Klishnikoff, and we know of at least 15 other names, which have reached us during the last 12 months, of Baptist pastors in prison and exiled. We know that somewhere about 200 people have been arrested, some of whom have since been released. We know that the pressure of arbitrary taxation upon the preachers is so heavy that they are reduced to utter privation and poverty, or forced out of the ministry, because there is discrimination against them with regard to taxation. We know of the closing of churches in Moscow. My friend Dr. Rushbrooke tells me that, of six churches where he previously worshipped, three have been closed within the last two years. We know of seminaries which have been closed, and closed very simply by the arrest of the teaching staffs. We know that the whole foreign missionary work of the Baptist denomination in Russia has been stifled because of the new organisation on the basis of worship as a local unit, as apart from a general denomination. We know, further, that the method of arrest is a legacy from the bad old days—it is by administrative order without trial, but a political pretence is often made.
    There is a good deal more that I should like to say about Sunday schools, about the forbidding of women's prayer meetings and meetings for women, and about literature. With regard to the last, I might mention that there was a Baptist

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    national magazine circulating 25,000 copies regularly. We do not know how many Baptists there were in Russia, but they numbered somewhere between 700,000 and 1,000,000. The circulation of that magazine was recently cut down by nine-tenths to 2,500, and at the moment it has ceased to circulate at all. I desire to put this to the Minister, with no desire to hamper him or the Government, with no desire to make this a political question, and with no desire to cut off diplomatic relations, for certainly there is no Member sitting, as I do, for a distressed area on the East, Coast of Scotland, and especially for a port opposite to the Baltic, but would long to see the proportion a pre-War trade between Russia and ourselves restored to us. We are entitled, since inquiries are being and have been made, to ask the Minister to represent to the Soviet Ambassador, quite apart from all questions of propaganda and of what the hon. Member called lies, that there is a deep and sincere religious feeling in this country among Baptists, and, indeed other denominations, and to ask him to convey that to his Government, in order that we may have done all that we can do from outside the country to help our brethren, who are in desperate spiritual need, to religious liberty in that sorely tried country.
    Mr. ALBERY: We have listened to a very interesting and moving speech from the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown). He, however, started his speech rather in what I may call the Liberal self-righteous manner. He first of all pointed the finger of scorn at the party opposite, and he addressed some reproof to the party here on the subject of questions which have been addressed to the Government recently in this House. In these circumstances, I cannot help reminding him and his party that they might study with some effect a speech which was made by their own Leader on the 5th November. I propose to read a short extract from it. With reference to the resumption of diplomatic relations with Russia, he said:
    "There are two things which we want. She may not behave at the table in the same sort of way as older Governments, who are more trained in methods of restraint and of concealing their thoughts and of doing their propaganda against each other. Make
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    no mistake, there is a great deal of that, but it is done in such a way teat they can repudiate everything. It has been done in the past, and it will be done again. The Russian Government do it more crudely and more roughly, I think more stupidly, but the old Russian subtlety will come back again and they will be able to beat the most exquisite master of that art by doing it in such a way that nobody will be able to point a finger at any particular Minister who has done it at all."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th November, 1929; col. 917, Vol. 231.]
    If the Government have any excuse, if they want any excuse, for showing an inability to make any real progress in the matter of a better relationship with the Russian people and the Russian Government, they might well find some excuse in that speech. I certainly do not, and I am sure no one on soy side of the House would admit that the last Government ever conducted foreign diplomatic relations on that basis, I do not believe for a moment that the right hon. Gentleman who is now Foreign Secretary would ever conduct any diplomatic relations on that basis.
    Mr. PYBUS: What basis!
    Mr. ALBERY: The basis that I have just read out.
    Mr. PYBUS: What has that to do with the subject?
    Mr. ALBERY: It has a good deal to do with it. If that is the way diplomatic negotiations are supposed to be conducted, if the leader of the Liberal party makes a statement of that kind suggesting that that is the way in which negotiations have been conducted and in which obligations have been carried out, we cannot expect very much from the Russian Government.
    Mr. PYBUS: If you have views of your own, why do you not give them?
    Mr. ALBERY: Some complaint has been made in the matter of questions. I have addressed a good many questions to the Secretary of State on the subject of our present relations with Russia. Although I am one of those who voted against the Motion for the resumption of diplomatic relations with Russia, I did so entirely because I did not believe the best time had arrived or that, conditions being what they then were, and I fear still are, any real good would result from it and that possibly some harm might result from it. It is, however,

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    undoubtedly the opinion of nearly every Member on this side of the House that the time must come—and the sooner it comes, the better—when we shall again have friendly relations with Russia and shall again be able to trade with her in a normal manner. I do not suppose there is any member of the Conservative party who does not share that view.
    Many questions which have been put have lent themselves to an answer which would have helped matters forward, but that answer has not been forthcoming. One of the first questions put after the resumption of negotiations, was the question whether the Russian Government understood the propaganda agreement in the same way that our Government did, and the first answer that was given had to show, not only that there was some doubt about it, but that there was already a complaint about it, Questions of a similar kind have been put since and, as far as I remember, not on one single occasion have we received, I will not say an entirely favourable reply, but we have not been given even a reply which would justify us in believing that, at any rate, some progress was being made. In most cases it has been extraordinarily difficult to get a reply at all, and one is bound to believe that the Government are anxious to show that their action in resuming relations with the Russian Government was justified, that it has been a success, and that some progress is being made. In that case, I wish to ask the hon. Gentleman who will reply presently, if he can tell us why it is that on no single occasion has he been able to give us any evidence or even any assurance. I hope that possibly he may be in a position to do so this evening.
    There is another question which I want to ask on this subject. In a Debate on the 5th November the Foreign Minister, in his speech, especially stated that all the British Dominions, with the exception of one, had asked that the agreement concerning propaganda should be made to apply to those Dominions, and that as regards the one exception a reply had not yet been received. Will he tell us whether he has received any representations from any of those Dominions since that time, and whether any complaints have been received from the Dominions, or, on the other hand, if any
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    favourable reports have been received from those Dominions?
    There is another point I wish to touch upon concerning trade with Russia. Also in the Debate on the 5th November the Foreign Secretary, when speaking on the question of trade, quoted from a report of a trade delegation which had recently been to Russia, to the effect that a considerably increased trade could be done, and, further, that in the opinion of the trade delegation it depended largely on the question of whether arrangements could be made for the financing of the business on long-term credits. As far as I know, unless I am mistaken, although that, apparently, was the considered and stated opinion of the Foreign Minister at that time, the action taken by the Government since is in quite a contrary sense. I understand that far from giving long-term credits, it has been found necessary to limit those credits to a period of one year. Can the hon. Gentleman give us some explanation of that, because, otherwise, it seems that we are almost forced to draw the conclusion that His Majesty's Government have to-day a less hopeful view of trade relations with Russia than they had at the time when they made their statement on the 5th November and asked this House to sanction the resumption of diplomatic relations.
    Mr. MUGGERIDGE: The Debate to which we have listened to-night makes me think very forcibly of that old French cynical saying that "Life is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think." For some extraordinary reason, whenever the word "Russia" is mentioned in this House the appeal, unlike the appeal on most of the subjects which come up for discussion, is immediately directed straight to the emotions and very seldom indeed to the intellect. I have listened to what has been said from the other side of the House. I have been brought up in a school which regards religious questions, especially from the Noncomformist point of view, as questions deserving the highest consideration and reverent treatment, but I am bound to say that, after this Debate, with the one exception of the very sincere hon. Member who sits for Leith (Mr. E. Brown), and after the questions that are constantly put in this House, were I a man who could transcend for the moment

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    and get outside my religious upbringing and my natural tendency to regard religion as a thing to be treated reverently, I should feel that, perhaps, the Russian Government is right when it takes steps, not violent steps, as has been admitted by one fervent believer in religion in this House, to stamp out religious prejudice and superstition from the minds of the people. The attitude displayed and the spirit of hatred underlying the questions that are continually addressed to Ministers in this House, make me feel that if that can be regarded as the spirit of true religion, I had better follow the tendency of the Russian Government and try, as far as I can, to emancipate my mind from any such influence.
    Shall we not judge religion by the effect that it has on the conduct and the speech of men? When I apply that test here, I am bound to say that I have had very grave misgivings as to whether, after all, religion, if the way in which it is shown here is the true method of exhibiting it, is that elevating influence that I have been brought up to believe it to be. To prove the second part of my quotation, that life is very often a comedy, I could not do better than take quotations, if I could remember them, from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Debate, and also from the speech of an hon. Member on this side, who evidently allowed his emotions to get control of him, and the hon. Member opposite, who has very conscientiously and very courageously admitted that, in these days, when so many people are falling away from their particular conventicles, he remains a true Baptist. From those speeches I should have ample proof of the fact that when you allow your emotions to operate in your mind, you make things tragedy when they are only comedy. Take the hon. Member for Leith. Losing a sense of proportion, he said, not in defamation but rather in criticism of the Russian Government, that the Baptists at one time had their missionaries out there, but that those missionaries to-day found it impossible to carry on the Baptist missions in Russia.
    Mr. E. BROWN: The hon. Member is wrong. I said nothing of the kind. I was not referring to missions from this
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    country. I was referring to Russian evangelists, Russian citizens inside
    Russia.
    Mr. MUGGERIDGE: I misunderstood the hon. Member. In his fervour, he did not make it clear. He spoke about the missions to Russia. When one talks about missions to Russia, one assumes that they are missions sent to Russia.
    Mr. BROWN: That cannot be accurate, because I quoted the number of persons concerned.
    Mr. MUGGERIDGE: If the Russians tried to send missions here, we should consider it a breach of the Agreement which has been entered into. Let me also draw attention to another statement which has been made. It has been said by hon. Members opposite that nothing has ever been said about the Russian Government equivalent to what the Russian papers have said about the Government in this country. That is rather a discovery; one of those extra little touches of the comic side of things. Hon. Members opposite are so anxious about the reputation of the present Government that they complain when it is called by some outrageous person over in Russia the "Fascist Labour Government." The idea in the minds of hon. Members opposite apparently is that anybody, any paper, or official in Russia who makes use of a statement of that kind about the Government here was a man. or an official who was breaking if net the letter at least the spirit of the undertaking that has been entered into.
    I have here, carefully preserved, the headlines of a speech made by the hon. Member for Handsworth (Commander O. Locker-Lampson) at a public meeting and reported in papers which have a large circulation. He used two choice expressions about the Russian Government. He said that the Soviet Government of Russia consisted of bounders and crooks. That is from a man who is a Member of this House; and it is not very easy for those who are away from the British House of Commons, who do not know the British House of Commons, when they read that statement in the way in which it will be put in the papers in Russia not to feel that the Government here are allowing the very spirit and letter of their side of the same agreement to be broken in this country. I should hesitate to say that even about the Fascist Gov-

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    ernment in Italy. Having been honoured with a place in this House I should feel that it was not acting in accordance with my responsibility in international matters to use such expressions. But hon. Members on the other side of the House have been so badly bitten by this mad dog[Interruption.]—I mean the mad dog of Russian hate—that they forget very often their international manners. An hon Member of this House applies the words "bounders," "cads" and "crooks" at a public meeting, largely attended by the elite of one of our provincial centres, to a Government with which we have just signed an agreement. People who ass that sort of language are not in a position, until the Conservative party has purged itself of such irresponsible conduct, to turn round and accuse the Russian Government of using such moderate language in calling our Government a "Fascist Labour Government."
    I could multiply this instance; and notice this. So pleased are the papers in these days of propaganda by headlines to get hold of these phrases that they always put them in the largest headlines. That is the sort of thing which a foreign correspondent, not necessarily at Riga, but in this country, is only too pleased to translate into Russian and send to the Russian people. Whether they intend it or not the net result of their spirit of hate, giving way to their emotions in this matter, is to sow the seed of international discord between the Russian people and ourselves. If it is not a spirit of hate on their side it is a spirit of fear, because they naturally think that all these things are a prelude to an armed attack upon them. It is time that this House acted in a more responsible manner.
    Let me take another thing. I do not know whether the statement that was read was from "Pravda" or not. One has to be very careful, because not only is the origin of the newspaper lying at the root of this matter, but there is also the question of the translation. A comparison of some of the translated passages that have been quoted in this House with the original has disgraced hon. Members opposite and shown their carelessness in using such totally inadequate and misleading translation. In this particular case we were assured that
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    we were being given an account of what was happening here in London. It did not strike the right hon. Gentleman who read the passage to think for one moment that if what took place in London could be so solemnly caricatured in Russia for consumption by the people of Leningrad, the reverse process could take place and that the stuff that was served out to the British public was just as likely to be a caricature. Hon. Members opposite have lost the balance of their minds. One feels that the Mental Treatment Bill which is to deal, not with those who have completely "gone," but with those who are on the margin, had better be passed quickly, and applied to a large part of the membership of this House.
    It is time that we dropped this perpetual nagging at everything that is Russian. Why should hon. Members opposite go out of their way to discover anything in the shape of a stone to cast at the Russian Government? We blame the Russians for accusing us of being bloodthirsty capitalists. We ought at least to begin by showing that we are actuated by a different spirit, and should approach them, not by epithet, but by friendly gesture. If we set a good example very likely they will follow, and the agreement that has been cited to-night will be implemented in practice and our relations with Russia will be duly cemented. I frankly confess that the Soviet doctrine would not suit me. I want very much what the Soviet Government seeks to attain, but the way in which it uses its power does not appeal to me. Nevertheless, if hon. Members want to cement the very foundation of the pedestal on which that Government rests, they cannot do better than arouse the spirit of fear in the Russian people and give colour to the constant propaganda that the capitalist nations of Europe are some day going to attack Russia. I really doubt whether at this moment the Russian Government would be in its position of power—a comparative handful of people among 100,000,00n peasants and other people—were it not for the attacks on the Russian Government by hon. Members opposite.
    To me it is an astounding revelation to find the party opposite, which boasts of being the party of patriotism and which asks us to become patriotic—I presume in the same sense in which it is patriotic—showing by the actions, as well as by the

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    speeches of its Members, that its patriotism consists not so much of love of this country as of hate for some other country. All the way through English history one hate has succeeded another. For a long time, at the beginning of the last century, it was a hatred of France and of Napoleon. Later on it was a hatred of Russia under the Tsarist regime inspired by real or imaginary threats of attempts upon India. In more recent years that hate was translated into a hatred, first of the Boers and then of Germany. All through, the patriotism of the party opposite has been punctuated by these hatreds. I suggest that a patriotism, worthy of the name, does not depend upon hate, but that on the contrary hate has been the undoing of the policy of this country. The time has arrived when as well as disarming in ships and men and Air Force, we ought to disarm in our minds and show that though we differ from other nations, at least we are prepared to give them a straight and fair deal in international matters.
    Commander BELLAIRS: I think it is an astonishing thing that a Debate of this character should have gone on from before nine o'clock until nearly 11 o'clock without a single Cabinet Minister, without a single representative of the Foreign Office, being in attendance. The excuse that the Egyptian delegation has to be met may avail for the Secretary of State, or for the Under-Secretary, but it cannot avail for both, and there should be a representative of the Foreign Office here. I hope that whoever represents the Government will give a more direct answer than we have had in this Debate so far. A very serious indictment has been put forward supported by quotations of official utterances and from official newspapers, and it is no answer to bring forward the unofficial utterances of people in this country. We have constantly asked for information, and the reason why we have had to repeat our questions is because we did not get the information. I have asked questions about the State Universities for training in revolutionary propaganda and about the number of students belonging to the British Empire at these Universities, and I have been told to produce the evidence myself. I have referred to cases in India where students who have been trained in
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    a Moscow university have beer tried and sent to prison. This is a university expressly designated for training in revolutionary propaganda. Surely that is a breach of the Treaty, but. it is going on at this moment.
    I have also asked a number of questions about prison-made goods corning to this country, in connection with the Russian timber trade. I first asked a question on this subject in July of last year, and the Secretary of State then said that he was unable to give me any information because we had no diplomatic representative in Russia; he added that it was precisely one of those cases in which, when we had a diplomatic representative in Russia, he would be able to get the information. When we recognised Russia, after a considerable interval, I asked my question again, and the Secretary of State then invited me to produce evidence myself. I then secured sworn affidavits made before public notaries by escaped prisoners from Russia. I have five of them here, and they testify to the fact that thousands of Russian prisoners are employed in the timber trade, on goods intended for this country. I have had no assistance whatever from. the Government it regard to this matter, although it is strictly against the law of this country. We passed the Foreign Prison-Made Goods Acts of 1897, in which it said there would be added to the table of prohibitions and restrictions contained in Section 42 of the Customs Consolidation Act of 1876, the following:
    "Goods proved to the satisfaction of the Commissioners of Customs by evidence tendered to them to have been made or produced wholly or in part in any foreign prison, gaol, house of correction or penitentiary except goods in transit or not imported for the purposes of trade and of a description not manufactured in the United Kingdom."
    Therefore, the law is quite clear in regard to this subject. I also asked a question of the Minister about forced labour. Everybody knows that there is an enormous amount of forced labour in Russia both in the timber trade and on the State farms. I could get no information whatever. The Minister refused to apply to the Ambassador for information, and so we are left to get the information ourselves. Now the Government are granting export credits, and, if hon. Members believe in the doctrine that exports are paid for by imports, it is a moral

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    certainty that the products of forced labour and prison labour will be coming into this country. Certainly, hon. Members who have made a great cry about not allowing any imports from sweated labour coming into this country must object still more to the product of prison labour and slave labour, for slave labour is forced labour. Surely, the Government ought to have some regard to the prestige of this country. They have seen the opinions expressed in the Finnish papers about this country importing Russian timber produced by prison labour or forced labour. I have here two extracts from leading journals in Finland. One of them says:
    "The greater part of the Russian timber output is being offered to Great Britain. One cannot help finding it a little strange that in Great Britain more attention has not been paid to conditions in Russia which are incompatible with the principles adopted by British trade ethics and sanctioned by the British Empire. Great Britain has never favoured products of forced labour and we do not believe a change in this respect is taking place."
    Another paper says:
    "What is it but slavery in a modern sense that in peace time great numbers of peasants and workers are deported to be utilised for forced labour? Recent reports of German, Swedish and other nationals who recently escaped from Soviet prisoners' camps have made it clear that previous news from Russia was by no means exaggerated."
    In one camp alone, Solovjetsk Island, 45,000 prisoners are employed entirely on timber cutting and loading and so on. Hon. Members object so much to stories of horrors being given and they pour disbelief on them, but from those given on the testimony of the prisoners it is perfectly clear that hundreds of them die. They have to submit to terrible privations, and in every respect the tales which are told of these prisoners' camps are tales which would excite the horror of the whole of Europe. The men are not paid, but are given food according to the work they do, the hardest workers being given the most food. The official journal itself has described the conditions of these prison camps as appalling. That is the actual word used by the official journal. There is one other point which I wish to make. It may be the case that people in this country do not mind timber coming in. It does not come home to them, because we do not produce much timber in this country, but we are rapidly ap-
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    proaching the time when the products of the State farms in Russia will be coming into this country. The Soviet Government, in order to create credits, will export grain, even though the people in Soviet Russia may be starving. The whole idea of the timber trade is to create credits in this country. Forests are being recklessly cut down, without replacement, and they realised about £7,500,000 in this country last year. They hope to realise more this year, but they are having considerable difficulty with labour, in spite of the forced labour.
    I now come to the question of the State farms. On 21st February a "Times" telegram said:
    "The Labour Commissariat has contracted to mobilise 1,500,000 peasants for the collective farms."
    We have the testimony of Lenin's widow in the Soviet Press at the beginning of March, when she wrote an article based on letters she had received from the villages, of which these are extracts:
    "It is a Stormy time, this second Revolution, and quite as fierce as 1917."
    Then she goes on to say:
    "The Kulaki (that is, the comparatively well-to-do peasants) are being liquidated resolutely and mercilessly."
    Those are the words of Lenin's widow, not the words of an observer hostile to Soviet Russia. What is going to happen in agriculture?
    Mr. SPEAKER: I told an hon. Member earlier in the Debate that he must not speak on questions that have nothing to do with the Consolidated Fund Bill or the Government of to-day, and I cannot connect the hon. and gallant Member's arguments with anything with which the Government have to do,
    Commander BELLAIRS: The point I was going to make was this, that the State farms have increased to 110,000. They have increased from liquidating 4,393,000 peasant holdings by 20th January, 1930, to a present figure of 14,264,000 by 1st March. The products of those State farms under compulsory labour are going to arrive in this country, and I venture to tell the Government that it will be a very different proposition from the compulsory labour in regard to timber that is coming to this country when the agricultural industry of this country realises that the products of

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    compulsory labour on the Soviet State farms are coming to this country. I ask the Government to deal with this matter at the earliest possible opportunity and also to raise it at the League of Nations.
    Mr. GILLETT: I rise to answer the various points that have been put forward by hon. Members. The hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Commander Bellairs) complained that I did not represent the Foreign Office, which shows a lack of knowledge on his part of the constitution of Parliament and the Government offices, because if he looks at the list of the Foreign Office officials, he will see my name appearing there connected with that of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He also told us that, in spite of all the questions which he had put to the Foreign Office, he had never got any answer, and therefore, at any rate, he will be none the worse off to-night when he has heard my speech. I do not wish to complain of the introductory speech made by the right hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. G. Locker-Lampson). I understand that his line of argument was based, first of all, on the position which the Government took up as a result of the Protocol which was arranged in October of last year. It was settled on that occasion that notes should be exchanged when the Ambassador arrives, and he has stated, at any rate, he has given us quotations, that it was solemnly affirmed by each party to be
    "their desire and intention to live in peace and amity with each other, scrupulously to respect the undoubted right of a State to order its own life within its own jurisdiction in its own way, to refrain and to restrain all persons and organisations under their direct or indirect control including -organisations in receipt of financial assistance from them, from any act overt or covert liable in any way whatsoever to en-danger the tranquility or prosperity of any part"
    of the two countries. That, I understand, was the principle that was agreed to by both our Government and the Russian Government. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, when speaking in this House on 5th November, 1929, affirmed this position. He said:
    "We stand by the declaration we made in 1924 to the effect that we could not allow any direct interference from outside in
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    British domestic affairs and would insist that the promise given by the Soviet Government to refrain from any act liable to endanger the tranquility or prosperity of the British Empire, and to restrain from such acts all persons and organisations under their direct or indirect control, including organisations in receipt of any financial assistance from them, such as the Communist International, which is organically connected with the Soviet Government, should be carried out both in the letter and in the pirit."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th November, 1929; col. 901, Vol. 231.]
    That, briefly, is the position that the Government have taken up, and which we are endeavouring to follow. The question naturally arises; what acts do the Government think will be sufficient to be a violation of that understanding? The first thing I want to point out, to the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Members opposite is that my right hon. Friend distinctly stated that he was not going to be rushed into any hasty judgment in these matters. By that decision, we certainly stand more strongly than ever to-day. I am indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for the kind sympathy which he indicated for the Labour Government in some attacks that have been made upon them by the Columnist party in Russia. I can assure him that we do not mind them, and he need riot give us his sympathy on matters of that kind. If that is the only complaint, it is a very small one.
    Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: Does the hon. Gentleman think that it is a friendly action on the part of the Russian Government?
    Mr. GILLETT: I am going to deal with that. Hon. Members in all parts of the House have always felt in regard to this Russian problem that a great deal of the information which we receive and a great deal of what we read about Russia is so coloured, either intentionally or unintentionally, by those who are giving the information or writing the articles, that it is quite possible that some Members like myself hardly believe anything that we see or hear, but that we gather up these different views and expressions of opinions, and try to find between them what may probably be the real truth. That is one of the reasons why we are not prepared to accept everything that comes from hon. Members opposite and their supporters, and immediately to rush in and say that we are going to raise

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    questions with the Russian Government as to whether this is a violation or is not a violation of our understanding.
    Complaint is made that the Russian Government or their representatives, or members of the Communist party, are working against us in many parts of the world, especially in our Dominions. Like other hon. Members, I am old enough to remember that exactly the same thing was said about the danger to India from the Russian Empire and representatives of the Tsar's Government who were supposed by the alarmists of those days to be trying to undermine the position of the British Government in India. After all this time, we get the same thing again to-day, only it is a different Russian Government. The tales are equally alarmist and the object is very much the same. Our position remains, therefore, exactly as my right hon. Friend has stated, that so far we are not satisfied that anything sufficiently serious has taken place since we entered into those relationships with Russia to induce us to break off the diplomatic associations that we have at the present time. I agree entirely with what the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown) has said. The claim he made on behalf of the Baptists is immensely strengthened by the fact that he distinctly stated that he was not using it for any political purpose or to try to bring to an end the relationship existing between the two peoples. Many of us sympathise with the appeal he made. My right hon. Friend recently stated that he recognised the difference of the position, and said of the decree respecting religious associations:
    "I have no doubt it indicates a continuance of the anti-religious pressure which has consistently and for many years been a notorious feature of Soviet policy."
    But when we arrive at that position then we have to answer the question which the hon. Member put as to whether it is possible to make representations to the Russian Government. The hon. Member knows perfectly well that in public life, as well as in private life, representations can be made in cases where relations are very close such as would be quite impossible if the parties were not on such a footing of friendly relationship. Therefore it seems to me that whilst we have going on in this country propaganda in our newspapers, propa-
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    ganda that is so continuously supported in this House by hon. Members opposite, it is virtually impossible for the Government to make representations to the Russian Government such as the hon. Member for Leith would like. After all, you cannot entirely dissociate the words and actions of different Members of the House of Commons from, perhaps, the policy of the Government.
    Mr. ALBERY: I am sorry to interrupt, but I would remind the hon. Gentleman that he has just informed the House distinctly that our relations with Russia are not sufficiently bad to justify us in breaking off relations with Russia, but he has said nothing to show that the relationship has improved in any way, and on the whole his speech tends to show that the relationship is worse.
    Mr. GILLETT: I think the hon. Member might have allowed me to finish before attempting to give a résumé of my speech. I was dealing with the point raised by the hon. Member for Leith about the sufferings of the Baptist Church. I would like to assure him that having made this statement, which is my own view of the position, I will certainly draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to the speech of the hon. Member. It is needless for me to assure him that my right hon. Friend will look into the matter with the very greatest sympathy, because he has been for many years closely associated with one of the Nonconformist Churches.
    The hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Albery) put one or two questions to me. He asked whether the Dominions had made any complaint in regard to Communist propaganda in the Dominions. I am informed that there have been no formal complaints, but there have been suggestions which have not been submitted in the formal manner which is needed if any action can be taken upon them. A point has been raised in connection with long-term credits. The hon. Member who raised that question will understand that the statement which has been referred to was only a general statement made on that subject. The Government are guided in any contracts entered into of this nature by an advisory committee composed of business men in the City of London. Therefore, if there seems to be a dif-

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    ference between what was said then and the policy that is now being followed, it may be put down, at any rate to some extent, to the fact that, in spite of the general expression of opinion when the scheme began to work, it has been felt by this advisory committee that it was better to keep the time short for the present in connection with any contracts entered into. This need not necessarily be taken as entirely representative of the views of the Government, but it must also be borne in mind that we are being advised by this Committee.
    The hon. Member also made the statement, which I was very interested to hear, that the time would undoubtedly come when the party with which he is connected would be only too glad to enter into friendly relations with the Russian people. He did not follow that up any further than by explaining what would be the conditions which would induce him to come into line with us on this matter, but at any rate I was glad to hear some assurance from one hon. Member opposite that they recognise that it is desirable that, if possible, we should enter into closer relationship witch Russia. I look upon this attempt, however difficult it may be to work out, as one that it is absolutely essential that we should try to carry through. Anyone who studies the trade position of Great Britain to-day as it is constantly brought before me in connection with oversea trade, must now know that we cannot afford to leave out of the scope of our business connections this great country of Russia. Every effort should be made, in view of our trade depression and the large number of our unemployed, to improve our export trade with that country, and when we consider that Germany last year exported to Russia goods to the value of £19,000,000, and the United States goods to the value of 15,000,000, and when we compare that with the fact that in the last full year, 1928, when right hon. Gentlemen opposite were responsible for their policy of dissociation from Russia, we only exported a little over £2,000,000, I think it is evident that there is scope for a larger trade with Russia.
    When I say that, I am not merely saying what I hope or think, but what our policy, so far, has proved to be the fact. All this confirms me in the policy which the Government have entered into.
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    There may be difficulties, there may be obstacles, but the object is great, for the well-being of the world it is essential that we should work amicably with other nations, and it is utterly impossible that we should go and examine into the lives, of nations and say that we not have relationships with this one or that one because we do not believe in their system of Government. If we were to follow that policy, the whole of our international relationships would come to an end. We must apply the same principle here, and especially in the case of Russia it is important that we should so improve our relationhips that we may look for a larger exchange of goods, and greater and recurring trade prosperity for the two peoples, so as to benefit; not only the people of Russia, but many people in the business world and amongst our unemployed in this country, who sadly need the assistance which improved trade will afford.
    Mr. DIXEY: I should not have troubled the hon. Gentleman with a further speech if he had answered one or two questions which were put by the hon. and gallant Member who spoke just before him. He has dealt in no way with the very perinent question of prison labour. Has he taken the trouble to investigate, with his colleagues in the Foreign Office, whether there is any substance and truth in the allegations of the hon. and gallant Member? Surely this House, after the questions which have been put, is entitled, on the occasion of a Debate of this sort, to the courtesy of the presence of a Foreign Office representative supplied with full information on matters which are of great importance to us. The private Members of this House, whatever wrong views they may hold, are entitled to a proper courtesy and a recognition of the questions which we desire to put. The hon. Gentleman laughingly says that he is connected with the Foreign Office, hut we know quite well that he has no responsible position at the Foreign Office.
    There are only two Gentlemen who are supposed to advise His Majesty's Government with regard to foreign affairs. One is the Foreign Secretary, who is conspicuous by his absence tonight. He was afraid to answer. He desired to keep the Debate at the level of something that was not worth his

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    notice to come into the House to answer. That will not cut any ice on this side of the House. Until we get a proper answer to our questions, we shall persist with them. The hon. Gentleman has given us no information at all as to what the Government really think of the Russian situation. What is the good of saying exports are more than they were last year? He tells us nothing about what we imported to the destruction of the British farmer. What is Russian wheat doing in this country? If the Government applied their mind less to the spectacular idea of Holy Russia and did something for the British farmer they would do some good. The hon. Gentleman has given us no information as to what the Socialist party think of the Russian question. The country wants to know. Hon. Members opposite represent certain classes in the country. The Press is most important to them. They know it, and they are afraid of it. It was secret propaganda which largely brought into being the iniquity of the general strike. I can produce a list of hon. Members connected with the trade unions who put that tragedy down to Communist propaganda engineered in Russia. Hon. Members of the extreme left of the party opposite, the gallant 24, may laugh but it is a serious matter for the Government. If the hon. Gentleman desires to see closer co-operation with us he should suggest to his right hon. Friend to supply us with some information which would make them secure in the belief that there was a genuine desire on the part of the Soviet Government to stop meddling in our affairs. If he would be frank and would give us the information we require, he would have some chance of getting us to co-operate with the Government with regard to a policy of closer relationship.
    I was surprised after listening to the eloquent speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown), a man whose sincerity is appreciated on all sides of the House, that the appeal which the hon. Member made was not supported in any way by hon. Members opposite. I saw the hon. Gentleman the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Barr) in the House during a portion of that speech, but not one word have we heard from the Socialist benches.
    Mr. BARR: My hon. Friend should know that I have been absent from the House for a reason I would not state, otherwise, I should have taken part in the Debate. The first thing I did was. to go out and congratulate the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown) on the speech which he had made in this House.
    Mr. DIXEY: I accept the hon. Member's explanation, and at once unreservedly withdraw my remarks. On an issue of great importance to the Christian religion, and after we had listened to, such a speech, we ought to have had some support from hon. Gentlemen on that side-of the House who are supposed to take a keen interest in the freedom of every thing. The Conservative and Liberal parties are always taunted that they stand for class or party and have no interest in freedom. The party opposite are the apostles of freedom. They are the very people who ought keenly to resent this sort of thing. There has not been one speech on these lines. Practically the whole speech of the hon. Member for West Salford (Mr. Haycock) was an appreciation of the Soviet measures; it was practically a justification of everything that is going on. Another hon. Member went even further and practically brought the whole question of religion into the melting pot. If the charges which have been brought by the hon. Member for Leith are true in substance, the fact that the hon. Gentleman is connected with the Wesleyan Methodist Union is not a ground for putting forward anything at all. The right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary, who is. the foreign representative of the biggest Christian Power in the world, ought to have come down to this House. I say candidly that it is an insult to the intelligence of hon. Gentlemen on all sides of the House merely to say that the Foreign Minister is sympathetic because his church is connected with the Baptist Church; it brings the whole Assembly into disrepute. I hope that the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department will convey to him that, far from his former statement having satisfied Members of this House, we shall persevere in this question until we get satisfaction.
    Sir BASIL PETO: I came here this evening in order to have the opportunity of asking the Foreign Secretary a question which at Question Time would not

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    be in order. I hoped, as we found very little satisfaction from the very large number of questions on this Russian subject which have been put from this side of the House, that in this Debate the House, and particularly the Opposition, would have had the privilege or advantage of hearing a Member of the Government representing the Foreign Office, and that he would have been able to answer us in debate on questions which we have not an opportunity of putting at Question Time. The hon. Member represents the Overseas Trade Department, and we make no complaint of his answer as far as his knowledge—which, no doubt, is extensive—of oversea trade is concerned. He dealt with that aspect of the subject. I would ask him at least to make a representation of this question, which he cannot answer himself, and in regard to which the House has a right to receive an answer, to the Foreign Secretary.
    When we resumed relations with the Soviet Government there was an understanding that what I can only term a bargain should be made. We were going to enter into diplomatic relations with the Soviet Government on two conditions—that propaganda in all parts of the British Empire should cease and that negotiations should take place for the settlement of the just debts of British subjects which were owing to us by the Soviet Government. Diplomatic relations were resumed in October. We are now in the month of March and, in spite of questions put to the Foreign Secretary, we have not been able to ascertain the nature of the bodies who are to negotiate the debt settlement question, or when the negotiations are going to begin. We do not know anything about it. I do not suppose the Secretary of the Overseas Trade Department can answer. Has the Foreign Secretary, through the usual diplomatic channels which ought to convey the information to him—On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker, I desire to know whether I can protest that the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department, who is supposed to represent the Foreign Secretary to-night, persistently refuses to listen to anything that I put to him?
    Mr. GILLETT: I was asking if it was possible for me to give an answer, and I understand that it is not possible.
    Sir B. PETO: I prefaced my remarks by saying that I did not think the hon. Member could answer, and that I would like him to convey my questions to the Foreign Secretary. They cannot be put at Question Time, and must be asked now. We have a right to put the question and to receive an answer. The relations were entered into on the basis of a bargain, and our part of the bargain was fulfilled last October when we accepted the Soviet representative in this country and sent our representative to Moscow. As negotiations for debt settlement have not begun, I hope the Foreign Secretary will take an early opportunity of informing the House and the country whether, through the ordinary diplomatic channels, he has been made aware of the following fact—I take it to be a fact—as revealed in a telegram published in the Press, and issued from Moscow on the 27th February:
    Mr. Briukhanoff, the Financial Commisar of the Soviet Union declared in a speech delivered at Leningrad that the Soviet Government has no intention of taking over or of recognising any debts whatsoever of the Czarist Government."
    The negotiations for the resumption of diplomatic relations were broken off and restarted, and, finally, last. autumn we waived the conditions that we had made in the earlier negotiations, and we submitted to whatever terms the Soviet Government chose to put upon us, and without any undertaking that the matter of debt settlement should receive anything more than consideration. We felt that the Government had been imposed upon. However, the Government thought that it was necessary to enter into relations with the Soviet, because a certain meeting connected with their party were getting impatient, and it was necessary for the Government to carry out the pledge that they had given at the General Election to resume relations with the Soviet Government immediately. The matter became urgent and they had to do it, no matter what indignity was put upon the Government of this country by the Power with whom we were to resume diplomatic relations. We are entitled to know whether the quotation which I have read is a fact and represents to final view of the Financial Commissar of the Soviet Government, that under no circumstances although they have their representative

    569
    here, do they propose to carry out that part of the obligation which lies upon them to deal with this question of debts due to British subjects. They have confiscated the property of British subjects, and they say that they are never going to reconsider the matter or make any recompense. That being so, we are entitled to ask how long we are going to continue our side of the bargain; how long we are going to submit to what is simply an insult when responsible members of the Soviet Government openly make speeches saying that they have not the slightest intention of carrying out what they have undertaken to carry out. How long is this going on? We cannot expect the prestige of this country to be very high abroad under the present Government in any quarter of the world, and I think it is time our Foreign Office declined to make itself a doormat for the Soviet Government to wipe their feet on.
    Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: I only want to make one comment on a remark of the Secretary for Overseas Trade. He made the extraordinary suggestion that the Foreign Secretary should take steps to protect one form of religion in Russia, because he has an interest in that form of religion. Apparently it does not matter if Jews or Roman Catholics are murdered or how much members of the Church of England or of the Orthodox Church are persecuted. He will only interfere to protect members of a Church which is in the alliance to that to which he himself belongs. I hope he did not mean what he seemed to imply in his speech. I think it would be a bad thing if the foreign policy of this country was influenced by personal considerations of that kind.
    Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.

    GAS UNDERTAKINGS ACTS, 1920 AND 1929.
    Resolved,
    "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 and 1929, on the application of the Haslemere
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    and District Gas Company, which was presented on the 4th day of March and published, be approved."
    Resolved,
    "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 and. 1929, on the application of the Stone Gas and Electricity Company, Limited, which was presented on the 6th day of March and published, be approved."
    Resolved,
    "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade, under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 and 1929, on the application of the Wellington (Salop) Gas Company, which was presented on the 5th day of March and published,. be approved."
    Resolved,
    "That the draft of a Special Order proposed to be made by the Board of Trade under the Gas Undertakings Acts, 1920 and 1929, on the application of the Houghton-le-Spring District Gas Company, which was presented on the 5th day of March and published, be approved."—[Mr. Gillett.]

    ELECTRICITY SUPPLY ACTS.
    Resolved,
    "That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1928, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of part of the rural district of Barnstaple, in the county of Devon, which was presented on the 10th day of February, 1930, be approved."
    Resolved,
    "That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1928, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the parishes or townships of Halsall, Hesketh with Becconsall, North Meols, Rufford, Scarisbrick, and Tarleton, in the rural district of West Lancashire, in the county palatine of Lancaster, which was presented on the 18th day of February, 1930, be approved."
    Resolved,
    "That the Special Order made by the. Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1928, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the parish of Stratton Saint Margaret, in the rural district of High-worth, in the county of Wilts, which was presented on the 19th day of February, 1930, be approved."
    Resolved,
    "That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1928, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of parts of the rural districts of Samford and Woodbridge, in the administrative county of East Suffolk, which was presented on the 27th day of February, 1930, be approved."
    Resolved,
    "That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1928, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of part of the rural district of Whitby, in the North Riding of the county of York, which was presented on the 4th day of March, 1930, be approved."
    Resolved,
    "That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1928, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, for the transfer of the undertaking authorised by the Exmouth Electricity Special Order, 1923, which was presented on the 5th day of March, 1930, be approved."
    Resolved,
    "That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Elec-
    572
    "That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1928, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the borough of the town and county of Southampton, which was presented on the 5th day of March, 1930, be approved."
    Resolved,
    "That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1928, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the borough of the town and county of Haverfordwest, in the country of Pembroke, which was presented on the 27th day of February, 1930, be approved."—[Mr. Parkinson.]
    The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
    It being after half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
    Adjourned at Sixteen Minutes before Twelve o'Clock.