Commons Sitting of 9 November 1933

Preamble
The house met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  HOURS OF WORK.
  Mr. HALL-CAINEasked the Minister of Labour what action, if any, has been taken by the British Government with regard to the report of the Committee of the International Labour Conference on the reduction of hours of work?
  The MINISTER of LABOUR (Sir Henry Betterton): In accordance with the usual practice, this report has been brought to the notice of the National Confederation of Employers, Organisations and the Trades Union Congress General Council, with a request for the observations of these bodies in connection, with the reply to be made by His Majesty's Government to the questionnaire contained in the report. I also brought this report to the notice of all joint industrial councils and trade boards, with a request for their observations. Their replies will be given every consideration in connection with the reply to be sent to the questionnaire.

  INTERNATIONAL LABOUR CONVENTIONS.
  Mr. MANDERasked the Minister of Labour if he will state the position with regard to the ratification by this country of the following Conventions: Hours of Work in Coal Mines, the Age of Entry of Children into Non-industrial Occupations, Hours of Work of Employés in Industry, the Abolition of Fee-charging Agencies, and the Minimum Age of Entry into Agriculture?
  Sir H. BETTERTON: I have prepared a detailed reply to this question which, if I may, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Following is the reply:
  With regard to the Coal Mines Draft Convention, the International Labour Office is awaiting information from certain of the chief coal-producing countries on the subject of difficulties explained to a meeting of governments last February by my hon. Friend the Secretary for Mines. The subject was discussed at the last meeting of the Governing Body of the International Labour Organisation, and will be further discussed at the next meeting in January. The Draft Conventions on the Age of Entry of Children into Non-industrial Occupations and on Fee-charging Agencies are still under consideration. With regard to the Washington Hours Convention, I have nothing to add to the reply I gave to the hon. Member on the 27th October, 1932. I would remind him, however, that the question of a new Convention on the reduction of hours of work is now under consideration by the International Labour Organtion. The decision not to ratify the Draft Convention on the Minimum Age of Entry into Agriculture was reached in 1925 and successive Governments have seen no reason to revise this decision.

  UNEMPLOYMENT.

    LAND RECLAMATION SCHEME, BILSTON.
    Mr. BANFIELDasked the Minister of Labour whether he can state by whose instructions the managers of Employment Exchanges at Bilston, Wednesbury, Darlaston and Tipton interviewed unemployed men signing on at these Exchanges and invited them to volunteer under the voluntary scheme for the reclamation of waste land at Bilston, Staffordshire, by which men on transitional benefit were required to volunteer to work 40 hours per week for an additional 2s. per week to their Employment Exchange allowance; and whether he will take steps to institute a scheme for the reclamation of waste land in the Black Country by which the local authorities can pay the standard rates to unemployed men for this work?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: There is an instructional centre organised by my Department, by arrangement with the Bilston Urban District Council. I am

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    sending the hon. Member a copy of a descriptive leaflet which was issued to all men concerned. The action of the Exchange managers in inviting men to volunteer for this scheme was taken in accordance with my instructions. As regards the second part of the question, I have no power under the existing law to proceed as suggested.
    Mr. HANNON: Will the right hon. Gentleman say if the experiment that has been tried in this instance has not been of the very greatest advantage to the people concerned?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: I think that there is no doubt that that is so.
    Mr. BANFIELD: Is the Minister aware that this scheme has caused tremendous discontent, irritation and dissatisfaction among the men employed on it?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: No, Sir; it has been received with the greatest satisfaction.
    Mr. LAWSON: May I ask if there is any regard to the wages paid for this class of work, in starting these schemes?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: Yes, Sir. There would be no wages paid for this class of work, for the simple reason that the work would not be done at all if it were not done in this way.
    Captain Sir WILLIAM BRASS: Is it not a fact that these men would far rather be working than idle?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: I always assume in this matter that the men would prefer work to idleness.
    Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: Will the Minister assist the House by publishing the conditions of the scheme?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: I have here instructions which I am sending on to the hon. Member, and a copy of the descriptive leaflet issued by my Department.
    Mr. GRENFELL: Will the Minister see that it is published in the OFFICIAL REPORT?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: I certainly will, if it is not too long. I should like it to be published.
    Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND- TROYTE: Can my right hon. Friend say why the Socialist party always objects to work being found for men who are unemployed?
    Mr. GEOFFREY PETO: I am the Member for Bilston, and I have not had a chance yet of speaking on this matter. May I ask whether the scheme is not very welcome to the men, who are glad to be able to keep fit and in training, and to be doing something for the community, as well as earning a certain amount of money and meals which were not mentioned in the question?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: There is no doubt about that at all.

    INSTRUCTIONAL CENTRE, HAMSTERLEY.
    Mr. BATEYasked the Minister of Labour the conditions under which labour will be recruited for the training camp to be started at Bedburn, county Durham; and, in particular, whether it is intended that the men shall work 44 hours per week on forest-clearing, trenching and drainage, road-making, and quarrying; and the wages to be paid?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: The instructional centre at Hamsterley will be open on a voluntary basis to young men in the County of Durham who have been long unemployed. The work at this centre, as at other centres of this type, managed by my Department on Forestry Commission estates, will be as described by the hon. Member. It is work which would not otherwise have been put in hand, and it is to be started solely in order to provide additional training facilities for the North East coast. Wages will not be paid, but while in training, the men will continue to receive unemployment benefit, or transitional payments, as the case may be. I am sending the hon. Member a copy of the leaflet setting out the objects and general conditions of admission to instructional centres.
    Mr. BATEY: Are we to understand from that reply that these men are to do this hard work for 44 hours a week for no wages?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: No, Sir. The hon. Gentleman is to understand that there is a large number of men who would much prefer work to idleness.
    Viscountess ASTOR: Hear, hear—much rather.
    Mr. LAWSON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if it is true that this work was not put in hand because the Government stopped it by suppressing the Unemployment Grants Committee?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: No, Sir, that is not true either. The work would not be put in hand at all, if it were not for this.
    Mr. BATEY: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the Minister's reply, I wish to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment Motion tonight.

    GOVERNMENT POLICY.
    Mr. T. SMITHasked the Minister of Labour what steps the Government are taking to deal with the position of unemployed persons during the coming winter?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: As is well known to the House, the general policy of the Government is directed to restoring industrial activity as the only effectual way of finding work for the unemployed, and the continuous increase of employment since the beginning of this year is evi-

    Unemployed persons resident in the Metropolitan Borough f Bethnal Green on the registers of employment Exchanges.

    Month.

    —

    1930.

    1931.

    1932.

    1933.

    July

    …

    Men

    …

    …

    3,939

    5,633

    5,211

    4,674

    Women

    …

    …

    668

    1,276

    1,221

    701

    Juveniles

    …

    …

    86

    129

    230

    88

    Total

    …

    …

    4,693

    7,038

    6,662

    5,4ti3

    August

    …

    Men

    …

    …

    4,210

    5,724

    5.112

    4,468

    Women

    …

    …

    692

    1,322

    1,194

    633

    Juveniles

    …

    …

    128

    172

    212

    124

    Total

    …

    …

    5,030

    7,218

    6,518

    5,225

    September

    …

    Men

    …

    …

    4,031

    5,307

    5,047

    4,323

    Women

    …

    …

    535

    1,212

    838

    487

    Juveniles

    …

    …

    95

    142

    160

    65

    Total

    …

    …

    4,661

    6,661

    6,045

    4,875

    October

    …

    Men

    …

    …

    4,208

    5,632

    4,839

    3.714

    Women

    …

    …

    539

    1,184

    746

    474

    Juveniles

    …

    …

    66

    121

    119

    28

    Total

    …

    …

    4,813

    6,937

    5,704

    4,216

    dence of the success of that policy. As regards provision for those who remain unemployed, I would refer the hon. Member to the Unemployment Bill which received a First Reading yesterday.
    Sir W. BRASS: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider, during the winter months, increasing some of the Unemployment Insurance benefits?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: I can only refer the hon. and gallant Member to the Unemployment Insurance Bill, which he will no doubt look into.
    Mr. THORNE: Is the Minister not aware that it is impossible for the Opposition to put down Amendments seeking to raise the amount?

    BETHNAL GREEN.
    Major NATHANasked the Minister of Labour the number of unemployed men, women and juveniles in Bethnal Green at any convenient date in July, August, September, and October, 1930, 1931, 1932, and 1933, respectively?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: As the reply includes a table of figures I will, if I may, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the statement:

    DEPEN DANT'S ALLOWANCES.
    Mr. D. GRENFELLasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that it has been decided that persons who let rooms at holiday resorts during the summer season are to be regarded as disqualified for dependant's allowance throughout the whole season and not only on the days when the rooms are actually let; and whether, as this decision is causing hardship in many cases, he will consider so amending the law as to provide that the disqualification shall not operate except at such times as the rooms are actually let?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: I am sending the hon. Member a copy of a recent decision by the umpire dealing with this question. In view of this decision, I do not think an amendment of the existing law is necessary.
    Mr. GRENFELLIs the right hon. Gentleman certain that the umpire's award is in accordance with the law?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: I think that it is in accordance with the law; in any case, I have no power to alter it. The umpire's court is entirely outside my Department. Might I say, in regard to this question, that I would like the hon. Member to look at the umpire's award, as I think that it will probably give an answer on the point.

    POOP, LAW RECIPIENTS (REGISTRATION).
    Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Health whether persons insured against unemployment who are in receipt of public assistance by reasons of unemployment are in general required to register at Employment Exchanges?
    The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Hilton Young): It is a general practice of public assistance authorities to require able-bodied applicants for public assistance, whether insured or not, to register at Employment Exchanges.
    Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Am I right in understanding that it is not proper to add to the live register people who are receiving benefit from the Poor Law authorities in order to arrive at the total number of persons unemployed who are already given on the live register
    Sir H. YOUNG: That is a question of interpretation of which I should have notice.
    Sir W. BRASS——
    Mr. SPEAKER: I would remind the House that there are 120 questions on the Order Paper.

    COAL INDUSTRY (EMPLOYMENT).
    Mr. LAWSONasked the Minister of Labour the number of miners employed in the mines of Great Britain in September, 1931, and the number at the latest date?
    Sir H. BETTERTON: As the reply includes a table of figures I will circulate it, if I may, in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the reply:
    An approximation to the numbers of insured workers in employment in particular industries, at the end of June in each year, can be obtained from the statistics of the total numbers insured and the numbers recorded as unemployed. The following table gives these figures in respect of the coal mining industry for the end of June, 1931, and the end of June, 1933:

    ——

    Estimated numbers insured.

    Numbers recorded as unemployed.

    Wholly unemployed.

    Temporarily stopped.

    End of June, 1931.

    1,046,750

    198,397

    180,236

    End of June, 1933.

    1,023,840

    233,601

    150,988

    Figures showing the number of wage-earners on colliery books are compiled and published by the Mines Department. These numbers were 821,600 in the week ended 26th September, 1931, and 763,9000 in the week ended 28th October, 1933.

    VAGRANCY ACT (SLEEPING OUT).
    Mr. McENTEEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can state the result of his inquiry as to the circumstances in which it is the practice of the police to charge persons. with the offence of sleeping out?
    Mr. MANDERasked the Home Secretary whether, in connection with the proplem of the proper treatment of sleeping-out offences, his attention has

    295
    been called to Police Order No. 565, issued by the chief constable of Wolverhampton; and whether he will take steps to see that the matter is treated throughout the country on the same lines?
    Brigadier-General SPEARSasked the Home Secretary whether he can now state the result of his inquiry among chief constables into arrests for sleeping out under Section 4 of the Vagrancy Act?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Gilmour): My attention has been called to the police order to which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton East (Mr. Mander) refers. The replies which I have received from chief officers of police indicate that persons are not as a rule arrested and charged under this provision in the Vagrancy Act unless there is ground for thinking that they are of bad character, or they are found in circumstances likely to cause danger or nuisance to the community. I am satisfied that it is the general practice to use this power sparingly, but I propose to consider the question whether it is possible to define more closely the circumstances in which proceedings are necessary or desirable.
    Mr. McENTEE: Might I ask the right hon. Gentleman if the new regulations, when he has considered them, will be made accessible to the Members of the House?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: Oh, yes, Sir, certainly.
    Brigadier-General SPEARS: Will they be in the form of a Bill?
    Mr. MANDER: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that the humane administration on this subject that exists in Wolverhamption is extended to the country generally?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: I am always glad to give consideration to the matter.
    Brigadier-General SPEARS: May I ask whether any amendment of the law will be introduced
    Sir J. GILMOUR: I am not in a position, as I have only just received these reports, to come to a decision as to whether that is desirable or not.

    ROYAL COMMISSION ON LICENSING (REPORT)
    Viscountess ASTORasked the Home Secretary whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce legislation to give effect to the Report of the Royal Commission on Licensing?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: I have nothing at present to add to my answers to previous questions on this subject. No such legislation is contemplated in the immediate future.
    Viscountess ASTOR: In view of the agitation of the brewers that, in order to get increased output, it is essential that they should get 1,000,000 new young drinkers, do not the Government think that it would be wise to put into effect the recommendations of the Royal Commission, which really faced the question of drink quite fairly. There were brewers on it, and it issued an agreed report. Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that it would be a good idea to take the whole of this question out of party politics?
    Mr. HANNON: Might I ask whether the statement made by the Noble Lady is not a gross slander upon the brewers of this country
    Viscountess ASTOR: May I bring this matter to the notice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer?—which I now do.

    TRANSPORT: MOTOR VEHICLES (NOISE).
    Sir ARTHUR MICHAEL SAMUELasked the Home Secretary whether any recent action has been taken to remind those local authorities responsible for administering the Road Traffic Act of 1930 of their duty to enforce the existing regulations to reduce the nuisance in public thoroughfares caused by inefficiently silenced sports cars and motor cycles and defective lorry tyres; and, if not, will he draw the attention of the proper authorities to their powers?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: The provisions referred to with regard to noise caused by motor vehicles were communicated to the police at the time they were issued in 1931. They are contained in the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations, which are constantly before the police, and I have no reason to believe

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    that the police need to be reminded of the provisions of the law on this particular subject.
    Sir A. M. SAMUEL: Will my right hon. Friend ask the police to ascertain why it is that the regulations are universally disregarded?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: All I can say is that I am, in close consultation with my hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, going into the whole matter at the present time.
    Sir A. M. SAMUEL: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this excessive noise is becoming an intolerable nuisance?
    Sir W. BRASS: Would it not be possible to have an examination of these cars made at the factory before they go out to the public and make these awful noises?

    FIREARMS (SURRENDER).
    Mr. LEVYasked the Home Secretary what is the total number of firearms surrendered to the police in response to the recent invitation; arid can he give an estimate of the number still retained in private possession under permits?
    Sir J. GILMOUR:As I informed the House in reply to a question on the 10th July last, the total number of firearms surrendered by the public, in response to the appeal for the surrender of surplus firearms, was 16,409, of which 12,622 were pistols and revolvers, 3,706 were rifles, 73 were antique firearms, and 8 were unclassified in the returns made by chief officers of police. I regret that I have no information on which I could base an estimate of the number of firearms retained in private possession.
    Mr. LEVY: Do I understand from that reply that no records are kept of the number of permits that are given to enable this total to be arrived at?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: Of course, these firearms are supposed to be registered, but I have no records that would permit of my forming a judgment as to the number.
    Mr. LEVY: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his reply, may I point out to him that my question is as to whether he can give an estimate of the number of firearms in the possession of private individuals with permits?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: That information is not available to my Department, and it would require immense research at enormous cost.
    Mr. LEVY: Does not my right hon. Friend think it advisable that the total should be ascertained?

    SIX-LOOMS-PER-WEAVER SYSTEM.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIESasked the Home Secretary if he will request the appropriate medical authorities to conduct an investigation into the effects on the physique of women employed in the textile industry of Lancashire on the six-looms-per-weaver system, and issue a report thereon?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: The Factory Department will carefully watch for any ill-effects on health which may appear to arise from this system, but I am advised that a special investigation at the present time would not be likely to lead to any definite results. The system has only recently been introduced, and there are no sufficient data on which conclusions could be based.
    Mr. DAVIES: Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to keep in touch with this problem, especially in view of the fact that the women employed under this new system are complaining very much indeed of the physical hardships consequent upon it?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: As I think I have previously stated in this House, this question is being very closely watched.
    Sir FRANCIS FREMANTLE: Has this matter been referred to the Industrial Health Research Committee, whose business it is to look into these matters?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: I am not sure of that.

    JUVENILE COURTS (WOMEN MAGISTRATES).
    Mr. MANDERasked the Home Secretary in how many cases in connection with the juvenile courts established under the Children Act women justices have been placed on the panel; in how many no women were appointed and in how many areas there are no women magistrates?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: The Juvenile Courts (Constitution) Rules, 1933, required Juvenile Court panels to be formed before the 1st instant, but I have not yet received from all Clerks to Justices the lists of Justices appointed to serve on the panels which they are required to send to me by Rule 10. I am sorry, therefore, that I am not to-day in a position to give the hon. Member an answer to the first two parts of his Question, but I will communicate with him as soon as the information is available, and give him at the same time such information as I have obtained on the third part.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: When this information is available, will the right hon. Gentleman, where no women have been appointed to these juvenile courts, insist upon one woman being appointed for that special purpose?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: I shall have to wait till I receive the reports before I make any definite statement.

    FLYING-OFFICER FITZPATRICK.
    Mr. VYVYAN ADAMSasked the Home Secretary whether he has any further statement to make with regard to the case of Flying-Officer Fitzpatrick?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: No, Sir: I regard the case as having been closed very satisfactorily by the report made to me by the Commissioner of Police and the full publication through the Press which was made last August.
    Brigadier-General SPEARS: Is the Home Secretary aware that the report of the Commissioner of Police has given general satisfaction to the public, and complete satisfaction to the persons most closely coneerned in the case?

    JUVENILE EMPLOYMENT
    Viscountess ASTORasked the Home Secretary how many and which local authorities have granted permission for the employment of children under 12 since the passing of the Children Act?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: New by-laws on this matter have been submitted to me by three local authorities, but have not yet been confirmed. Under the provisions of
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    the Act of this year, by-laws made under the previous Act by 11 local authorities authorising the employment of children under 12 by their parents an light agricultural or horticultural work are still in force. These authorities are the counties of Devon, Hereford, Kent. Nottinghamshire and Somerset, and the cities or boroughs of Hereford, Maidstone, Newark, East Retford, Tiverton and Tunbridge Wells.
    Viscountess ASTOR: Will the right hon. Gentleman ask the teachers who have to teach these children what effect they think working for two hours before going to school has on their learning? Will the right hon. Gentleman look into that question?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: Yes.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: As there are so many agricultural labourers unemployed to-day, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the employment of children of 12 ought to cease?

    HEATH AND COMMON FIRES.
    Sir RICHARD MELLERasked the Home Secretary if his attention has been called to the proposal of the Surrey County Council to call a conference of local authorities in Surrey to consider the prevalence of heath and common fires during the past summer and what methods, if any, can he adopted to prevent their recurrence and limit the area of danger; and whether he will assist the local authorities in this direction by advice or otherwise?
    Sir J, GILMOUR: I have not, and I understand the Minister of Health has not, so far received any communication from the Surrey County Council regarding the proposed conference, but, if any such conference is convened, I should be happy to arrange for the Fire Adviser to my Department to attend, or to render assistance in any other possible way.
    Sir R. MELLER: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his reply and for his offer of assistance, may I ask him whether he will bear in mind the fact that the great difficulty in dealing with heath and common fires is due to lack of information as to who is responsible for taking the matter in hand Generally speaking, the calls were——
    HON. MEMBERS: Order!
    Sir A. M. SAMUEL: Will my right hon. Friend confer with the War Office authorities as to the forest area in the Aldershot district? The Frimley district in Surrey, which is in my division and adjoins Aldershot, has suffered very severely from fires——
    HON. MEMBERS: Order!
    Sir FRANCIS ACLAND: If such a conference is convened, will the right hon. Gentleman secure some representation of the Forestry Commission, which has a fairly complete system for dealing with such fires?
    Sir J. GILMOUR: Yes, Sir.

  EDUCATION.

    SCHOOL-LEAVING AGE.
    Viscountess ASTORasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce legislation to raise the school-leaving age?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Ramsbotham): It is not part of the Government's policy to introduce legislation to raise the school-leaving age, but the Noble Lady will find the policy of the Government in regard to juveniles above the existing school-leaving age in the Unemployment Insurance Bill circulated to-day.
    Viscountess ASTOR: May I say how grateful some of us are to the Government for what they are doing; but may I at the same time ask whether it would not be a better policy for the Government to raise the school-leaving age, because they know in their hearts that it will have to be raised in the next two or three years? Would it not be better to do it now?

    TEACHERS' SALARIES (JOINT COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN)
    Mr. RICHARD EVANSasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education whether it is proposed to invite the Joint Committee on Teachers' so, who is to take the place of the late Lord Burnham as chairman?
    Mr. RAMSBOTHAM: My Noble Friend has been fortunate in securing the consent of the right hon. The earl of Onslow, chairman of committees in another place, to be nominated as successor to the late Lord Burnham as Chairman of the Standing Joint committees on Teachers' salaries. His appointment will enable the Committees to resume their meetings. My Noble Friend desires to take this opportunity of placing on record his deep sense of the loss which has been sustained by the death of Lord Burnham, who had been Chairman of the Committees since their inception.

    NATIONAL HEEALTH INSURANCE.
    Lieut. Colonel J. SANDEMAN ALLENasked the Minister of Health whether he can now give any indication of the numbers of persons who, owing to non-prolongation of the national health insurance period, will cease to be insured at the and of the year?
    Mr. LOGANasked the Minister of Health what is the estimated number of panel patients in approved societies in England ceasing insurance through unemployment this year; is he prepared to sanction prolongation of insurance; and, if not, will he state what additional number of Poor Law doctors will be necessary to deal with panel patients?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I understand the hon. Members to refer to those persons who by reason of long-continued unemployment will cease to be entitled to medical benefit under the scheme of National Health Insurance on the 31st December next, though remaining insured under the contributory pensions scheme. It is impossible at present to state what the number of such persons will be as it will depend on the extent to which persons at present unemployed succeed in finding work or exercise their right to become voluntary contributors before the end of the present year. The figure given in the Government Actuary's Report on the Bill of 1932 was 80,000 but the hon. Members will be aware of the marked improvement in employment which has taken place since that Report was made. The remaining parts of the question asked by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan) anticipate tomorrow's Debate, when they can most conveniently be discussed.
    Mr. LOGAN: In view of the statement of 80,000, which is not considered by the approved societies to be an under estimate, is it not possible for a regulation to be issued by the Ministry for prolongation?
    Sir H. YOUNG: That also will be the subject of discussion to-morrow.
    Mr. LAWSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that there has been an actual increase of the unemployed who are affected by this arrangement?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I do not think that is the case as far as these figures are concerned.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES:When the right hon. Gentleman speaks of the right of unemployed persons who have been unemployed for a long period to become voluntary contributors, will he bear in mind the difficulty these people have of paying any contributions at all? When they become voluntary contributors, they are called upon to pay the whole of their contributions
    Mr. LOGAN: In regard to the latter part of my question and the reference to Poor Law doctors, will that also be considered to-morrow?
    Sir H. YOUNG: That depends upon the number who actually go out of insurance. No exact estimate of that can be formed until the end of the year.

  HOUSING.

    FINANCIAL PROVISIONS ACT.
    Sir F. FREMANTLEasked the Minister of Health the number of houses for which guarantees have been given by the Government under Section 2 of the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1933?
    Mr. McENTEEasked the Minister of Health the latest figures for which guarantees have been given under the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1933, with respect to each area and the total number of houses?
    Mr. GRAHAM WHITEasked the Minister of Health to what extent building societies are co-operating in the provision of finance for building under the terms of Section 2 (1) of the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1933?
    Mr. CURRYasked the Minister of Health the number of cases in which building operations have been initiated under the scheme of capital assistance from building societies contemplated under the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1933?
    Major NATHANasked the Minister of Health whether he has received any progress returns from local authorities in connection with their administration of the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1933; and, if so, what are the respective total numbers of houses completed at a recent date in the Metropolitan Police district and in the rest of England and Wales with the assistance of guarantees under that Act?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I have received proposals from local authorities for giving guarantees in respect of approximately 13,000 houses. I shall not, however, be in possession of information as to the number of houses for which guarantees have been given until I receive the returns due from local authorities on the 31st December next.
    Sir F. FREMANTLE: Will these returns give any idea of the rentals of these houses, if they are let at weekly rentals?
    Sir H. YOUNG: It will certainly give an idea of them.
    Sir F. FREMANTLE: Cannot we have that idea?
    Major NATHAN: How many of the 13,000 houses are in the Metropolitan Police district and how many in the rest of England and Wales?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I can give particulars of the areas. I will circulate them in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. JANNER: Has the right hon. Gentleman particulars of sites available for the erection of other houses to replace those that are being pulled down?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I should require notice of that question.
    Following is the list of authorities:

    Stoke-on-Trent.

    Oxfordshire County Council.

    Redcar.

    Lichfield Rural District Council.

    Hinckley Urban District Council.

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    West Bromwich.

    Yeardsley-cum-Whaley Urban District Council.

    Stockport.

    Birmingham.

    St. Helens.

    Coventry.

    Yorks (E.R.) County Council.

    Rochester.

    Aldershot.

    Hitchin Urban District Council.

    Scunthorpe Urban District Council.

    SLUM CLEARANCE.
    Sir F. FREMANTLEasked the Minister of Health the number of local housing authorities that have not submitted to him programmes of slum-clearance; what steps he proposes to take to secure effective action in such cases; and whether he is satisfied with the progress being made throughout the country to secure clearance of all slum areas within five years?
    Sir H. YOUNG: There are 1,717 local housing authorities and of these 1,341 are county district councils. I have received 1,176 returns. There are thus 541 outstanding, including 418 from county district councils. In any case in which a local authority has submitted no programme, and I have prima facie evidence that a programme should be submitted, I shall, after communications of the usual sort, proceed to secure the holding, of a public local inquiry into the position under Sections 35 or 52 of the Act. As to the last part of the question, in general the local authorities' programmes are satisfactory.
    Sir F. FREMANTLE: Does the right hon. Gentleman think he will be able to secure clearance of all slum areas in five years?
    Sir H. YOUNG: The answer is just what I have said. The programmes are a satisfactory reply to the request that I have addressed to the local authorities.
    Mr. HICKS: Has the right hon. Gentleman in his mind any period of probation to allow authorities that fail to comply?
    Sir H. YOUNG: There will be no formal period of probation at all. It depends whether the local authority gives any adequate reason why its returns are not forthcoming.
    Mr. D. GRENFELL: When does the right hon. Gentleman expect to report that something has been done
    Mr. PIKE: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied in view of the changes that have taken place in the constitution of local authorities, that progress in slum clearance will not he endangered
    Sir H. YOUNG: I see no reason at all to suppose that.
    Sir W. BRASS: In view of what the right hon. Gentleman said about these public inquiries, how long is he going to wait before he makes public inquiries?
    Sir H. YOUNG: The hon. Gentleman will fully understand that each case must be judged upon its own circumstances. If a local authority produces any adequate reason why there should be a lapse of time in the production of its programme, sufficient time must be allowed. If there is no adequate reason, the procedure will carry on as I have described.
    Sir ALFRED BEIT: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any idea of the number of people likely to be affected by the housing programme
    Sir H. YOUNG: That is the subject of another question.
    Captain PETER MACDONALDasked the Minister of Health if he has been able to make any estimate, as a result of the slum-clearance schemes now received by him, of the approximate annual cost to the State of assisting such schemes?
    Sir H. YOUNG: Estimates based upon the programmes already received indicate that on the average 44,000 houses a year will be provided by local authorities under their five-year slum-clearance schemes. This would involve an Exchequer commitment of approximately £550,000 for each year's instalment, rising to £2,750,000 a year on completion of the programme. The annual subsidy is payable for a period of 40 years from completion of the houses.
    Mr. CHORLTONasked the Minister of Health what steps will be taken to compensate those religious bodies whose schools will be affected by the reduced attendances arising out of

    307
    slum clearances with insufficient rehousing on site, and for those concerned by their removal to other districts?
    Sir H. YOUNG: There is no provision in the Housing Acts which would enable compensation to be paid in the circumstances mentioned.
    Mr. CHORLTON: May I ask my right hon. Friend if, in a case where almost all the scholars attending a Church school were to be affected by parents in the area being moved into another district, there would be any compensation for the school at all?
    Sir H. YOUNG: Certainly there is no statutory provision for the payment of compensation.
    Mr. STOURTONasked the Minister of Health the number of replies he has received from local authorities with regard to the five-years' slum-clearance plan; the total number of houses to be built; and how far these figures submitted are adequate to meet local needs as a whole?
    Sir H. YOUNG: As regards the first and last parts of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the hon. and gallant Member for St. Albans (Sir F. Fremantle), Question No. 30, of which I am sending him a copy. As regards the second part of the question, I cannot give the number of new houses proposed to be provided until programmes have been submitted by all housing authorities, but it is estimated on the basis of the programmes already received that 200,000 houses will be provided in five years.
    Mr. STOURTON: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the response to the Government in respect of slum clearance is totally inadequate, and that no less than 200,000 houses should be built annually for a, period of 10 years, if the demand for decent houses for the lower-paid wage earners is to be met?
    Sir H. YOUNG: No, Sir. With regard to adequate clearance, that is, of getting rid of the houses unfit for human habitation, the estimate to which my hon. Friend refers is quite exaggerated.
    Mr. HARCOURT JOHNSTONEasked the Minister of Health the number of houses it is estimated will be built for
    308
    the accommodation of previous slum dwellers during the year 1934?
    Sir H. YOUNG: Estimates based upon the programmes already received indicate that an average of about 44,000 houses per annum will be provided for five years by local authorities under their slum clearance schemes. It is not possible to state with certainty whether that average rate will be attained in the first year of the scheme.
    Mr. STOURTONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if be will consider raising a national housing development loan of £500,000,000 in order that slums may be abolished and their population re-housed on a comprehensive scale suitable to the urgency of the need?
    The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): I have every reason to believe that the existing arrangements for raising capital for slum clearance are fully adequate.
    Mr. STOURTON: Surely the right hon. Gentleman will not, allow the opportunity to go by when money is cheap and when the cost of building is cheaper than it has been at any time since the War?
    Mr. JOHNSTONEasked the Minister of Health the number of local authorities who have submitted schemes for slum clearance; what is the total population; the number of families; and the number of houses affected by the schemes so far received?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. R. Davies) on 7th November, of which I am sending him a copy. The total number of persons affected by the schemes referred to in that reply is 330,593. I am not able to say what is the number of families affected.
    Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the complaints from rural district councils concerning the compensation which they may pay to owners of houses destroyed in slum-clearance schemes, he has any proposals to make; and how many rural district councils have as yet actually put, the Act into operation?
    Sir H. YOUNG: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative;

    309
    19 rural district councils have formally declared areas to be clearance areas arid a number of others are dealing individually with unfit houses under Part II of the Act of 1930.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that my rural district council have declined to operate the scheme unless there is compensation paid to the owners of property?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I should be glad to receive information from the right hon. Gentleman on the subject of any particular council.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: I have already communicated with the right hon. Gentleman.
    Major NATHANasked the Minister of Health whether he has received any definite programme of the unhealthy areas to be cleared or improved by the London County Council under the provisions of the Housing Act, 1930, during the next five years, as called for in his Housing Circular 1331?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I received early in August a comprehensive report from the County Council containing a programme for the displacement and rehousing within a period of 10 years of a quarter of a million persons. I am expecting a supplementary and more detailed report shortly. I would remind the hon. Member that it was recognised in Circular 1331 that the time needed to remedy the present deficiencies in London will be longer than in other areas.

    FAIR-WAGES CLAUSE.
    Mr. HICKSasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the statement in Circular 1334, issued under the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1933, expressing confidence that local authorities will endeavour to secure that effect is given to the principles of the fair-wages Clause, a local authority will be entitled to make the giving of a guarantee dependent upon observance of the fair-wages Clause; and, if so, why in a subsequent letter it was intimated that the Department would deprecate the rejection of an otherwise satisfactory scheme because of a refusal to observe the fair-wages Clause?
    Sir H. YOUNG: The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. If the hon. Member will be good enough to send me particulars of the letter to which he is referring I will communicate with him on the subject.

    STATISTICS.
    Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMSasked the Minister of Health if lie can state the total number of houses constructed during the six months ended 30th September, 1933, and, for comparison, the corresponding number during the same period of the previous year?
    Sir H. YOUNG: The total number of houses completed in England and Wales during the six months ended the 30th September, 1933, was 113,332. The corresponding number for the six months ended the 30th September, 1932, was 95,515. The increase in comparison with the earlier period is thus 17,817 or 18 6 per cent. These numbers exclude houses of a rate-able value exceeding £78 (£105 in the Metropolitan area).
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Is not this figure the highest ever recorded except 1927?
    Sir H. YOUNG: It is the highest since 1929.
    Mr. WILLIAMS: Has the right lion. Gentleman any idea how many of these 100,000 houses were erected for the working-classes?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I should require notice of that question.
    Mr. PIKE: How many Socialist councillors inhabit them?
    Mr. CURRYasked the Minister of Health the number of houses built in England and Wales in each of the years ended 30th September, 1932, and 30th September, 1933, by local authorities, by State aid, private enterprise with State aid, and private enterprise without State aid?
    Sir H. YOUNG: As the answer involves a tabular statement I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I may say, however, that the total number of houses built without State assistance in the year to 30th September, 1933, which is 167,880 breaks the record.
    Sir F. FREMANTLE: Are these houses under the £78 or £105 assessable value?
    Sir H. YOUNG: Yes, the particulars sired particulars.are given in the Table.

    England and Wales.

    Houses provided with and without State Assistance

    Year ended 30th September—

    With State Assistance.

    Without State Assistance.

    Totals.

    By Local Authorities.

    By Private Enterprise.

    By Local Authorities.

    By Private Enterprise.

    1932

    …

    …

    …

    …

    66,434

    2,656

    2,056

    130,830

    201,976

    1933

    …

    …

    …

    …

    47,977

    2,456

    1,236

    166,644

    218,313

  PUBLIC HEALTH.

    HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION.
    Sir F. FREMANTLEasked the Minister of Health if he is satisfied that the councils of counties and county borough, and more especially the London County Council, have effectually consulted, and are continuing to consult, the representatives of voluntary hospitals to secure co-operation both in the spirit And letter of Section 13 of the Local Government Act, 1929?
    Sir H. YOUNG: The information in my possession shows that both in London and in the country generally effect is being given to the policy embodied in Section 13 of the Local Government Act. Where necessary, the attention of local authorities is directed to the importance of this matter on the survey of their public health services.
    Sir F. FREMANTLE: It is not simply the wording of the Act, but the spirit. I want to know whether the spirit is observed of the Ministry's original intention in their memorandum that local authorities should establish the most cordial relations with the medical profession. Is it not the case that the London General Hospitals Voluntary Committee very largely consists of the smaller hospitals, and the larger hospitals feel a real sense of grievance that they are not really, in spirit, being properly consulted in order to give full co-operation with the county council in its schemes?
    Sir H. YOUNGThe last part of the question is outside my knowledge, but I can Assure the hon. Gentleman that it is the constant policy of the Ministry of Health to promote co-operation of the voluntary and public hospitals.

    REFUSE DISPOSAL.
    Mr. McENTEEasked the Minister of Health whether the advisory committee on London refuse have reached any conclusions for the improvement of the disposal of refuse; and, if so, will he state the nature of the proposals?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I am informed that the committee have done a large amount of work but have not yet completed their survey of present conditions, and that they hope to do so and to make their report on the disposal of house refuse possibly by next Easter.

    WATER SUPPLIES.
    Mr. CHORLTONasked the Minister of Health what progress has been made in dealing with the question of the water supply to rural and other districts that have suffered in the late drought?
    Sir H. YOUNG: Outside rural areas, the experience of the last drought was a striking testimony to the excellent provision generally made by water undertakers. In rural areas, I have in a special circular urged rural district councils and county councils to make full use of their new powers of financially aiding the provision of water schemes. The Ministry assists and encourages the exercise of these powers on all favourable opportunities.
    Mr. CHORLTON: Will my right hon. Friend see to it that any such schemes for local areas are made part and parcel of a national scheme when the time comes for it to be pushed through?
    Sir A. M. SAMUELasked the Minister of Health whether local authorities keep records regarding privately-

    313
    owned drainage and sewage systems and septic tanks located on private property, in order that information may be available as to the effect upon the sources of water supply to be included in any scheme for the development of rural water supply?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I am not aware that it is the practice of local authorities to keep specific records of this character. The plans of new buildings, deposited with the local authorities, inform them of the nature and position of new private drainage and sewage disposal arrangements; and, as the older property of which no plans are deposited is superseded, their information becomes more nearly complete.
    Sir A. M. SAMUEL: Does not my right hon. Friend feel that, in view of the probable development of rural water supplies, it is necessary to find out where septic tanks on private property are, because of the fear of future contamination; and should he not make proposals to public authorities for private drainage records to be brought up-to-date?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I think that in all cases where the matter is one of real practical importance it receives the attention of the local authorities.
    Mr. ANNESLEY SOMERVILLE: Is it not a fact that in the Thames Valley this important subject is dealt with by the inspectors of the Thames Conservancy Board?
    Mr. LEVYasked the Minister of Health if, having regard to the danger of drought and its consequences to large rural areas every summer, he will make a complete survey of the country's water resources and, in conjunction therewith, examine the possibilities of organising regional water supplies over the whole country?
    Sir H. YOUNG: The collection and coordination of information on the subject is carried on as part of their regular duties by the officers of the Ministry. It is the policy of the Government to promote the formation of Regional Committees in all suitable cases, and the Advisory Committee on Water is considering suitable areas for further Regional Committees in addition to those already constituted. Most difficulties of
    314
    rural supplies can be resolved only by making use of local resources and that matter is receiving my constant attention.
    Mr. LEVY: Does not my right hon. Friend realise that some over-riding authority such as the Ministry of Health must deal with this matter, because to leave it to little local authorities means that little or nothing will ever be done?
    Sir H. YOUNG: It is just because of the difficulty encountered by the little local authorities that the active policy is pursued of promoting the participation of the county council.
    Mr. R. DAVIES: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the necessity of securing as much power to bring pressure to bear upon those rural authorities to secure a water supply as he possesses already in regard to slum clearance; and' will he endeavour to seek such power to clear up the difficulty about water supply.
    Mr. LEVY: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter at the earliest possible moment on the Adjournment.
    Mr. R. EVANSasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the hardships caused by the failure of water supplies in many areas during the summer, he will consider making grants to enable local authorities to proceed with water schemes now held up on the ground of cost?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I am anxious that every effort should be made to improve the water supplies in areas inadequately served, and I am aware that in some cases, generally in rural areas, the difficulty is one of cost. I may perhaps remind the hon. Member of the powers of financial contribution conferred on rural district councils and county councils by the Local Government Act, 1929.
    Sir F. FREMANTLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman in his instructions to the medical officers of health with respect to their annual reports for next year ask them to make a special study of this question, so that he will get a real statement of what is practically possible and what is required all over the country?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I will bear in mind my hon. Friend's suggestion.
    Mr. LEVY: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that cost is not the only element in regard to this matter, and that it very oftens happens that the sources have already been monopolised?
    Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has already given notice that he will raise this question on the Adjournment.
    Mr. CURRYasked the Minister of Health if complaints of a shortage of water supply were received from any local authorities during the past summer; and, if so, how many such complaints were received?
    Sir H. YOUNG: Very few actual complaints were made by local authorities to the Ministry. In some 30 instances investigations were made by my officers, in addition to inquiries as to the position made by inspectors at all visits to local areas. The towns generally met the drought in a successful manner, the difficulties being mainly in rural areas.

    DRIED AND LIQUID EGGS.
    Sir A. M. SAMUELasked the Minister of Health what examination and hygienic tests are made on imported dried or liquid eggs intended for human consumption; what arrangements are made for the hygienic control over substances added to eggs imported without tile shell; and whether canned or frozen eggs, intended for industrial purposes only, are differentiated by label?
    Sir H. YOUNG: Dried and liquid eggs intended for human consumption are subject to examination both on importation into this country and on any occasion on which they are placed on retail sale. No special tests have been prescribed, but it is necessary that the eggs should be free from preservatives as defined by the Preservatives Regulations, and, if on examination they are found to be unfit for human consumption, they may be seized and destroyed. I understand that eggs which before importation are intended for industrial purposes only are frequently labelled as "inedible."
    Sir A. M. SAMUEL: Is there anything in those regulations which prevent eggs intended for industrial purposes being sold or used for human consumption?
    Sir H. YOUNG: Oh, yes. Sir, I think that those precautions which I have described in answer to the first part of the question are adequate for that purpose.
    Mr. McENTEE: In view of the early approach of a General Election, can the Minister exercise control over imported eggs?

    MENTAL HOSPITAL, NOTTINGHAM.
    Mr. THORNEasked the Minister of Health whether he has received a report from the Department's inspector in the Nottingham area relative to the death of a patient and the serious illness of other patients at Nottingham City Mental Hospital caused by food poisoning; and, if so, whether it is his intention to cause an inquiry into the circumstances?
    Sir H. YOUNG: The Board of Control have received a report from the medical superintendent of the mental hospital, and a Medical Commissioner of the Board is now investigating the matter at the hospital.
    Mr. THORNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that it was a German import that caused the death in one case and illness of these people?
    Sir H. YOUNG: Pending investigation, quite clearly I should not express any opinion.

    FLOODS, BOOTLE.
    Mr. LOGANasked the Minister of Health, in regard to the death, on 20th June, 1932, of Horace Sheridan Freeman, in Akenside Street, Bootle, through floods, what results, if any, accrued from the public inquiry set up by the Ministry?
    Sir H. YOUNG: I would refer the hon. Member to my replies to his questions of the 13th July last. I have not instituted a public inquiry, for the reason then given. I understand that a remedial scheme has been prepared and is now being considered by the local authorities concerned, with whom I am keeping in touch.
    Mr. LOGAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that an inquiry did take place and the rural authorities decided that £280,000 should be spent in regard to this catastrophe? Is he also aware

    317
    that this mother is paralysed and that she was partially supported by her deceased son, and is it not possible for representations to be made so that when the authorities are considering their liability the question of compensation to the widowed mother for the loss of her son shall be taken into account?
    Sir H. YOUNG: The latter part of the supplementary question obviously raises a new point, and I should be glad to receive notice of it.

    DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS.
    Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Prime Minister whether he will afford opportunity to the House to consider the Resolution standing on the Paper in the name of the right hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood)?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): My right hon. Friend has three Motions on the Order Paper, and I am not quite clear to which one he is referring, but whichever it is I am afraid the answer must be the same—that an opportunity cannot be afforded in the short time remaining before the end of the Session.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: I am afraid that I have no recollection of any other Motion on the Paper. The Motion which I have put upon the Paper is one which, I hope, the House will pass unanimously if the Prime Minister will move it. It is in favour of Parliamentary government as opposed to dictatorship. May I ask, arising out of the answer, whether we are to take too seriously his views on dictatorship as expressed at the lunch last Monday?

  NATIONAL FINANCE.

    POUND STERLING.
    Colonel WEDGWOODasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he is taking or proposes to take to prevent the pound sterling rising above dollar parity?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think a more correct description of the position would be that the dollar had fallen below parity with the pound; the circumstances in which this has happened are well known.
    318
    The general policy of His Majesty's Government to maintain for the present the independence of sterling has been explained on several occasions, particularly in the resolutions approved by the Empire delegations at the conclusion of the World Conference.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: What is independence? Does it mean that it shall be independent of the dollar and tied to the franc?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No. Independence means what it says.
    Colonel WEDGWOOD: Independent of what?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Independent of any other currency.
    Sir W. BRASS: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it is very much better to let the dollar go where it likes and not try to tie it to the £?

    ECONOMY CUTS.
    Mr. R. DAVIESasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that some local authorities have recently restored cuts in salaries and wages to certain members of their staffs, and that the result of this action on their part is that teachers employed by those same authorities are still suffering a reduction of 10 per cent. in their salaries; and, if so, will he consider removing this anomaly by restoring to the teachers their original scales of salaries?
    Mr. SMEDLEY CROOKEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, in view of the improved financial position of the country and the increase in the numbers of employed with consequent reduction in the cost to the State in unemployment benefit, he will consider the advisability of restoring the cuts in unemployment benefit which were made as a measure of economy in 1931?
    Mr. D. GRENFELLasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that large numbers of local authorities and other employers of labour have restored wages cuts to their employés; and whether it is the intention of the Government to restore wages cuts to teachers, police, non-commissioned officers arid other ranks in the Navy, Army, and Air Force?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I need hardly say that His Majesty's Government would be very glad if they could feel that they could safely answer these questions in the affirmative. No greater mistake, however, could be made than to assume prematurely that normal conditions of security and prosperity had been established and for the present I can only repeat that the relaxation of the conditions imposed by the necessities of the situation two years ago will be considered as and when the general circumstances of the country permit.
    Mr. DAVIES: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the serious anomaly that is now arising when many local authorities have returned to their original position in respect of the scale of salaries of their staffs, leaving the teachers with a reduction in salaries. Will the right hon. Gentleman bear that very serious anomaly in mind?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have no control over what the local authorities choose to do.
    Captain HAROLD BALFOUR: Is it not a fact that the local authorities can if they think fit, at the expense of the ratepayers, put the salaries back?
    Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the hard-pressed taxpayers?
    Mr. MAXTON: If the right hon. Gentleman finds it possible to restore cuts, will he act on the principle of dealing with the poorest first?

    DIRECT TAXATION.
    Mr. MALLALIEUasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the percentage of revenue raised by direct taxation in each of the financial years 1930–31, 1932–33, and the estimate for 1933–34?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The percentages are:

    Percent.

    1930–31

    …

    65.77

    1932–33

    …

    60.97

    1933–34 (estimated)

    …

    60.84

    SUBSIDIES.
    Mr. MALLALIEUasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the amount paid in respect of subsidies, both agricultural and industrial, in each of the financial years 1930–31, 1931–32 and 1932–33?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: As the reply contains a number of figures I will, with the hon. Members permission, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following are the figures:

    Subsidy.

    1930–31.

    1931–32.

    1932–33.

    £000

    £000.

    £000.

    Sugar Beet

    6,023

    2,135

    2,356

    Western Highlands and Islands Transport Services.

    25

    32

    31

    Light Horse Breeding (War Office).

    30

    25

    12

    Mechanical Transport (War Office).

    33

    15

    8

    Armour Plate Manufacturers (Admiralty).

    60

    —

    —

    Civil Aviation (Commercial subsidies).

    389

    395

    398

    MALE SERVANTS' TAX.
    Sir JOHN WARDLAW-MILNEasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in the interests of employment, he will consult local authorities who receive the proceeds of the tax upon male servants with the object of removing that tax at the time of the next, Budget?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: As I have stated on previous occasions, before undertaking to introduce legislation on this subject I should require assurances that the proposal had the approval of the local authorities concerned and that no demand would be made on the Exchequer to replace the revenue surrendered by them. If the local authorities decide to make representations to me to this effect, I am prepared to consider them.
    Sir J. WARDLAW-MILNE: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider some means of making it clear to local authorities generally that he is willing, if not anxious, to receive such representations?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Perhaps the answer that I have given will make that clear.
    Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of them have expressed their opinion on this matter and that the great majority are against it?

    STOCK EXCHANGE RESTRICTIONS.
    Mr. LEWISasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the existing restrictions on certain specified types of new capital issues will be withdrawn?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: This question is under constant review, but I am unable to make any further statement at present.
    Mr. LEWIS: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that under present regulations a foreign borrower cannot raise a. loan in this country even if the proceeds are to be spent here; and does he appreciate the fact that such loans do much good to our export trade?
    Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. Member will remember a case in which the embargo was raised, the circumstances being similar to those which he has described.
    Sir A. M. SAMUEL: Will the right hon. Gentleman also bear in mind that the British investing public has lost millions of pounds because of the defaults on foreign loans?

    INDUSTRIAL INSURANCE REPORT.
    Captain P. MACDONALDasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether it is the intention of the Government to take any action with regard to the Industrial Insurance Report; and, if so, when it is intended to introduce legislation in this connection?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hore-Belisha): The report is at present under close examination by the Departments concerned, but I am not yet in a position to say what action will be taken.

    STATIONERY OFFICE (MACHINES).
    Mr. EVERARDasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many office printing machines are in use at the Stationery Office; what portion of these are of foreign manufacture; and whether it is intended to replace them in future by British made machines?
    Mr. HORE-BELISHA: There are 227 office duplicating and addressing machines in use at the Stationery Office, of which 68 are of foreign manufacture. The
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    practice is always to buy British-made machines if satisfactory British-made models are available, and that practice will be followed When the machines at present in use require replacement.

  AGRICULTURE.

    LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY (PRICES).
    Mr. MITCHESONasked the Minister of Agriculture how the present price of fat cattle per cwt., live weight, compares with the price a year ago?
    The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): The average price of fat cattle at the markets reported to the Ministry for the week ended 1st November, 1933, was 37s. 9d. per live cwt. for first quality, and 32s. 11d. per live cwt. for second quality. These prices compare with 37s. 3d. and 32s. ld., respectively, for the week ended 2nd November, 1932.
    Mr. HALL-CAINEasked the Minister of Agriculture how the prices of British beef for the past three months compare with those for the same three months in 1931 and 1932; and what action he proposes to take to ensure the early return of such prices to a level remunerative to British farmers?
    Mr. EVERARDasked the Minister of Agriculture what measures he proposes to take to assist the graziers and sellers of fat cattle?
    Mr. ELLIOT: Particulars of the prices of English beef for the past three months, compared with those for the corresponding months in 1931 and 1932, will be circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT. As a result of the arrangements which have been made, it is estimated that, in addition to substantial reductions in imports of mutton, lamb and bacon, the aggregate imports of chilled and frozen beef in the last quarter of the year will show a reduction of over 23,000 tons, or some 16 per cent., compared with the figures for the corresponding period of 1932. Total imports of chilled beef alone are being reduced by about 15,000 tons. This reduction is much greater than has been secured in any previous quarter and the fact that the fall in prices of fat cattle has been arrested in recent weeks is a hopeful sign that an improvement in the position may reasonably he expected in

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    the near future. As my hon. Friends will be aware, a Reorganisation Commission is at present investigating the problems of the livestock industry.
    Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Will the right hon. Gentleman inform us to what extent he regards the cause of falling prices as being due to low wages and the absence of spending power in the hands of the multitude?

    Average Monthly Prices (per lb) of English Beef (Longsides) in the three months August to October, 1933, compared with the corresponding periods in 1932 and 1931.

    (Note.—Prices represent transactions between wholesaler and retailer)

    Steer and Heifer Beef.

    Months.

    1931.

    1932.

    1933.

    First Quality.

    Second Quality.

    First Quality.

    Second Quality.

    First Quality.

    Second Quality.

    d.

    d.

    d.

    d.

    d.

    d.

    August

    …

    …

    …

    8½

    7 ⅝

    8 ¼

    7 ½

    6 ⅞

    6 ⅞

    September

    …

    …

    …

    7 ⅞

    7

    7 ⅝

    6 ⅞

    6 ½

    5 ¾

    October

    …

    …

    …

    7 ⅝

    6 ¾

    6⅞

    5 ⅞

    6 ½

    5 ⅝

    LONDON QUARANTINE STATION.
    Mr. EVERARDasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he can make a statement on the future of the London quarantine station?
    Brigadier-General CLIFTON BROWNasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware of the apprehension of pedigree-stock breeders and of breed societies that the London quarantine station may be closed down; arid whether, in view of the fact that it only cost his Department £700 a year and that many thousands of pounds worth of stock are annually exported to our Dominions thereby, he will take steps to keep it in being?
    Mr. ELLIOT: I read with much interest the figures given in the Labour Gazette indicating a rise in real wages recently.
    Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: Is not the reduction in imports of chilled beef largely met by an increase in the imports of offal and tinned meat?
    Mr. ELLIOT: No, Sir.
    Following are the particulars:
    Mr. ELLIOT: I am aware of the importance which stock-breeders attach to the London quarantine station for exported pedigree stock. It. will be continued under existing conditions until 31st March next, and in the meantime I am in consultation with the Royal Agricultural Society of England and with the breed societies with a view to arrangements for its continuance after that date.

    FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE.
    Brigadier-General BROWNasked the Minister of Agriculture the present position of foot-and-mouth disease in this country; and whether the recent outbreaks are now under control?
    Mr. ELLIOT: During the past month five fresh centres of disease involving 22 separate infected farms have appeared in England, the counties concerned being Hertfordshire; Isle of Ely; Lindsey, Lincolnshire; Somerset and Derbyshire. These outbreaks have all been dealt with in accordance with the existing policy and no fresh cases have occurred since 31st October. The answer to the last part of the question is in the affirmative.

    MILK PRICES.
    Brigadier-General BROWNasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that under the Milk Marketing Scheme consumers in many country districts are paying more for their milk than they were last winter, while at the same time producers in those districts are to get less for their milk and are to be paid monthly instead of fortnightly; and whether he will take some steps to remedy this state of affairs?
    Mr.ELLIOT: I am informed that in some districts, the retail price of milk is higher than a year ago, but until the regional pool prices are computed by the Milk Marketing Board, the amount received by producers will not be known. Under the provisions of the Milk Marketing Scheme, the determination of the accounting period is a matter for the Board to whom, as my hon. and gallant Friend will appreciate, producers should direct such representations as they may wish to make on this subject.
    Brigadier-General BROWN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why the price of milk in country districts has gone up?
    Mr. ELLIOT: The price of milk has to be worked out in conjunction with the Milk Marketing Board.
    Mr. LAMBERT: May I ask whether the Milk Marketing Board have any power to control retail prices, which apparently in some cases have been unwarrantably increased?
    Mr. ELLIOT: The retail prices are fixed by the retailers themselves in the districts in which they are operating.
    Mr. LAMBERT: What power have the consumers to check these retail prices?
    Mr. ELLIOT: In the first place, the consumer can complain to the retailer that the price is unreasonably high, and if there is a genuine cause of complaint,
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    consumers can approach the Consumers Committee and the Investigation Committee by which machinery is provided for investigation and settlement, of such complaints.
    Lieut.-Commander AGNEW: Has the Consumers Committee been set up?
    Mr. ELLIOT: It is in process of being set up, and its composition, and also the composition of the Investigation Committee, will be announced at an early date.

  EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATION OF YOUNG PERSONS BILL,
  "to regulate the entry of young persons into employment on leaving school, and to provide for their further education," presented by Lord Eustace Percy; supported by Mr. Cadogan, Mr. Macmillan, Mr. Martin, Mr. Law, Mr. Molson, and Mr. Noel Lindsay; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, arid to be printed. [Bill 171.]
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Ordered, That other Government Business have precedence this day of the Business of Supply.—(The Prime Minister.)
PROTECTION of Birds BILL [Lords].
As amended (in the Standing Committee), to be printed. [Bill 172.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  BRITISH NATIONALITY AND STAUTS OF ALIENS BILL [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  3.49 p.m.
  The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Gilmour): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  The Bill to which I now ask the House to give a Second Reading does not set out to make any comprehensive revision of the law relating to nationality or to make any change of major importance. Its purpose is limited to make such amendments of the law relating to the national status of married women as are necessary to give effect to a convention on certain questions relating to the conflict of nationality laws concluded at The Hague in 1930. The Bill, therefore, is limited in scope. Its main object is one with which I think everyone must sympathise. It is to avoid the hardship which at present arises when a woman becomes stateless by reason of her marriage.
  As far back as 1924 the Council of the League of Nations was considering the possibility of international codification of different branches of law, and a preparatory committee gave a good deal of time and thought to the selection and preparation of suitable subjects. One subject recommended by the committee, after very careful consideration, to the Governments concerned, was this question of nationality. While it appeared at that time that there was no prospect of international agreement upon any of the major problems of nationality, there did seem to be a possibility that some of the difficulties which arise owing to the divergence of national laws, and in particular the hardship caused by statelessness, might be removed by international action. Then a conference was arranged under the auspices of the League of Nations. It met at The Hague in the year 1930, and resulted in the signature of a Convention. This Convention has been printed for convenience as Command Paper 4347. It consists of 31 Articles. The great majority of those Articles can be accepted by this country without any alteration of
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  the existing law, but there are three of them, relating to the nationality of married women, which require an amendment of the law. Those three Articles are set out in the memorandum to the Bill.
  The present law regarding the national status of married women is contained in Section 10 of the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act of 1914. That Act lays down the general proposition that the wife of a British subject shall be deemed to be a British subject, and that the wife of an alien shall be deemed to be an alien. That general proposition, however, has certain qualifications. The first is that where a man during the continuance of his marriage ceases to be a British subject, that is to say, if he becomes naturalised in a foreign State, his wife may retain her British nationality by making a declaration that she desires to do so. The second empowers the Secretary of State to grant a certificate of naturalisation to a British-born woman married to an alien who is the subject of a State which is at war with this country.
  The position is therefore as follows: If a British-born woman marries an alien she thereby loses her British nationality. If she marries 'a British subject who thereafter becomes naturalised in another country, she equally loses her British nationality when her husband is so naturalised, unless she avails herself of the right which I have mentioned of retaining her nationality by making a declaration. A foreign woman who marries a British subject thereby acquires British nationality, and if a certificate of naturalisation is granted to an alien in this country the British nationality so conferred extends automatically to his wife, even if she has no desire to become a British subject. The principle which underlies the British law, that the wife's nationality follows that of her husband, is, of course, one which has given rise to considerable controversy, but it would not give rise to the particular hardship of statelessness if it were the law enforced in all countries. A woman whose husband becomes naturalised in a foreign country would simply exchange one nationality for another.
  As a matter of fact, this is what happens in most cases where a British woman who loses her British nationality

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  in the way just mentioned acquires at the same time the nationality of her husband under the laws of his country. But in some countries, of which the most important from the point of view of the various parts of the British Empire is the United States, this is not so. The British woman who marries a citizen of the United States loses her British nationality without thereby acquiring any other in its place. She becomes therefore stateless, and in these days may on that account be exposed to very serious personal hardship. This difficulty the Bill seeks to remove, and its passage would provide relief for a very large number of women who have become, or may in future become, stateless, by reason of their marriage.
  By many women of British birth the loss of British nationality may be felt to be a greater hardship than the failure to acquire another nationality. As a result of the opposition of many of the women's organisations, who urged a revision of the Hague Article so as to embody the principle of equality between the sexes, the matter has beers further considered by the League of Nations, but the result of further examination and prolonged discussion only confirmed the conclusion reached at the Hague Conference, that international agreement cannot at present be obtained on the proposals, without a radical change placing women in a position of complete independence as regards nationality. The Assembly accordingly passed a Resolution in 1932 expressing a hope that the Hague Convention would be ratified by the Governments, and pointing out that the Convention was not intended to embody any principle in contradiction of the independence of the nationality of married women, and that the ratification of the Convention would in no way prejudice further concerted international action when such action was practicable.
  That brings us down to 1932. With these conclusions of the League of Nations His Majesty's Government are in agreement, but it is neither the failure to reach international agreement on any wider amendment of the law, nor any argument based on the merits or demerits of the proposal to embody the principle of equality in the law, which
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  has decided the Government to confine the Bill to provisions necessary to give effect to the Hague Convention. I think it can be said that the reason why the Government have come to their conclusion is that. it is based on the Empire-wide character of our nationality law, and on the impracticability at the present time of securing agreement within the Commonwealth on any lines other than those dealt with in the Bill.
  Since 1914 it has been the unbroken constitutional procedure that any question of amending the laws regulating British nationality has been discussed and considered by all His Majesty's Governments. Indeed, only by strict adherence to this practice of consultation and agreement can a uniform corpus of nationality law within the British Commonwealth be maintained. In accordance with this practice, the proposal that the nationality law should be radically altered by a complete removal of the disabilities of married women has been discussed with representatives of the self-governing British Dominions on more than one occasion, and the only result has been, after the legislation to ratify the Convention has been delayed for three years, to make it clear that no agreement on this large problem at the present time would be practicable. For this reason, I submit, legislation of a radical character, in view of what has passed, cannot be entertained. In the meantime, the Dominion of Canada, owing to numerous cases of women in that Dominion who suffer from this disability by marriage with American citizens, and become stateless, has already taken steps to pass legislation bringing into operation. in anticipation of similar action by the other members of the British Commonwealth, the proposals which I am submitting to the House to-day. I think it is clear that it would be very undesirable, after what has passed, and the fact that the Dominion of Canada has already taken legislative action, that we should have further delay.
  It may be of some advantage; perhaps, if I say a few words about the arrangement of the Bill itself. The scheme of the Bill is to substitute a new Section for Section 10 of the principal Act. Paragraph (1) of Subsection (1) of the Bill repeats the existing provision that the

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  wife of a British subject shall be deemed to be a British subject, and the wife of an alien shall be deemed to be an alien. Paragraphs (4) and (6) re-enact the existing exceptions to this general principle, and paragraphs (2), (3) and (5) add new exceptions. Paragraph (2), it is to be observed, deals with the British woman who marries a foreigner but does not thereby acquire his nationality. Instead of becoming stateless, she is to retain her British nationality. Paragraph (3) makes a similar provision for the British woman, who, having married a British subject, is liable to become stateless when her husband has become naturalised in some other country. If the woman does not acquire her husband's new nationality, she is to retain her British nationality.
  Paragraph (4) repeats the existing provision which enables a British woman whose husband is naturalised abroad to make a declaration, and so be deemed to have retained her British nationality. As a result of the provisions of paragraph (3), this provision will in future only have application where under the law of the foreign country, the woman acquires her husband's new nationality. Opportunity has been taken to define the period of time within which the declaration must, be made, as the absence of such definition has given rise, I understand, in the past to considerable difficulties. The proposal is that the declaration shall be made within one year from the date of her husband's acquisition of a new nationality. The Secretary of State may, in special circumstances, extend this period. Paragraph (5) deals with the alien woman whose husband acquires British nationality by the grant to him of a certificate of naturalisation. In accordance with the terms of the Convention, it will in future rest with her to decide whether she will acquire her husband's new nationality or not. At the present moment she acquires it automatically. Paragraph (6) re-enacts the existing provision regarding British-born wives of aliens who are subjects of a State at war with His Majesty. The final provision in Subclause (2) of Clause 1 is consequential on the new provision in paragraph (5). It gives the Secretary of State power to prescribe by regulation the form of the new declaration of acquisition of British nationality
  358
  which paragraph (5) allows an alien woman to make.
  I hope the House will see no difficulty about giving this Bill a Second Reading. To reject the Bill or to delay it can, I submit, only result in subjecting a number of women for a further period to a hardship which everybody agrees they ought not to be under, and which there is no difficulty about removing. On the other hand, nothing that we pass to-day places any obstacle in the way of effect being given in the future to the principle of equality. Neither the Convention nor this Bill in any way prejudices that question, but it leaves the matter open for future discussion. I am very conscious of the opinion held by certain sections inside and outside the House on this matter, but I submit to the House of Commons, on the broad issue, that this Bill is a big step forward, and in no way prejudices future discussion of these problems.
  4.8 p.m.
  Mr. ATTLEE: I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words:
  "this House cannot assent to the Second Reading of a Bill which fails to give full effect to the policy declared by His Majesty's Government at the 1931 Assembly of the League of Nations in favour of the removal of all disabilities of married women in matters of nationality, and will postpone indefinitely a satisfactory settlement."
  We have had a lucid description of this Bill from the Home Secretary, and the reasons why it has been introduced. I have also read carefully the arguments in another place. I think that the Home Secretary is right in thinking that this is a small Bill. It was described in another place as a trivial Bill. We think that it is an entirely inadequate Bill, and that is the view of the women's organisation who have been pressing for these changes in the status of married women. I do not think there is the least necessity for me to say anything in support of the principle, which was supported by this country at The Hague, in favour of removing altogether this disability attaching to married women. The principle has been approved in this House very frequently—in fact no later than in the summer, when a Bill introduced by the hon. Member for the West Derby Division (Sir J. Sandeman Allen) was given

  359
  a Second Reading, and all we have to consider to-day is why is it that the Government are not prepared to give effect to what everybody desires, and what will be the effect of our acceptance or rejection of this very small Measure.
  We are told that there is an absolute need for acting in the closest collaboration with other parts of the Empire in this matter. We are told that we are closely bound by precedent, that ever since 1914 in these matters we have had to move step by step with the Dominions. I should have thought that in this matter the very last thing that is urgent in the eyes of most people of the world is uniformity, because you have the greatest possible discrepancies all over the world, and although this will remove some anomalies, it is going to leave numerous anomalies. I cannot understand what is the overmastering reason why we should necessarily march step by step with all the Dominions, and take our step from the most backward. Take the lack of uniformity. If an Englishwoman marries an American, she remains British. If she marries a Frenchman, she becomes French. That is a highly anomalous situation. Why is it a worse anomaly if a South African should marry a Frenchman and become French, while a. Canadian or English woman who marries an American should remain British? I cannot see that it makes any terrible upset in the world. As a matter of fact, this principle that we are asked to keep in the Bill, that is to say, that the wife of an alien becomes an alien, is only recent. Up to 1870 British women did retain their nationality, and, as far as I can gather, there was no special difficulty about it. The change was made, apparently, for the convenience of a certain number of men. Before 1870, women were not consulted on these matters, and it is really a remnant of the status of the married women before the days of the Married Women's Property Act.
  The sort of principle we are embodying here means that in all matters of this kind we are to be bound by the least advanced Parliament in the British Commonwealth of Nations. We have always got to wait until we can get uniformity. We are not allowed to take the initiative ourselves. I cannot think why we should
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  accept this position, and I shall want a great deal more persuasion before I can accept that position. I have not seen it put forward in the debates in the other House, and I have not heard here what are the over-mastering reasons why we should keep in exact step with all the Dominions in this matter. I have not heard what terrible effect is going to happen in relation to the status of married women if it is to be something different in Canada, South Africa or the Irish Free State from what appertains in this country.
  I want to know what are the practical, real difficulties, because it is possible to be so Imperialistic as to sacrifice the Empire to an Imperial ideal. We had an example of that not long ago in this House where the Dominions Secretary—and no one is keener on the Empire—in the sacred name of setting up an Imperial tribunal, started, and is continuing, a tariff war between this country and the Irish Free State. That is what I call destroying the Empire in the name of the Empire. It seems to me that it is quite possible in this matter to sacrifice realities to a dull uniformity which will be of no practical use whatever.
  The next question with which I would deal is: What is going to he the effect if we throw out this Bill and what is going to be the effect if we accept it? We all want to ratify this Convention. I should like however to ratify and at the same time give a lead to the rest of the Dominions and the rest of the world. I have a great fear that if once a certain number of comparatively small disabilities are removed there will be a tendency for the Government to go asleep as far as this matter is concerned. The Government of course say that they will press on with it just the same, but I very much doubt it. We have the declaration that they think it impossible to come to an agreement with the Dominions. We have had no suggestion that the particular Dominions which are standing out—I do not know which they are—are likely to change their views. If we pass this Measure, will not the Government then say "We have done all we can and other matters must wait until we can reach general agreement"? That general agreement may be postponed and postponed. Perhaps the question will be brought up at Imperial Conferences; they

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  will disagree upon it or discuss other matters, and so it will lag on and lag on and we shall never get anything done.
  There is no reason why women in this country should be prejudiced because of what I contend to be the backward state of public opinion in some of the Dominions on this question. If there are going to be inconveniences as a, result of having separate laws with regard to the nationality of married women I do not see why other Dominions should not feel that awkwardness and hasten to remove it. If the Government say that they will accept an Amendment to the Bill omitting the paragraph in Clause 1 which declares that the wife of an alien shall be deemed to be an alien, we can carry this Bill, we can ratify the Convention, we can give a lead to the Empire and we can then see what is going to happen. If the other Dominions find it extremely awkward that there should be variations of the law in this respect in the Empire then they can come into line. Why should we be held back all the time in order to wait for them? It is for those reasons that I move the Amendment. I hope that the House will not assent to the Second Reading of a Bill which is opposed by the women's organisations, which does not meet the overwhelming, if not unanimous opinion in this country, as to what ought to be done but which, by conceding a few minor points, seeks to set the whole matter at rest and which will, I believe, delay the ultimate reform that is desired.
  4.20 p.m.
  Sir GERALD HURST: I recognise the great authority with which the women's organisations who are supporting the objection to this Bill speak upon this question. I also recognise how much beholden we are to those organisations for their services to women's interests in the past. This is one of the few points on which I disagree with their views and I wish to put before the House the ground on which I consider that, from the point of view of women themselves, the limited character of this Bill is advantageous to them and to the country. The main object of the Bill—and I think it is common ground that the main object though a limited one is achieved by the Bill—is to meet the great disadvantages placed upon English women who have married Americans by the Cable Act passed by Congress in
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  1922. Under that Act, although an Englishwoman loses her English nationality by marrying an American, yet from the point of view of United States law, she does not thereby become an American citizen. She has to reside one year in America and then petition for naturalisation and, even if that is granted, she loses her American nationality again if she lives for two years consecutively outside the United States. A woman in those circumstances at the present time is often in the unhappy position of being stateless and therefore it is clearly to her advantage that under the provisions in this Bill which carry out Article 8 of the Convention she should remain a British citizen if she marries an American, notwithstanding the general law on the subject.
  Up to that point I assume that everybody is agreed. Where I differ from the hon. Gentleman who has moved the rejection of the Bill is in his suggestion that the Bill is unduly limited and that the Government in framing it ought to have paid more regard to realities. The realities of this question are rather different from what one would gather from a mere enunciation of first principles. I ask the House to consider the effect of a Measure passed by Parliament enacting that an Englishwoman who marries a foreigner automatically retains her English nationality notwithstanding her marriage and enacting that a foreign woman who marries an Englishman shall retain her foreign nationality notwithstanding her marriage. Two dilemmas would ensue. In many cases the woman would be stateless which, in my submission, would be a disadvantage to her. In other cases she would have a double nationality which, in my submission, would also be a disadvantage to her.
  Let me illustrate my point. Assuming that a Frenchwoman, a German, an Austrian, a Dutchwoman, an Italian or a Dane married an Englishman. By our law she would remain a French, German, Austrian, Dutch, Italian, or Danish national as the as might be, if this Measure were passed in the wide form which has been suggested. But by the laws of France of Germany of Austria is, of Holland, or Italy, and of Denmark she would have ceased to be a national of any of those countries. She would not have become a British national and in

  363
  that case she would be stateless. The nation to which she previously belonged would decline to recognise her as one of its nationals; we should decline to recognise her as a British national unless she took out nationalisation papers. In that case the result of the course advocated by those who desire to widen this Measure would be a condition of statelessness and it is no advantage to a woman to be stateless. She would have the greatest difficulty for instance in getting passports and if she required diplomatic assistance she would have nobody to take up her cause.
  Then take the case of double nationality. Assuming that an English woman married a national belonging to any of those countries which I have named, by the law of those countries she would become a French, German, Austrian, Dutch, or Italian citizen as the case might be. But by English law, if we framed our Measure on the wide basis proposed by the hon. Gentleman opposite, she would retain her English nationality so that an English woman married to a Frenchman and living in France would be French by French law and English by English law. There are great disadvantages, as I have said, attaching to double nationality. I refer hon. Members to Article 4 of the Convention which declares that a State may not afford diplomatic protection to one of its nationals as against a State whose nationality such person also possesses. By widening the scope of the Bill you would be enabling the English woman who marries a subject of one of the countries which I have specified to retain her British nationality, but if she went to live in any of those countries her British nationality would be no use to her. She would be the subject of two nations but by the law of the country in which she was living her English nationality would be negligible and useless.
  Captain CAZALET: Is not that argument based on the understanding that those countries which have been named are not prepared to accept the Convention which the Government are asking us here to accept to-day? If those countries are going to accept it does not the hon. and learned Member's argument fall to the ground? Would it not be the case that such a woman would retain her own nationality until she made the decision as to which nationality she desired to adopt.
  Sir G. HURST: As I understand the position—I speak subject to correction—the law of those countries to-day is the same as our law. The point that I am making is that it is a mistake for this country or for any country to legislate in this matter on first principles—simply on the belief that it is a good thing for a married woman to regain her original nationality—without regard to the view of the law entertained by other countries. You cannot act individually and entirely on your own initiative in cases of this sort because unless you have universal cooperation there will be either statelessness or double nationality which as I have shown are equally disadvantageous to the married women.
  I feel that all these Statutes about nationality should he very liberally administered. At present the law enables a very easy re-assumption of British nationality to lie made by the English woman who has married a foreigner, if she becomes a widow. The cheaper and the easier such a re-assumption of nationality is made the better. The provision in Clause 1 by which the wife of an alien who is a subject of a State at war with His Majesty may become a British citizen, if she was at birth a British subject, is d so a very great advantage. During the last War many women suffered greviously in deprivation of property by reason of being married to aliens. Much may be done by administration and by administrative generosity but I quarrel with the view that, without any consideration as to the view of the law taken in other countries, we can legislate in this matter on our own initiative. The remedy may be worse than the disease; and the English woman who marries a foreigner may find herself worse off as the result of such legislation.
  I also question the first principles which are being invoked in this case. The hon. Gentleman opposite used the word "disabilities" Many of us will require a little persuasion before we are brought to believe that the prima facie view that husband and wife should belong to the same nationality really represents a disability to the wife.
  Mr. ATTLEE: The disability is that she should be forced to change her nationality without her volition.
  Sir G. HURST: I think when a woman marries a man it is best for them both

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  that she should take the man's nationality. That was the reason why this change of the English law was made in 1870.
  Viscountess ASTOR: What was the reason?
  Sir G. HURST: That in the long run, taking the ordinary view of the normal Happy marriage, it was best that the wife should take the husband's nationality.
  Mr. McGOVERN: And take his politics too!
  Sir G. HURST: That was why the present law was introduced in 1870. I think we must look upon this question, not from the point of view of first principles so much as from the point of view of its practical influence on family life. Take the case of husband and wife. They may differ about religion, which is a pity; they may differ, less often, about politics, which is also regrettable, but you do not want to add to the points of difference anything more than you can help, and, so far as nationality is concerned, if a woman cares to marry a foreigner, and loves him enough, it is better for her to take his nationality too. In the long run marriage is more likely to succeed the fewer the points of difference the spouses may have.
  Viscountess ASTOR: That was all right in 1870.
  Sir G. HURST: It may be an open question as between husband and wife, but it is not an open question from the point of view of the children. There, it is a very great advantage that there should be no difference of nationality between the father and the mother. If a child goes to school in a country where the father is a national of that country, but the mother has a foreign nationality, and it is known to the child's school companions, I think the child may adopt an apologetic attitude about one of his or her parents. It may also tend to make the children take sides as between them. The child must have a preference for one nationality as against the other, and it seems to me that, from the point of view of family life, which is so threatened by socialism to-day, this double nationality may have a bad effect upon family harmony and unity. The more points of unity and harmony a family has, the better. You cannot always help differences in taste or in politics, but why add
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  to the points of difference the difference of nationality?
  Of course, the period of the War was an abnormal time, but an English woman who was married to a German in Germany had a far better time, or more tolerable time, because she was German by having married. She had a very good time compared with what she would have had if she had been an English national. A German woman who married an English man before the War and lived in England during the War was absolutely protected from losing her personal property, whereas if she had retained German nationality, she would have had a very hard time. These are abnormal cases, I know, but you have to look at abnormal cases, because in normal life these questions do not arise, and emergencies such as this, I think, bring it home to a woman, to use the common phrase, on which side her bread is buttered. This is not a question to be judged by anything other than the realities of family life, the test of which will be found in times of emergency, when the woman's true interests are best served by having the nationality of her husband. It is a very open question, but that is the view that I take about a woman's interests. Because I believe that that is the true interest of women, I am glad that the scope of this Bill, useful though it may be within its limited application, is so limited, and for that reason I hope it will be passed in its present form.
  4.35 p.m.
  Mr. LLEWELLYN-JONES: We have just listened to a speech which might conceivably have been addressed to this House some 60 years ago, just about the time when the 1870 Act was placed upon the Statute Book, and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Moss Side (Sir G. Hurst) seems to have lost sight of what has been taking place in the legislation of this country during the past 50 or 60 years. He has evidently, notwithstanding his wide professional experience, forgotten the Married Women's Property Act and the fact that women are now admitted to all the universities and professions in this country. He has even forgotten the fact that in this Legislature itself there are women, who are playing a great part in the political life of this country. He has over-

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  looked the fact that for something like eight or nine years, I believe, women were included in the Government of this country and sat on the Treasury Bench. It is quite conceivable that the reason that this Bill has been introduced in it present form and that it is not a more generous Measure is that during the last two years there has been no woman sitting upon the Treasury Bench. If there had been a woman in the Ministry, I am quite certain that the Bill would not have been of so limited a scope.
  Viscountess ASTOR: It depends on the woman.
  Mr. LLEWELLYN-JONES: Coming to the point that has been made by my hon. and learned Friend, I am quite satisfied that he has in many directions overlooked what this Bill really does. His main objection, apart from the objection which he expressed at the close of his speech, the old objection relating to the subjection of women, seems to have been that we are going to have confusion, that if we widen the scope of this Bill and permit married women to declare what nationality they will take, in the same way as a man is entitled to declare it, we shall create difficulties with foreign States. The very first principle which underlies the Convention to which reference has already been made is set out in Article I of the Convention, and it is the overriding principle so far as this Convention is concerned. It reads as follows:
  "It is for each State to determine under its own law who are its nationals. This law shall he recognised by other States in so far as it is consistent with international conventions, international custom and principles of law generally recognised with regard to nationality."
  If this Parliament in its wisdom decides that all women are entitled to say what their nationality is to he, no foreign State is justified in complaining of that attitude, because it rests with us in this country to decide who are to be our own nationals. That is the position which, I think, the British Government has taken in the past.
  My hon. and learned Friend referred to the possibility of double nationality. No matter what legislation is likely to be adopted in this country or in the Dominions, I think everyone will realize
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  that we are very far from the position when we shall be able to get absolute uniformity in this respect throughout all the countries of the world, but is that a reason why this country should wait until there is a possibility of getting uniformity? If the objection to this Bill succeeds, you will have British women retaining British nationality, residing in foreign States, the nationality of which they have also secured, according to the law of those States, by marriage, and if there is diplomatic trouble, Article 4 of the Convention lays it down that:
  "A State may not afford diplomatic protection to one of its nationals against a State whose nationality such person also possesses."
  That is a perfectly reasonable provision in the Convention. If a German woman should elect to have British nationality, if the law were altered, and should live in this country, naturally there would be resentment on the part of our Government if the German Government were to endeavour to interfere in such a case. She has elected to take British nationality, and presumably, having done so, she would be entitled to be regarded in all respects in this country as a British national,
  Mr. PIKE: What if she elected to go back to Germany
  Mr. LLEWELLYN-JONES: Then, with her German nationality, I suggest that there again she could not look to this country to protect her. Whatever you may do there will be difficult cases, but that is no reason why you should not attempt to legislate in a broad and generous manner. I think the Bill in its present form is a narrow Bill and is calculated, as is suggested in the Amendment, to postpone indefinitely a satisfactory settlement. May I submit that the Bill gives expression to a man's view of the nationality of married women? It is based on the antiquated principle of masculine superiority, and it discriminates against women in matters of nationality. I am satisfied that the conscience of all civilised countries is opposed to the recognition of an antiquated principle of this kind. There is no reason why you should discriminate against a woman in matters of nationality any more than you do to-day in any other respect, in respect of property, of

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  other civil' rights, of education, and so on. I believe that the Bill fails to give any regard to the almost universal demand of the women of this country and, I believe also, of the women of the Dominions, in addition to the women If many foreign States.
  Coming to the Bill itself, it certainly will remove certain anomalies, but is it going to remove all the anomalies which nut merely a woman but any enlightened person is entitled to ask should be removed? Take the main Clause. It removes anomalies as has already been pointed out. It means that in the case of the marriage of a woman to a citizen of the United States and, possibly, a citizen of three or four of the South American States, that woman will continue to preserve her British nationality. The question, I think, is a Little doubtful so far as Paris is concerned. I do not think that the law in regard to French nationality is absolutely clear, but, so far as the great bulk of the European States are concerned, the woman immediately upon marriage will acquire alien nationality and, as the result of a decision of the House of Commons, will cease to enjoy British nationality.
  Viscountess ASTOR: Does not the hon. Member think that wives influence men far more than men influence wives, and that it is far more dangerous to have an Englishman sitting here with a German or even an American wife than for an English woman with a foreign husband to do so? We are not half as much influenced by men as they are by us.
  Mr. LLEWELLYN-JONES: I do not suppose that any of us has had the experience to which the Noble Lady refers.
  Viscountess ASTOR: Every one of you knows it.
  Mr. LLEWELLYN-JONES: At any rate, when you deal with that point you see the absurdity of the provision. Let me go a step further and take the other side and indicate an evil that is being perpetuated by Sub-section (1), which says:
  "The wife of a British subject shall be deemed to be a British subject."
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  What is happening at this moment? In the last few days reference has been made in more than one of the courts of this country to what is really becoming a grievous scandal. Foreign women who are undesirable aliens come to this country and marry British citizens. Such a woman possibly leaves her husband at the door of the registry, never seeing him again, neither he wanting to see her nor she wanting to see him. British nationality has been acquired by such a woman, and she is entitled to all the rights and privileges of British nationality to the same extent as any member of this legislature. Is it a good thing to perpetuate that in this country? Most of us regard British nationality as a prize, as something worthy of receiving, and it ought never to be permitted that an alien, whether a man or a woman, should acquire British nationality unless he or she goes through the same steps that everybody who asks to be naturalised has to go through now.
  This Clause will deal with a certain number of cases, but I believe we shall find that there will be a large number of stateless persons whom this Clause will not help. There are in this country a large number of stateless men. Their wives will continue to be stateless. There are cases where British women have married Americans, and this Bill will not help them in any way. I believe there are cases where Americans have lost their American citizenship. Will the Bill cover cases where men have lost their citizenship and their wives are stateless? Will they, under the terms of this Bill, reacquire British citizenship? In Subsection (4) there is a time limit of 12 months within which a woman may declare her desire to retain British nationality. In the original Bill the time limit was only six months. I should like to ask the Minister whether the effect of Sub-section (5) will not create in many cases serious anomalies.
  When this matter was discussed in another place every speaker, including the Lord Chancellor who introduced the Bill, agreed that it was desirable that the woman should have complete liberty to select her own nationality, and the main reason that was given against adopting that principle, a principle which has been recognised on more than one occasion by this House and has, I believe, received

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  the support of His Majesty's Government, was that there were difficulties with regard to the Dominions. It is desirable that the Dominions and this country should go together in this respect, but, as was suggested by more than one speaker in another place, why should not this country take a lead? Why should not the Mother of Parliaments of the Empire give an indication as to the direction that the children should take? If you refer to the observations submitted by the Government in July last year to the League of Nations, you will find that Australia is prepared to move forward. A telegram, sent on the 28th July last year to the League of Nations by the Australian Government, stated:
  "Australian Government is prepared to accept principle that woman on marriage shall not lose her nationality or acquire new nationality without her consent and to amend nationality law accordingly, provided His Majesty's Governments in United Kingdom and British self-governing Dominions are agreeable take similar action, so that uniformity of nationality laws throughout Empire may be preserved, such uniformity being of importance in interests of system of Imperial naturalisation now in force."
  I suggest that this country, knowing the attitude that is taken by Australia, and India also, should urge the Governments of the other Dominions to adopt a similar course. In the meantime, there is no absolute urgency to press this Bill forward. It is conceivable that this Convention may not be signed by the requisite number of States, and I suggest that the Government might consider whether it is not desirable to withdraw this Bill at the present stage and place themselves in Immediate communication with the Governments of the Dominions. If the Governments of the Dominions follow the lead that has been taken by Australia it may be possible that within the next few months the Government may he prepared to introduce a Bill which will be accepted. It might not be with absolute unanimity because I can understand my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Moss Side opposing any far-reaching Bill, but I have no doubt that if a Bill of that kind were introduced, this House would follow the precedent it has set on more than one occasion and give it a Second Reading and press it through with a view to its being put on the Statute Book.
  4.55 p.m.
  Viscountess ASTOR: I am rather sorry for the Home Secretary, because I know that in his heart he stands where we do about this question of the nationality of Englishwomen. Before dealing with the Home Secretary, I must say how horrified I am with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Moss Side (Sir G. Hurst) and to hear the speech that he made, because always when I have stood alone in this House in the Parliaments of the last 15 years fie has been on the side of the-women. Why he has left the modern woman and has now taken the attitude that the men took in 1870, I cannot understand. He puts up the same old plea that we always hear when we want to do anything about women, the plea that family life will be impaired. I have heard the worst of blackguards talking about the beauty of family life. The hon. and learned Member is not one of them. He is a family man, he is a respectable fellow, and he knows perfectly well that giving the votes to women has not wrecked the family life of England. He knows that our legislation is far better and that our whole moral tone is better politically since women had the vote. There is not a man in the House of Commons who would not say that, because most of them would it be here if the women had not worked so hard for them. In any election or in any national crisis the women come up and show how sound they are. They are worthy of citizenship then.
  When we come to consider the question of the nationality of married women, then in a House of Commons, representing a country which has 1,500,000 more women than men, there are hardly any men. If it were a question of the nationality of married men they would be here in their thousands. I am ashamed of them. That plea about wrecking the family life is not worthy. We have always heard it when women were fighting. The hon. and learned Member made me laugh when he said that this Bill would cause dissension among children and make them ashamed of their parents. Every parent in this House knows that our children are always ashamed of us. One of the tragic things is to visit your children at school, especially boys, and you soon find that out. We have to put up with that, so I

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  do not think that there is anything in that point. Then he said it would make difficulties. That was the reason it was done away with in 1870. Until that time a British woman, once a British subject, was always a British subject. Then a committee of lawyers was set up, and they took that privilege away from women because it was inconvenient. I suppose that women had no property rights then, so that the lawyers could not make any money out of them. I am surprised that a lawyer should want to take any rights away from women to-day. They ought to want to give rights to them.
  Think of the condition of women in 1870. They had no property rights, no rights to their children, and they were the chattels of their husbands. Ever since 1914 there has been a real move among women about the question of the rights of married women. We know what appalling cases came up during the War. We are not legislating for war now; this is not emergency legislation, but legislation that ought to last for ever. This Bill provides that an English woman who marries either an American or Russian will preserve her British nationality. If she marries a Frenchman or a German or an Italian or a Spaniard or a South American she loses all citizen-ship—or, at any rate, loses her nationality. What is worse, she loses citizenship, because in those countries women have no political rights. You may think it is nothing, but it means a good deal to us to have some say in world affairs, and the countries which do not give women their rights are going to suffer for it. Already that is the case in the world. The countries which do not give women their rights are generally under dictators. The countries which do not recognise women are in a bad way, in a very bad way. A country can get no higher than the consciousness of its people, and if you try to keep women as chattels, or only give them opportunities in the way of exercising their wiles over men, to get them into their meshes—well, those are not rights. I call that "men's wrongs" and not "women's rights."
  Mr. PIKE: Did not the Noble Lady say just now that the vast majority of married men in this country were inspired by their wives?
  Viscountess ASTOR: I did not say "in this country, but in every country. But do not let us go back. That is the A.B.C. of the thing. I am far more frightened of what may happen in the Diplomatic Corps. Suppose one of our young diplomats who goes abroad is married to a foreign wife. I am afraid he is far more apt to represent the ideals of his wife than the thoughts of his own country. Oh, you do not know as much about it as I do. I can tell you of dozens of cases. I know cases where men in our Diplomatic Service who have married foreign women are far more influenced by their wives than by the thoughts of the women of their own country. Make no mistake about that. The thoughts of the women in English-speaking countries are far different from the thoughts of the women in other countries. We have different views on all sociological matters from those of the women in Latin-speaking countries. That, really, is what worries me about this matter. You talk about the Hague Convention, and say this was not ratified there. Most of the countries present at the Hague Convention do not give women any rights. Naturally, they were not going to ratify it. Which of the Colonies are against it? South Africa, I believe, and Ireland, and I believe the Quebec section of Canada. Really, is that a reason for holding back rights from British women? The women of South Africa have only just got the vote, and the women of Ireland—have they got the vote?
  Mr. LOGAN: They have got the trousers.
  Viscountess ASTOR: They have got the priests. Why we should be held back by the most backward of our Colonies I cannot conceive. It is very hard on the women and on this House that the Government should come here with this ridiculous little Measure and say it is because of the Imperial question that they will not go ahead. I am frightened that if we pass this Measure the Government will think it is the end of the matter and will do nothing more for women. They are wrong there. I wish to give them a list of the societies which are bitterly opposed to this what the Home Secretary calls "A very inadequate" or "paltry"—what was the word used? I have got it down. What did you say? I wrote it down. Anyhow, the Home Secre-

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  tary said it was a very feeble attempt on the part of the Government. Well, what what were the words? I wrote them down. Oh, "A Bill of restricted scope" It certainly is—much too restricted. They may think they are going to please the women, but here is a list of women's organisations which are going to fight it tooth and nail because it does not fulfil the promises made to them by the Government. In 1931 the British delegation at Geneva said:
  "The British Government considers it is right that all the disabilities of married women in matters of nationality should be removed, and that in so far as nationality is concerned a married woman should be in the same position as a woman, married or unmarried, or any single woman."
  To-day the Government are bringing forward a Bill in which they are denying the rights which they were pledged to give us at Geneva, and put forward the paltry excuse of Imperial considerations. Here are the women's organisations: the National Council of Women, which has 2,000,000 members, the Women's Cooperative Guild, the largest body of organised married women in the country, the Women's National Liberal Federation, the National Union of Women Teachers, British Commonwealth League, the National Council for Equal Citizenship, the Six-Point Group, the National Society for Women's Service, Women's Freedom League, the Open Door Council, the St. Joan's Social and Political Alliance.
  Mr. LOGAN: What was the opinion of the St. Joan's Council in regard to Ireland—in connection with your insulting remarks earlier on?
  Viscountess ASTOR: Now, now! You are so sensitive. We Protestants do not mind. I should not be sensitive about my religion. I would not be frightened of what anybody says.
  Mr. LOGAN: What you say does not make any difference in the House of Commons, it is the opinions of other people outside. My opinion of you is already formed.
  Viscountess ASTOR: Oh dear! Do not be so flattering. One of the finest organisations in the whole of England is the St. Joan's Social and Political Alliance. It is a Roman Catholic alliance, and it
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  is against the Bill. They will tell you what they think of the backward women of Ireland and Quebec. They have said it in their own Church. They are fighting the reactionaries in the Catholic Church, and we are fighting the reactionaries in the House of Commons. They are not all so timorous as you are. The remaining society on the list is the National Women Citizens Association. All those societies are against the Bill. Every Member here has been helped by those women. The reason the women are against this Bill is that if we pass this makeshift legislation we shall not get what everyone is demanding. After all, we have a right to citizenship. It may be a little inconvenient to lawyers, but it is not going to wreck the Empire. It cannot wreck the Empire. It is going to lead the Empire. We ought to give a lead. We are going too far with this "youth movement" if the Mother of Parliaments has to wait on Ireland and South Africa. Surely the Home Secretary knows that the Government are pledged up to the hilt. He knows what went on at Geneva—that the whole tendency of some countries, as far as this question of nationality was concerned, was so unsatisfactory that they referred it, back. I wonder whether hon. Members know which countries did ratify it? There were only four—Brazil, Norway, Sweden and Monaco. We cannot wait for our backward Dominions. After all the Canadian delegation voted for it at Geneva, the Australians are for it and the Indians are for it, and so are all forward people. Leave the Colonies out of it.
  The question is, what ought we to do at home? Have not our women a right to their British nationality? Just because a woman marries a German she has to become a German. Women may not want German citizenship. One of you, if you went abroad and married a German woman, you would not like to become a German, and why should the women like to become German? I hope the Members of the House of Commons will get up and demand a definite promise from the Government to give women the full rights which they have promised them. If so, they cannot vote for this very paltry Measure. We are not asking anything that it impossible—nothing that the Home Secretary does not know is

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  right. After all, Englishmen have been the fairest in the world towards women up to now—the fairest in the world—and English women have been the fairest in the world to men. You know perfectly well that you can depend upon us, but we are wondering whether we can depend upon you. I beg hon. Members to remember the vast body of organised women who are fighting for this reform and that many of them are pledged to vote for equal rights, and I hope that to-day they will get up and speak and get from the Government a pledge of further legislation. If not, the only thing to do is to go into the Lobby against the Government. Nothing brings a Government to book so quickly. If we went into the Lobby against the Government to-day, within one month we would get a Bill giving equal rights.
  5.12 p.m.
  Captain CAZALET: Unlike the Noble Lady, I cannot speak on this subject as the parent of a large family of children. I listened with great interest to the speech of my learned Friend the Member for Moss Side (Sir G. Hurst). It was a speech such as I expected from him, lucid and full of the legal difficulties which might arise if this Bill were defeated and the full demands of those who are opposing it were accepted by the Government. But I hardly think it is fair that he should use against our proposals arguments based on what may or may not happen in war-time. Further, he said that dual nationality might create difficulties. I know that a great many married women have dual nationalities, but I have not yet heard that it has ever created any great difficulties in the home or, as a matter of fact, in the legal courts of the various countries in which they reside. I am prepared to admit that the full grant of our claims might create difficulties, but against that we have to set human rights and justice and the remedying of certain injustices from which women are suffering to-day.
  The Noble Lady told us that 60 years ago women could not own property, could not dispose of it, could not make a will or sign a deed. They had no independent existence apart from their husbands. Slowly the situation has become amended in almost all respects save this one question of nationality, as to which
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  a retrograde step has been taken since 1870. I would observe that not all the advantages are with the men. I am told that, subject to certain conditions, men are still liable for all the debts of their wives. No doubt the married men in this House know more about that than I do.
  Viscountess ASTOR: Women have protested.
  Captain CAZALET: If women have really protested and wish to be responsible for their own debts, I am surprised at the weakness with which those protests have been voiced in this House. For the last 10 years we have brought forward measures to give women equal rights of nationality with men. Our efforts have been given a First Reading and a Second Reading. We have never had an adverse vote, and hardly a criticism. We have had plenty of sympathy—sympathy galore—but of action, none whatever. To-day we are asked by the Home Secretary to be grateful for very small mercies, indeed. I am grateful that certain restrictions in regard to the registration of British-born women have been waived during the past few months, and the women who were affected by this administrative decision are also grateful. We should be much more grateful if we thought that these small mercies were evidences of favours to come, but I am perfectly prepared to prophesy that if the right hon. Gentleman gets this Bill, we shall not hear again the question of the nationality of married women as long this Parliament lasts.
  No one has disputed that very real grievances and hardships exist and, so far as I know, no one challenges the justice of the general principles which we are advocating to-day. If there were any question of whether the hardships exist, may I say that I have a box at home filled with letters, from which we enumerated about 400 cases of women suffering hardship through the present law in regard to nationality. I saw a body of these women some few months ago. If hon. Members had only been there and listened to the tales of tragedy which were told—women deserted by their husbands and now aliens in this country, jobs refused on every hand because they were aliens, the stigma of alien and foreigner being passed on to

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  the children as well—I am perfectly certain that they would be on our side in advocating some further measure to-day.
  I would like to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department whether this Bill applies to women who possess, or whose husbands possess, what is called a Nansen passport issued by the League of Nations to certain individuals who, for one reason or another, have no nationality of their own. Unless hon. Members have come into contact with these cases, it is impossible for them to imagine the difficulties which those people find themselves up against to-day. It. takes them three weeks to get a visa to travel to the Continent. A friend of mine who has a Nansen passport decided to take a small car abroad this summer and tour in it. The official Automobile Association of this country refused to accept the responsibility of trying to get the necessary permits in Europe, because the owner of the passport happened to hold a Nansen passport. I would like very much indeed to know whether the relief promised in this Bill will apply to such women.
  The truth, of course, is that because only a small number of people are affected, we have not had a reform in this matter years ago. It is a very poor excuse that we cannot do anything because various parts of the Empire will not follow suit. That has been the argument and the excuse, and it has not been given for the first time to-day. It has been given regularly every time the subject has been raised for the last 10 years. If it is such a small thing and affects so few people, would it really matter if, in this instance, the law were different in this country from what it is in other parts of the Dominions? I am perfectly certain that if we do not set the lead, one of the Dominions will take the law into its own hands. I would far rather that this country were in the vanguard on these lines than that we should be forced to follow some other portion of the Empire.
  This Bill affects only a very small section of British-born women who have married Americans, Argentinians or Russians. Perhaps there is something to be said for the case of the English woman who voluntarily not only marries a foreigner, but goes and lives, and is
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  domiciled, in the foreign country. If she wishes to live there, and if she is taking part in the national life of that country, as indeed all good citizens should do, and if her children are born and brought up in that country, there is a good argument that she should adopt the nationality of the country in which she lives, in exactly the same way as a foreign man who came over and lived in England, carried on his business and had his livelihood here and paid taxes and took part in the life of this country. We should expect that foreigner to take out naturalisation papers and become a British citizen. What we feel is that, in so far as it is possible, the English woman who marries a foreigner should be given the option for a certain time to decide whether she will take up the nationality of her husband or, if she does not wish to continue to reside in the foreign country. will come back to this country or to some other part of the British Empire. [An HON. MEMBER: "How long would you allow?"] I am just coming to that point.
  Let me take an example which is to be found in the French law. French law is, in my opinion, far more satisfactory in this matter. The French take into consideration almost every difficulty and problem which has arisen in our Debate to-day. I will read out two or three small points regarding the law of nationality of women in France. It is French law that a foreign woman who marries a Frenchman acquires French nationality only if she makes application for that purpose or if, according to her national law—that is, if she is an Englishwoman, according to the English law—she acquires her husband's nationality upon marriage. If we changed the law in this country in the way which we desire, when an Englishwoman went to France, lived there and married a Frenchman, exactly what we wish would occur. If a foreign woman wishes to become French she has a free choice in the matter. She can take out French naturalisation papers, and only if she desires to do so does she become a French citizen.
  Here is the most important point of all. A French person who has lost French nationality can recover it provided that he or she resides in France. That is a very excellent and commonsense point of view. That is the gist of all our complaints to-day. Those with whom we are

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  concerned are British-born women who may marry foreigners for one reason or another. Who are we to say whether they should or should not? The point is that if they wish to come back to live in their own country, there should be restored to them, subject to certain conditions, the rights of British citizenship.
  Lieut.-Commander AGNEW: Even in her husband's lifetime?
  Captain CAZALET: Certainly. Most of the cases that we have had before us were those of the wives of seamen who had been deserted by their husbands. These are very poor people, and they cannot get any information about their husbands. They live at some port in this country, and are condemned for the rest of their lives, to be aliens in their own country and perhaps in their own town. Hon. Members will hardly believe it, but it was only a few months ago that these British-born women had to go regularly to the police station and report themselves as aliens.
  Mr. PIKE: Would the hon. and gallant Member agree, in the case of an Englishman and his wife becoming naturalised foreigners, and then desiring to come back to England, to their admission to the privilege of British nationality?
  Captain CAZALET: Certainly. If I understand the question of the hon. Member aright, it is as follows. If an English husband and wife go abroad to live and become citizens of some foreign country, and later desire to come home and return and live here, I should apply the ordinary laws to them after they have lived here for the stipulated period of time. If they had been born British citizens, I should, by administrative action of the Home Secretary, facilitate their naturalisation papers, and instead of their making application after five years, I would probably give it to them in two years or three years, as the case might be.
  There is one other matter in regard to French law which covers the point in regard to time. "After the expiration of one year, where a woman has been deserted by her husband, the French woman who lost her nationality by marriage with an alien can only recover it if her ordinary place of residence has been on French territory for at least two years" That seems to me to be a perfectly com-
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  monsense regulation. The French law very largely depends upon what is known as domicile or residence. I do not care whether you apply it to a man or a woman. If a British-born woman comes back into this country and takes up abode here, pays taxes and plays a part in our national life, if she has resided here for a period of two years arid wishes to continue to reside here, every facility should be given to her to take up British citizenship with the full privileges of a British citizen.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: Would the hon. and gallant Member include women who have no means of coming back here to take work?
  Captain CAZALET: If a British born woman wishes to come back, I believe that the generosity of our people is sufficient to welcome her back home; even if she desires to get work but cannot find it. That is a matter which ought to be within the power of the Home Secretary. I cannot believe that in a genuine case of a British-born woman wishing to come back to reside here the privilege would not be given to her. I believe that the regulations should be strict, because of the conditions which prevail among the unemployed women in this country. I hope at a later stage to move an Amendment which will allow British nationality to he given at the discretion of the Home Secretary to British-born women who come back and who have lived in this country for two years or longer, and to whom the Home Secretary thinks it proper and right to restore nationality, and I hope then to go into that question in greater detail.
  I realise perfectly well that the majority —in fact practically all—of the women's organisations are opposing this Bill. I should like very much to oppose it, because I believe it is inadequate and trivial, and does not go to the heart of the problem, but I am moved by this consideration: Lord Buckmaster, whom no one will say has not been a sincere advocate of the rights of women for many years in this country, did not oppose this Measure in the House of Lords, for two reasons, one of which was that the Measure will actually give relief to about 400 or 500 women. I would not take upon myself the responsibility of opposing

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  any Measure which would bring even the smallest part of relief to women who are suffering under this disability. He also did not oppose it—and I do not intend to oppose the Second Reading—if the Government would give a categorical statement that they regard this as only a first step in the re-adjustment of an injustice to women which is long overdue. I know that the Home Secretary cannot give a categorical promise on behalf of the Government, but if he will give us, on his own initiative, a promise that he will, before this Parliament is over, give most sympathetic consideration to a, further extension of our demand along these lines, we should be doing a hardship if we opposed this Measure. I shall not oppose the Bill on Second Reading, nor after I have moved Amendments in the Committee stage, if the Government will either accept those Amendments or give us a definite promise that they are going to take action before this Parliament is over. If the Government refuse to give any promise to us, we will then be well within our rights, and the rights of the women whose interests we represent to-day, in opposing the Third Reading.
  5.30 p.m.
  Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT: I think it would be a mistake to suppose that this is a matter of no importance. This discussion reminds me of some previous Indian discussions in which it had to be remembered throughout that what was being said here was not only addressed to Members of the House who happened to be present, but to large numbers of people outside. I have exactly the same impression about this debate. It is not merely connected with a few individual women. So far as they are concerned, this Bill admittedly cures difficulties in particular cases; but that is not the main ground upon which I desire to address the House for a few minutes. Before I reach that main ground, I want to glance at sonic of the points which have been made during the discussion.
  In the first place, may I call attention to a curious defect in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Bill, in which, while he hinted at differences within the Dominions as to this Measure or the larger Measure which is asked for, he gave no indication of the grounds on
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  which that position rested. With respect, I think that when the House of Commons is asked to review an important matter of this sort, and is told that certain Dominion Governments have reservations with regard to a larger Measure, we should, in order that our support for this smaller Measure may be reasonably asked for, be told at any rate something of the grounds on which the Dominions take up that position. I did not desire to interrupt my right hon. Friend, because I knew that he was dealing with an extremely difficult matter, but I say now that I hope that whoever is going to reply on behalf of the Government will give the House some account of the grounds which have induced certain of the Dominion Governments to withold their support from a larger Measure.
  The hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan) intervened on a point on which I was not clear. The House is familiar with his intense devotion to certain religious interests, and I hope that his intervention did not mean that this Bill runs in conflict with any principle which he holds dear.
  Mr. LOGAN: I should like to relieve the hon. and learned Gentleman's mind of any wrong idea. I was protesting at an insult which was levelled. With regard to this Bill, I fully support it on behalf of the women.
  Mr. KNIGHT: I am glad to have elicited that statement, because in my own mind I was not clear, and I wanted to be sure that any suggestion which might be held out that a certain great Church is opposed to this Bill on any ground is quite without foundation.
  Mr. DENVILLE: I think there is a misconception. The Roman Catholic Church has taken no exception whatsoever to this Bill.
  Mr. KNIGHT: I have received to-day a publication of the League of Nations communicated to the Council of the League on the 26th September last, which sets out a petition to the League from the International Committee of Catholic Women for the Nationality of Married Women in support of the larger Measure, and contains an account of the signatures attached to this Catholic petition to the League of Nations. It is signed by many eminent dignitaries of the Church in many

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  countries, and by prominent men in various countries, including Members of this House, some of whom I see before me, and, if I may, I should like to take the opportunity of congratulating my hon. Friend who has just intervened on his appearance in this distinguished Assembly. I only mention the matter now because there is an impression outside—and it was feared that it affected the mind of the Lord Chancellor when he was dealing with this matter in another place—that this Church resents the Bill as involving some interference with the identity between man and wife in marriage. It is not so, and that fact should be placed on record here.
  That, therefore, cannot be one of the grounds which my right hon. Friend, in moving the Bill, did not state. The House should be perfectly clear on the matter. No religious opposition is raised by this Measure. Indeed, in the petition of the International Committee of Catholic Women, the principle stated in the petition is that a woman, whether married or unmarried, should have the same right as a man to retain or change her nationality. That is the principle of the larger Measure, and that is supported by the great Church to which I have referred. The only other matter in the course of the discussion to which I want to refer is some observations which were made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Moss Side (Sir G. Hurst), to whom we always listen with great interest. He thought that some injury to family life, and some loss of respect on the part of children for their parents, would be involved. I think his apprehensions are very much exaggerated, and they do not carry any force to my mind.
  This House, in recent years, has reviewed the relation of woman to the State. It has endowed them with functions in the State; it has called upon them to discharge duties which were hitherto closed to women; it has opened to women the doors of avocations which formerly were not open to them. As a culmination of all that, views have developed as to the right idea of the relation of women to the State, and I submit that this culminating liberty of freedom of choice of nationality should now be accepted. I admit that practical difficulties will arise, but they will not
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  arise in many cases, and, even if the difficulties in those cases were serious, which is the more important—the question of difficulties in a few cases, or the general right demanded by very large representative bodies of women in the country?
  In my view, this is a claim which ought to be met, in the best interests of the State. I am certain—and this is my reason for venturing, at the beginning of my remarks, to ask the House to remember that behind this Assembly there exists a large body of women—I am certain that the withholding of this right is going to work serious mischief in the State until it is accorded, and for this reason, that, although it affects only a few, it becomes part of that sense of differentiation against men which is increasingly moving women in this country. Therefore, I hope very strongly that, although the Government at this moment are not able to go beyond the present Bill, for reasons of which, frankly, at the moment I am not aware, the House will recognise that it is dealing here with something of the greatest importance affecting a very large number of women outside this House. In my view it would meet the situation as it should be met by granting the petition which has been sent to this House, and which is so largely supported by the large women's organisations of the country.
  5.40 p.m.
  Miss RATHBONE: The case against this Bill, or rather, the case for going very much further than this Bill, has been so fully stated by the preceding speakers that there is not a great deal more that I need add, but there arc a few points which I should like to make. The right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill, and, still more, the Lord Chancellor speaking in another place, laid some stress on the desire of the Government not to go beyond the point where there was a possibility of obtaining unanimity among the Dominions. The Lord Chancellor is a great lawyer, and he cannot be accused of ambiguity about anything on which he is not compelled to be ambiguous, but I noticed that he was singularly vague in his reference to the reasons which made non-unanimity among the Dominions on this question so very disastrous and undesirable. He did not give a single point on which any serious difficulty would arise if we went a little

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  further than some of the Dominions were prepared immediately to follow.
  In the second place, he gave us no assurance that, even if we accept this little Bill to-day instead of pressing for a larger Bill, it would lead to unanimity among the Dominions. There is not unanimity now, and, therefore, if we take the step which we are asked to take today, and if this Bill in its present form be passed into law, we shall form two with Canada, and the law in the other Dominions will be different; and the most that the Lord Chancellor could say was that, if we took this step, he hoped and trusted that the other Dominions would follow. I think we need stronger reasons than that before we accept the view that we should take a. step which nearly every organised body of women in this country condemns as completely inadequate, merely because of our desire for a unanimity which we are not sure of achieving in any case. Is it really a dignified position for the Mother Country to say that, in a matter of this sort, we must make sure that the slowest and least progressive of the Dominions is willing to keep line with us? Canada has gone a step ahead; why should not we go a step ahead of Canada?
  I think that some misconception was unfortunately caused by the mention of the Irish Free State. There is a rumour that the Irish Free State is one of the countries which is supposed not to be willing to go along with us in this matter. It is a rather persistent rumour, and there may be something in it, but, as several speakers have said, if there is anything in it it is not due to the Roman Catholic Church. I was very glad that the two interventions during the speech of the hon. and learned Member for South Nottingham (Mr. Knight) made it clear to every one of us that there is no religious opposition on this question. The St. Joan's Social Alliance, which is one of those active societies that have been working for this Bill, is a loyal daughter of the Roman Catholic Church, and we may be quite sure that it would not be doing all the work that it is doing for the Bill if it had not the support of large numbers of dignitaries and great masses of opinion in its own Church. Indeed, this question has never been regarded as
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  one on which the Church as such has ever taken a decided attitude.
  Suppose that it is the Irish Free State that is raising objections, are we really so much in love with the Irish Free State that it is suitable for us to be obliged to say, "We will wait until the Irish Free State or, if it comes to that, any other Dominion is converted? "Why cannot the Government take their courage in both hands and go ahead and trust to the Dominions to carry out the declarations that they made before the League of Nations in 1931? It is not as though we were pledged to wait for the Dominions. On the contrary, when the subject was before the Imperial Conference in 1931, it was definitely laid down that it is for each member of the Commonwealth to define for itself its own nationals, that those nationals should be persons possessing a common status, and that local conditions or other special circumstances might from time to time necessitate divergence from this general principle. Therefore, we are not pledged to confine ourselves to this small Bill by definite assurances given to the other Dominions, nor is there any reason why there are serious practical disadvantages in taking a step ahead of the rest of the Dominions.
  Another point with which I want to deal is that made by the late Solicitor-General, whom I had not expected to find taking the view that he did. His attitude reminded me of the old story of the Scottish bridegroom who, when issuing from the church, said to his bride: "The Minister said henceforth you and I are one, and, mind, I am that one "That, apparently, is what he thinks is the attitude which, if enforced by the State, will lead to the greatest harmony between husband and wife. He objects to going further than the Bill, because he thinks on the whole it is for the benefit of family life that husband and wife should be of the same nationality. If we go further and carry out the measure which the great majority of the women's societies desire, which would give the wife not the obligation to retain her British nationality if she marries a foreigner, but merely the right to do so, the wife can choose for herself. Whatever jars may arise between husband and wife after marriage, they are generally pretty well able to come to an agreement before marriage. Would it not be better

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  that they should thrash out between themselves whether the wife wishes to retain her nationality or not rather than that she should be compelled to make a choice which I think not a man in the House would care to make?
  "A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still,"
  and a woman denationalised against her will is only likely to cherish in her heart a stronger sense of attachment to her own nationality if she is forcibly deprived of it. The hon. Member for Hallam (Mr. L. Smith) said it was better that the children should look upon their parents as having the same nationality, but the children are bound to know that the mother, if British born, is British by race, by blood, by language and perhaps by the religion that she professes. Is it not better in the case of a couple united by bonds of love that the State should not come in and force the woman to make a sacrifice of her nationality which she might bitterly regret? It is not for this House, in which the great majority of Members belong to a party who believe they have almost a monopoly of attachment to the Empire, to take too lightly that strong sentimental attachment which a woman has to the country in which she was born, and the blood that runs in her veins and makes her passionately dislike to be forced to change her nationality.
  A Member with whom I discussed the Bill yesterday said, "If a woman wants to marry a German and does not like to become a German, she had better not marry" Sometimes, when I look around the House or at the world that man-made legislation has turned out, I wonder that any woman wants to marry anybody, but we all know that women make the choice under the influence of feelings which are perhaps too strong for reason. It is not going to make for the happiness of marriage that there should be this forced alienage. The last speaker, who knows the whole subject so well, said there are many cases of cruel hardship which arise under the present law, and which are not going to be cured by this Bill. I have much less to do with this subject than he, but only a week ago a case was brought to my notice of a highly educated, capable woman of British nationality who some time ago married a foreigner. They were people of substance and good blood
  390
  but, because he belongs to a nation where there are great national difficulties going on, she found it better to return and she built up a good business here. Her husband has now rejoined her. He is not likely ever to become chargeable to the State, but he does not wish to lose his nationality and, because she has taken her husband's nationality, every month she has to apply for leave to remain in the country of her birth. They are both treated as aliens and, naturally, it is impossible to sustain the good business that she has built up under those conditions. That is only one of many conditions of hardship which arise, and will continue to arise under this Bill.
  The last point I want to make is, Why not accept the thin end of the wedge? Generally speaking, I am a confirmed thin-end-of-the-wedger. I have often found myself in conflict with my fellow-women in different organisations because I am nearly always in favour of taking what you can get and using it as a lever to work for something more. If I believed that was going to be the result of passing this Bill, I should not oppose it. I will not oppose it to-day if we can get the assurance that the last speaker but one asked for, that if we pass it, the Government will within this Parliament endeavour to introduce something bigger. But I am very doubtful about getting that assurance and, without it, I know what will happen. When the Bill is placed on the Statute Book and we begin to demand something further, we shall be told, "Wait and see the effects. We cannot always be digging these matters up. The Act is only just passed. You cannot expect us to disturb it for some years" We are doing this utterly inadequate and feeble thing in the hope that the other Dominions will follow. It will be difficult to take this step now and ask the Dominions to go thus far, and then the very next year ask them to go a little further. It is because we are establishing what we hope will be a precedent for the Empire that it has to be a good precedent. No case has been made out why we should be asked to pass such an utterly inadequate Bill. The House has again and again affirmed the principle of the larger Bill that we should like to see passed, which would give very woman the choice of retaining her nationality or accepting that of her husband. We ask the Government to take the matter

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  back, or to give us an assurance that they will accept Amendments, so that we may be taking a step which with good heart and courage we can set up as an example which not only the Dominions but other countries of the world may follow.
  5.56 p.m.
  Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: The Government to-day have had a thoroughly good scolding from several people who are quite efficient in scolding a Government, though I do not know that they contribute very much else to our affairs. I most certainly am not going to join them, neither am I going to join the hon. Lady in the brilliant, obviously well-informed and highly interesting picture that she drew as to the best ways of making married life a perfect success. The Government, in bringing in this Bill, have done all that is humanly possible in present conditions to meet a very difficult position, and we are very thankful to them. But there is the point raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman below me in connection with Clause 1 (6), under which a woman is enabled to resume her British nationality in case of war. Apparently she can do it almost at once. Would it not be possible to enlarge the Sub-section so that a woman might resume her nationality on her husband's death, or on dissolution of the marriage? I think the case ought to be met, always subject to the agreement of the Home Secretary, who will naturally have to go into the case and see that it is a genuine one. Would it not be possible to insert in the Bill that it is the woman's right, where her whole means of livelihood is cut off abroad and her whole interest in becoming a French or an Italian citizen has ceased, at once to resume her nationality? I believe she can do so now after a considerable lapse of time, and I should like to be informed how long an interval must elapse. I believe that is the only point on which there has been a considerable case made out for readjustment in the later stages of the Bill, except for certain cases of hardship in connection with seamen, and I should like to ask the Government to go thoroughly into the matter with a view to Amendments which would greatly increase the value of the Bill.
  6.0 p.m.
  Mr. LOGAN: I intervene in order to clear up what, perhaps, may be a misapprehension in regard to my attitude to this Bill. I wish it to be set out clearly that I am in full support of the opinion brought forward by the various societies making a demand in this matter. My difficulty in regard to the Bill is not that it is the thin edge of the wedge. I shall go into the Lobby and vote against it, because I am fully convinced that the representations made by the various women's organisations have not been met in the Bill. I agree that, as far as the Home Secretary is concerned, it is a step in a given direction, but, if I am able to understand the expression of opinion of the various organisations in regard to the status of married women, the Bill does not meet the views of British nationals. My intervention was, perhaps, partly brought about by a remark of the noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division (Viscountess Astor) which was most indiscreet. I should resent in this House at all times any attack in regard to my nationality or my religion. It was most insulting, and I trust that it will not occur again. If it does, I shall resent it.
  Viscountess ASTOR: I do not understand what the hon. Member means by "insult."
  Mr. LOGAN: If the Noble Lady does not know what the word "insult" means, her education has been sadly neglected.
  Turning to the Bill, I observe that certain Members of this House are fully pledged in regard to this matter. It is not a question of the thin end of the wedge, but of supporting the representations made to them by women's organisations outside. I do not think that any Member of this House, having pledged himself to support any Measure, can whittle away the representations of a deputation which meets him. It may be the duty of Members of Parliament to meet deputations, but it is also the duty of Members of Parliament, when they have pledged their word, not to whittle down their pledges. I am convinced that the case enunciated by the various organisations, apart altogether from the question of religion, is not being met by this Bill. I believe that the British House of Commons can do better. This

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  is a hotch-potch kind of way of bringing forward legislation, and it is not progressive. A unanimous body of opinion believes that the Bill does not meet what has been demanded. When you give an expression of opinion to a deputation you should either be for or against a thing, and there should be no question of hole—and—corner methods, or of the thin end of the wedge. As I understand Party politics, or the life of this nation, I believe that when deputations come here representing a body of people they desire specific action to be taken. They want to know where you stand, and what you are going to do. What is the good of particular organisations coming to see hon. Members if hon. Members are not prepared to express their views by action in the House of Commons? It must be decisive either for or against. I believe in definite action.
  I am convinced that the Bill does not meet the position. I compliment the Minister upon bringing it forward, because it is a step in a given direction, but it is not a step in the direction which women's organisations outside desire. I believe that the organisation has made out a case, and their views should be heard in the House of Commons. We are only playing with the question, and a fuller Measure ought to have been brought forward. I have made my attitude clear, and I shall go into the Lobby and vote against the Bill, not because I do not think that it is a good Bill, but because I believe that it is not what is demanded by those who ask for it. [Laughter.] There is nothing illogical in stating that, from the point of view of advantage, the Government have brought in something which is only half a Measure. I want the National Government to recognise that when such a demand is made from outside, it should be met. For that reason, I intend to vote against the Bill.
  6.7 p.m.
  Sir JOHN WITHERS: Before I listened to this Debate, I most certainly thought that the Bill was the limit to which any successful legislation ought to extend. I foresaw a very considerable difficulty in practice, and I imagined the case of an English woman who retained her nationality, married, say, to a Russian and living in Russia. The children, I take it, would be Russians, and suppos-
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  ing her husband died, you would then have a British woman with Russian children; a British woman under one system of international law and the children under another. It seemed to me to be a very extraordinary position in a case of international law. But since I have listened to the Debate, I am bound to say that, to a great extent, my opinion has been modified, and it is very much that of the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) who, I think, has been persuaded to a certain extent by extremely hard cases. Take the case of wives of foreign sailors who have been mentioned here. They have come back to this country with a foreign nationality and with children, and have been deserted by their husbands in an English port, and left there. They are foreign citizens with foreign children, and their position in very desperate. I am bound to agree with the suggestion of the hon. Member for Torquay that this Bill, if possible, should be amended, and, if not, that a subsequent extension should be made, if and when opportunity offered. Of course, I am not going to be so foolish as to vote against the Bill, seeing that it goes so far, and I shall accept it with pleasure for what it is worth.
  6.9 p.m.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: The criticisms which have been levelled against this Bill by those who ask us to vote against it have all been on the grounds of not what is in the Bill but what is not in the Bill. The suggestion has been made from more than one part of the House that Amendments might he put down which would, to a great extent, deal with the peculiar difficulties which many of us are aware are at present suffered by people who were originally of British nationality. Those who tell us that they are going to oppose the Bill are, I think, taking away the chance of making a very decided step in the right direction. I may be told by many people that a step in the right direction is no use, and that a promise coming from the Government that other difficulties should be looked into is of no assistance to those who feel that this subject should be dealt with from a wider point of view. I cannot agree with those people. Above all, this subject is an international subject, and there are many here, keen supporters of the League of Nations, who,

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  I think, have not this afternoon sufficiently realised what work can still be done in facing this matter from an international point of view. In many cases we have been told that we can do no harm by pressing forward, and that the Government can do no harm by taking the lead. There are many cases in which harm might be done, and the reason why I do not want to insist that the Government should press forward now without further discussion both within the Empire and with the League of Nations, is that I believe that there are certain anomalies which we might find we were up against.
  The only reason why I do not urge at this moment a further move forward is on account of the difficulties which certain women would be up against. It is for the sake of the women and on account of their difficulties of nationality that I believe we find the very real reason for adopting the attitude which the right hon. Gentleman suggests should be adopted and for giving support to the Bill with the hope of further Amendments in difficult cases. I have listened with the greatest possible interest to each speech which has been made, and it seems to me that more and more difficulties have been pointed out. The hon. and gallant Member for Chippenham (Captain Cazalet) seemed to think that in some way there ought to be a narrower scheme about the nationality of women. He said that he did not particularly want women to keep their British nationality if they were going to live in a foreign country. If they were going to marry a German, Italian or any other foreigner and live in the particular country, he thought that in many cases it would be better that they should adopt the nationality of that land.
  Viscountess ASTOR: The hon. and gallant Member said that they should have the right to choose.
  Miss HO RSBRUGH: As far as I heard the hon. and gallant Member, he said that he thought that in those cases it was better that they should have the nationality of the country in which they were living with their husbands, but that he did consider that there were the great difficulties—he seemed rather to narrow the issue on this point—of the women
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  who might want to live in this country or return to this country, and he thought that their case had not been sufficiently considered. I asked him at that point what he would do on the subject of women wanting to come back to this country and resume nationality if they were not able to support themselves. I think I am right in saying that the hon. and gallant Member for Chippenham thought those women ought to be able to get back their British nationality without due delay, but, if we have been basing our debate on equality, are we, therefore, going to allow men who have been naturalized as nationals of other countries also to come back and resume their nationality? We must realise at present the enormous number of people who have become nationals of other countries, many of whom have become citizens of the United States. Every Member of this House must have had letters from such people wanting to come back to this country. They have no work out there, and want to return to their own country to try to find work. If we relax it for women, must we not relax it for men?
  Viscountess ASTOR: After all, men do that sort of thing of their own free will, but a woman has automatically to become a citizen whether she likes it or not.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: You cannot remedy one equality by creating another. Are we going to say that simply because a woman chooses to marry a citizen of the United States and goes to live in the United States, if she wants to come back and earn her living here, she is to have a shorter period and that the man should have a different period?
  Captain CAZALET: I was referring to the case of married seamen. The seamen have disappeared and they cannot trace them, and my remarks applied particularly to them. I have no desire to give women privileges which men have not got to-day.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: Before the hon. and gallant Member for Chippenham came back into the House we had already dealt with the subject of seamen and desertion and had asked that amendments should be made in those cases. I would point out that as soon as we discuss this subject we are

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  getting up against difficulties. If we are to have equality, it must be the same measure of equality all round. It is not an easy subject. Many hon. Members to-day would give the impression that a Bill on the lines they desire could have been brought in without difficulty. It might have been brought in but it would not have been passed without difficulty. I do not believe that the majority of people in this country are as yet in favour of it. I do not believe, in spite of the enormous women's organisations of which we have heard, that the majority of the women of this country are definitely in favour of it. The majority of the women here have not given it much consideration. The majority of the women of this country have not been awakened to the difficulties, and I believe that if the larger Measure was pressed forward at this time we should have in this House and in the country a great deal of opposition to it. I look forward to a greater measure of relief on this subject than we find in the present Bill.
  The hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan) talked about what seemed to me almost a dictatorship by organisations outside this House. I do not want to see any dictator either inside or outside. I believe that every Member of this House has the right to vote and support what he or she feels is best. I have never pledged myself to any society on this subject. I have said both here and at Geneva that I am not fully satisfied with the Bill now before the House nor with the other Bill introduced.
  Mr. L0GAN: The hon. Lady has become a very able politician.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: I thank the hon. Member for his very flattering remarks. I have spoken to the deputations and given them my reasons for not considering the present Bill absolutely the Bill that I should have liked to have seen, and I have told them that I am not altogether pleased with the Bill presented on another occasion. This subject requires further consideration. We must ask for international discussion on it. Those people who have been watching the work of the League of Nations and supporting it are the people who, perhaps more than others, should press for-
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  ward for more work at Geneva, at the Assembly, in regard to the matter. I shall be told what. was said in the Assembly in 1931. I have seen the resolutions in the Assembly of this year. There are resolutions which have been put down and passed at Geneva which show the ideals which the different nations are striving for, but cannot at present be widely supported. I say that if we were to press at once for the greater change which is suggested we should not get the co—operation of the different Governments.
  Viscountess ASTOR: Does the hon. Lady expect for one moment that we shall get the co—operation of countries that have refused to give votes to women? Does she really think that we ought to wait for those countries?
  Miss HORSBRUGH: I would remind the Noble Lady that to-day the hon. and gallant Member for Chippenham quoted from the French law and told us that on many points he would like to see the same law here from the point of view of nationality. In France, as yet, there are not votes for women.
  Viscountess ASTOR: Nor in Germany, nor in Spain.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: It ought to be from the international point of view that our work should go on. I think the present Bill will get support and be amended to deal if possible with the hard cases which we know exist, but if we press forward as some hon. Members have asked us to do, there will arise many anomalies which they have not altogether for seen. The idea that the woman who marries a foreigner must be allowed if she desires to choose her nationality is not the ideal of all people in this country. If you make it out as an insult for a woman to be forced to take the nationality of the man she has married, why should it not be an insult for the woman who marries to be forced to take the name of the man? If we wish to get real equality we must make a great many changes. The idea that these things are an insult to women is net entertained by the majority of women in this country. I have been told that what we want is complete liberty on the part of the woman to choose the nationality she desires. At the present time women, when

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  they get the chance, have complete liberty to accept which husband they want.
  Viscountess ASTOR: Not always.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: We have been told this afternoon that in many cases the woman does not like the nationality which she is forced to take. The woman may be British, and German nationality, French nationality or Italian nationality does not appeal to her. If the nationality is so abhorrent to her, why is not the man of that nationality also abhorrent to her? I have pointed out some of the difficulties which we should have to face if all the suggestions made by those who are opposing the present Bill were entertained. This Bill definitely makes a step in the direction which I think we all want to go. No speaker has said that it is useless, but each speaker has pointed out that there are good points in the Bill, although they are small. We are hoping to make amendments in order to make the Bill more useful, and I think that we should be helping the cause of the unfortunate people and, above all, that small number who are really suffering, by not voting against the Bill. If we do not pass the Bill those people will continue in real suffering and disability. For that reason, I would appeal to those who do not believe that we are going far enough. I agree with those who do not believe that this Bill has met the request of the organisations—it has not—but it is doing certain definite things, and if they are worth doing I think we should do them.
  6.24 p.m.
  Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: The Minister in charge of the Bill has not received very enthusiastic support. Even the hon. Lady who has just spoken surprised me by the timidity she displayed on this occasion, a timidity which is not usually associated with her. She is very bold in expressing her opinions, and she surprised me because she was content for the present to move just one tiny step in a direction which I am sure is not quite clear. I wonder whether she is quite sure that this Bill is a step in the right direction. We can only decide that, if we are satisfied that she has in view the same goal that we have in view, and after hearing her I am not sure that she has the same goal in view as the other
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  hon. Ladies who have spoken to-day and the ladies who form associations outside, for which, apparently, she has so much contempt.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: I must ask the hon. Member not to say that I have any contempt for the organisations outside this House, because I have not. I have the greatest admiration for their work. I told them that I did not consider that this Bill was all that I wanted and that I did not think either that the fuller Measure introduced was satisfactory, but that did not mean that I have contempt for them. I have the greatest admiration for them.
  Mr. GRENFELL: I withdraw the statement at once, but I would say that they are associations of which she is independent, and with which she does not want to be associated.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: No.
  Mr. GRENFELL: The hon. Lady dissented very strongly from the proposals of those associations and showed that she does not want to be associated in ideas with them. Therefore, I am not unfair to the hon. Member, and I am sure that she will recognise, after seeing her own words, the truth of what I am saying. She appears to think that this Bill is a step in the right direction and that when we have taken that step she will join with other people in consultation, which will take considerable time, before any further step is taken. She takes the view that when this step has been taken then, on a suitable occasion, she along with others will take the next step, and step by step she will come to the point to which she is prepared to go; but she showed very grave doubt whether a woman on marriage is entitled to retain independence of opinion.
  Miss HORSBRUGH: I am quite sure that I never said that a woman on marriage should not retain independence of opinion.
  Mr. GRENFELL: Well, independence of choice in regard to nationality. The hon. Lady appeared to think that a woman on marriage should surrender everything. If she did not mean that I do not know what she did mean. If she means that marriage is an institution in which the wife consents to be bound in

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  everything with her husband and that marriage is an institution in which then husband retains his freedom of opinion and his freedom of nationality, while the woman surrenders everything, and she agrees with the hon. and learned Member for Moss side (Sir G Hurst), then I do not know where she stands. Perhaps she will speak in Committee and make the point clear.
  The hon. and learned Member for Moss Side raised the point of principle and appealed to the House to be realists in this matter and not to rely upon sentiment and emotion. He said that he was a realist in the matter and was prepared to examine it on the basis of first principles. He submitted a number of tests of what he termed the principles underlying the Bill. I would ask why should the nationality of the woman be changed on marriage and not that of the man. Why should the woman surrender her nationality and the man retain his'? It is said that the woman has ample choice and need not to marry a. man whose nationality she does not like. When a woman marries a man she does not marry his nation. She swears to love, cherish and obey the man but not the Government of the man's country. If a woman falls in love with a German and marries him she does not thereby swear fealty to Hitler and his associates for all time sand to accept the form of Government and constitution of the country in which the man lives.
  The vital principle in this question is equality between man and woman, and we have had no reply to that this afternoon. The hon. and learned Member for Moss Side may be a family man—I take the Noble Lady's word for it—a fully domesticated family man. He is not like the hon. Member below the Gangway who knows nothing about the problems of marriage and yet is a consistent champion of the cause of woman. His advocacy is based on an acknowledgment of the principle of equality between woman and man. He is so chivalrous that he has become the champion of all women and of their proper demands. If hon. Members of this House depart from that principle they, may well have doubts on this matter. If they believe woman to be the inferior in the institution of marriage and man to be the superior, then I understand them, but I must point
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  out that there is no room for a superior Position if they believe in equality.
  Miss H 0 RSB RUGH: May I remind the hon. Member that several times I said that I believed in equality, and although I pointed out that there may be certain difficulties which would appear, and certain inequalities, yet I never gave the House the impression that I did not believe in equality
  Mr. GRENFELL: The hon. Lady has been exceptionally unfortunate this afternoon because she always expresses her self so clearly.
  Sir G. HURST: May I also tell the hon. Member that I never suggested, or dared to suggest, that woman is inferior to man; never.
  Mr. GRENFELL: The hon. and learned Member has been too well trained to say such a thing. Listening to all the speeches which have been made by hon. Members in all quarters of the House, they appeared to find no satisfaction in this Bill. I have found nothing in the Bill to praise. The hon. Lady has said that we have had to go outside the Bill to find any grounds for condemnation; she has spent most of her time this afternoon outside the Bill in order to find arguments to support it. The Bill does not give equality between women and men, and I must emphasise that the principle of equality is the vital consideration. Worse than that, it does not give equality as between one woman and another; it does not put all women on the same basis. One woman to-day might marry a man of one nationality and another woman a man of another nationality: in one case she is able to retain her British citizenship while the other woman would lose it.
  This Bill does not give to these two women the same right to retain their British citizenship because of the difference in the laws of the country in which the husband resides. The Bill does not give equality between man and woman. A great work in the service of women has been done by women's associations up and down the country, and we should be proud of those women, whose names we could mention, who belong to these associations and who have carried on the propaganda work which has enabled the hon. Lady to come to this House, to our

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  pleasure and satisfaction. This House has been enriched by the presence of women. But this Bill and some of the speeches that we have heard to-day are not complimentary to those who have fought for equal freedom for women under the franchise laws of this country. It leaves the main inequality untouched, and to my mind it is not complimentary to the women Members of this House to find a Minister of the Crown raising distinctions and trying to confine the freedom of women to standards which might be good enough for reactionary people 70 years ago, but which are utterly out of sympathy with the progressive women's movement of to-day.
  The Bill, instead of being a small step forward, might be a step backward in the fight for equality for women. It is often said by those who are opposed to progress that half—a—loaf is better than no bread, but half a Bill may be worse than no Bill at all. If women want equality, economic, social, and industrial equality, and they are entitled to it, they must not take one little timid step forward and then stop to have committees and consultations to see whether they must go on. They must make bold demands, and I would suggest that we should reject this Bill because it is not bold enough and might be taken afterwards as an excuse for not doing anything more for the next 20 years. The problems connected with this question are familiar to everyone. I met a most remarkable case the other day of an English woman married to a German, long before the War, a fine type of English woman, now a mother and grandmother. She was going back to Germany to join her family. She was proud of her nationality.
  Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS: What was her nationality?
  Mr. GRENFELL: British.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: She is a German.
  Mr. GRENFELL: She is a British woman. She had four boys now all grown up, two desired to be known as Germans and two as Englishmen. All these boys are Germans. Their mother was legally a German, although she wished to retain her British citizenship and wanted to bring the two English boys back to this country. That woman was British and remained British, but by the
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  laws of nationality she had been compelled to adopt German nationality. Her husband was dead and she was not able to resume her British citizenship, nor could she make her boys British. The problems connected with this problem are very intricate and involved, and if we decide to do nothing until they are solved we shall never do anything. If we base ourselves on the simple principle of equality as between man and woman, and give a woman on marriage and after marriage——
  Miss HORSBRUGH: Is it equality to allow a woman to come back to her British nationality and not allow her sons to become British? You have not got equality there.
  Mr. GRENFELL: A woman might marry an Englishman and he might find it convenient to change his nationality, and very often he does. He may become a German, or a Russian, by choice, and by the exercise of that choice he takes his wife with him.
  Miss HO RSBRUGH: Not in this case.
  Mr. GRENFELL: No, I know, but if that Englishman becomes a German or an American and wants to come back to his British nationality he can, and he brings his wife back again with him. The wife may be drawn backwards and forwards at the option of the husband. Why should not the wife have the option of remaining British? Why not confer that freedom of choice upon the woman?
  Sir J. WITHERS: She has that option under the Bill.
  Mr. H. WILLIAMS: The hon. Member should look at Sub-section (4) of Clause 1.
  Mr. GRENFELL: The point has been explained to the House this afternoon. The husband can change his nationality as often as he likes, and he takes his wife with him. We say that this is an abuse of the wife's freedom of choice and that she must have at least some measure of freedom, some choice in the matter. We want an English woman to remain English if she desires to do so. We think that the small step that is made by this Bill may be regarded as the only possible step to be made in the years to come, and we shall therefore vote against it. We believe that the fairness of this

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  claim to equality will be borne in on the people of this country, and if the Bill is withdrawn a full measure of freedom and equality for the wife will eventually come before the British House of Commons.
  6.42 p.m.
  Mr. H. WILLIAMS: The hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell) does not seem to have prepared his brief very carefully. He completely misunderstood what the hon. Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh) said and also what the hon. and learned Member for Moss Side (Sir G. Hurst) said, and in his peroration he demonstrated completely that he had not even read Sub-section (4) of Clause 1. The whole of his peroration was based on the assumption that that Sub-section dial not exist; and on those grounds he asks the House to reject the Bill. The hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) and the hon. and gallant Member for Chippenham (Captain Cazalet) have expressed a hope that the Bill will be amended in Committee. It is not my business to interpret this point, but if hon. Members will read the long Title of the Bill they will find that it is
  "An Act to amend the law relating to the national status of married women so far as is necessary for giving effect to a Convention."
  In those circumstances you cannot introduce anything which is not in the Convention and, therefore, in my opinion all the talk to-day about amendments is beside the mark.
  Mr. C. WILLIAMS:When the husband is dead the woman is no longer married, and two out of the three Amendments which I suggested dealt with the case of women no longer married and I suggested that in Sub—section (6) which deals with the resumption of nationality when she is no longer married, they might come under the Bill.
  Mr. H. WILLIAMS: With all great respect, the Title of the Bill, which defines the scope of the Bill, is to give effect to certain articles in The Hague Convention. The articles are set forth on the front of the document and anything which goes outside these articles will, I think, be ruled out of order. I regret very much the eloquence spent on the possibility and desirability of Amendments which the Chairman of Committees will have no option but to Rule out of order. I am
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  not an authority in the matter; I can only express an opinion, but I think my opinion will be found to be the right one.
  Viscountess ASTOR: The hon. Member is now giving an additional reason for voting against the Bill. If we reject this Bill we may get a Bill that will give equality.
  Mr. H. WILLIAMS: For the moment I am not dealing with the merits of the Bill. If the Noble Lady would remember that she has the right and privilege of all of us, that is to be able to speak and to listen, and if she would listen with greater care——
  Viscountess ASTOR: To you?
  Mr. WILLIAMS: Precisely. It would be to the Noble Lady's advantage if she did so. She would find that I was dealing with the question whether it was possible or not to amend the Bill, and that for the moment I was not discussing the merits of the Bill. My own view with regard to the Bill is that whatever is done in this matter there is bound to be a certain amount of injustice. It is like the Polish Corridor; there is no satisfactory solution. It is not true that there is any great mass of enthusiasm amongst the rank and file of the women of this country. They are not particularly interested in the Measure one way or the other. The bulk of the women's societies do not represent the mass of the women in this matter. They represent a few enthusiasts.
  Viscountess ASTOR: The thinkers.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: Not necessarily the thinkers, but those who make the most noise at certain times.
  Viscountess ASTOR: Would the right hon. Gentleman tell me——
  Mr. WILLIAMS: I am not right hon.
  Viscountess ASTOR: You will be if you go on as you are going now. You are doing your bit all right.
  Mr. SPEAKER: This is the House of Commons.
  Viscountess ASTOR: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. Does the hon. Member think that it is the thinking people who carry the country with them? The great mass of people do not think about anything.

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  It is the thinking people who make the programmes of the country. It is no good the hon. Member telling us that the great mass of people are not thinking about this. The thinking women who influence the women of the country are against the Bill and for absolute equality.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: I do not know whether the Noble Lady assumes that her acquaintances are alone to be counted among thinking women. I have a great many acquaintances among women who think, and my observations lead me to the belief that during the process of thinking as a rule they are silent. There is a very large body of opinion that quite frankly thinks there is a, great deal to be said for the present law, on the ground that in actual practice 99 women out of 100 do in fact on marriage adopt the nationality of their husbands. That is true of the bulk of them on marriage, and the grievances which we have had pointed out to us are grievances which develop many years later, when they want to change the nationality that they adopted and cherished previously, and want to do it on terms much easier than those that are accorded to a man who has changed his nationality. That is the plain truth of the matter.
  The great mass of people in this country do not sympathise with this agitation, though they have a great deal of sympathy with some of the women who are suffering under the existing law. But a, large proportion of these women are suffering because other countries have changed their laws—the United States for example. The United States does not extend to the wives of Americans the privileges that we accord. A great many of the cases with which I am familiar are cases which have been inflicted upon us by the great Republic. A good many have been inflicted on us by another Republic, Soviet Russia. There is not in this matter anything like the burning enthusiasm amongst ordinary persons that most of the speakers in this Debate imagine. I have no hesitation in saying what I think whether it is popular or unpopular. In this matter I believe I represent far more people than do most of those who have spoken with so much enthusiasm this afternoon. The Bill will create a certain number of new injustices while it will also cure a certain number of existing injustices. Whether on
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  balance it will be good or bad I do not know. I think it is worth while experimenting. I am prepared to vote for the Bill, and still more because of the very poor and indifferent reasons which have been given for opposing it.
  6.52 p.m.
  The UNDER—SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Douglas Hacking): I have very little to add to the explanation which the Home Secretary gave of the objects of the Bill and the reasons why it should be passed as soon as possible. Several points of detail have been raised in the Debate, and to these I had better reply first. With regard to remarks of the hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams), it is not for me, as it was not for him, to anticipate the Chairman's Rulings, but one cannot help pointing out that the title of this Bill is—
  "An Act to amend the law relating to the national status of married women so far as is necessary for giving effect to a Convention."
  It would appear that we cannot amend the law to bring in certain other questions of nationality which have been mentioned here to-day. What we have done in the Bill is to restate the existing law, and to amend it only so far as is necessary to give effect to the Hague Convention. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee (Miss Horsbrugh) in an excellent speech answered many of the criticisms which have been made against the Bill. There are a few points left over to which she did not reply. The hon. Member for the Gower Division (Mr. D. Grenfell) referred at the end of his speech to a case which he described as pathetic, the very sad case indeed of a woman of British origin who married a German. The man died and the widow could not regain British nationality. The hon. Member said there were four children, and he described the case as pathetic because the woman could not regain British nationality.
  Mr. D. GRENFELL: She lived in Germany.
  Mr. HACKING: There is no reason why she should not have regained British nationality. A certificate of naturalisation could be granted in such a case provided she was here without any conditions as to residence, for a fee of 5s. only, and if the children of that woman were under

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  21 they would be included in the certificate of naturalisation without any extra charge.
  Mr. GRENFELL: They were over 21.
  Mr. HACKING: Then, of course, they would have to be dealt with in the ordinary way. Another point mentioned by the hon. Member was this: He asked, when a husband changes nationality what happens to the wife? The answer is that every time a husband changes his nationality the wife, if of British origin, can regain her British nationalty. The hon. Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee) asked why the Government were not prepared to accept the whole principle of equality. He answered that question himself by asking another. He said: Are we always to have to wait for the most backward nations? He asked: Are we never to take the initiative? The answer is that we have taken the initiative on more than one occasion. We took the initiative as recently as July, 1931, when we sent out to all the Dominions a memorandum recommending equality. We have had consultations as recently as last year, but up to now we have not succeeded in getting general agreement within the Empire.
  Viscountess ASTOR: Could the House know which part of the Empire has been holding things up?
  Mr. HACKING: No, the House cannot have that information. It would not be fair to those Dominions that have either accepted it or refused it. I cannot give that information. Another point made by the hon. Member for Limehouse was that the Bill abolished only very small disabilities; and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chippenham (Captain Cazalet) said that this was only a trivial Measure. Other speakers said the same thing in different words. Really, is this a trivial Measure; is it really the wiping away of only small disabilities? Thousands of women will regain British nationality under the Bill. That is a very great deal. I prefer to agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Moss Side (Sir G. Hurst), who referred to the very great disadvantages of the present position. The Bill is opposed by women's organisations, we are told. Quite
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  frankly I doubt that. It is true that they desire more and they expected more than is given in the Bill, but surely they would rather have this Bill than nothing at all. That appeared to be the view of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chippenham also. He asked whether the Bill would apply to those stateless women whose husbands possess Nansen passports. They will clearly remain British subjects. I was glad to hear my hon. and gallant Friend say that we should be grateful for small mercies.
  Captain CAZALET: Will the Bill affect women who have already married husbands with Nansen passports, and not apply merely to the future?
  Mr. HACKING: Oh, yes, certainly. The hon. Member for the English Universities (Miss Rathbone) said that this was a wholly inadequate and feeble little thing. My reply is to repeat what I have said about the many stateless people who will get advantage from the passing of the Bill into law. Surely they would rather have this Bill than nothing at all.
  I was also asked: If a British subject goes to the United States of America taking his wife with him and becomes a naturalised citizen, will his wife be British? The answer is "Yes." It is said that there is no urgency in connection with this Bill and that there is no guarantee that other countries will ratify this Convention. It does not matter in the slightest whether they ratify this Convention or not; we intend to pass the Bill and abolish this hardship without any further delay, irrespective of what other countries may do. The hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) asked how long a woman would have to wait before re-acquisition of British nationality after her husband was dead or if the marriage has been dissolved. I have already answered that question, because a question of the same kind was put by the hon. Member who sits opposite me. The certificate of naturalisation can be granted without any conditions as to residence here for the fee of 5s. That is the existing law, contained in Section 2 (5) of the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, 1914.
  Mr. C. WILLIAMS: And is generally granted?
  Mr. HACKING: Yes. Then my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge University (Sir J. Withers) asked me about the children. If the children are under 21, they will be in the same certificate without any extra cost. I should like for a few moments to turn to the actual Amendment which is on the Order Paper. The declaration of policy to which the hon. and gallant Member referred was made by Dame Edith Lyttelton at the first Committee of the Assembly of the League of Nations in September, 1931. He did not quote the statement which she made, and perhaps it would be just as well if the House heard the actual statement, because it is not one of which anybody need be ashamed:
  "The United Kingdom Government considered it right that all the disabilities of married women in matters of nationality should he removed and that, as far as her nationality is concerned, the married woman should be in the same position as any man, married or unmarried, or any single woman."
  I am not considering at this moment the principle contained in that statement—not at all. I am not concerned now with the question whether the principle is right or whether it is wrong. I am not concerned with whether it is desirable or whether it is undesirable. What I am concerned with now is whether it is possible to give practical application, either international or Imperial, to such a principle of equality of treatment at the present time. What is the history of this matter?
  Mr. D. GRENFELL: Does this Government repudiate the pledge given by the Labour Government in 1931?
  Mr. HACKING: If this pledge had been given by the Labour Government in 1931 I might have been more likely to have disagreed, but it was not; it was given by the first National Government. I think it was made at the time the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) was Home Secretary.
  Viscountess ASTOR: The National Government?
  Mr. HACKING: The first National Government. I repeat: What is the history of this question? The Hague Convention had been concluded in 1930, but as it fell far short of the demands of the women's organisations these organisations had the whole question brought up before
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  the League in September, 1931. It was on that occasion that the statement I have quoted was made, on the instructions of the then Government. It was hoped that a statement of that nature would encourage other countries, and particularly the Dominions, to adopt a similar policy. It was never contemplated that His Majesty's Government would introduce legislation of this kind unless agreement had previously been reached with the other Governments of the Empire. It is interesting to note the attitude of the Labour Government as explained by Mr. Clynes when he was Home Secretary in the House of Commons in 1930, when Dr. Bentham introduced a Private Members Bill to give this equality of treatment which is demanded by certain hon. Members in the House to-day. Mr. Clynes said:
  "It is not unnatural that the advocates of the reform proposed in this Bill should feel considerable disappointment at the result of the Imperial Conference, and should urge His Majesty's Government to take independent action. I do not think that those who urge this course on the Government fully realise the grave consequences that would follow."
  That is a statement made by one of the leaders of the party who are now criticising us for taking exactly the same action.
  Viscountess ASTOR: We are ashamed of that statement.
  Mr. HACKING: Mr. Clynes said later in his speech:
  "What happened at the Hague Conference and the recent Imperial Conference showed that it has not so far been found possible to reach agreement on the proposals embodied in this Bill."
  That was the Bill to which he was referring at the time, to give equality of treatment.
  "It follows that for the Parliament of this country to pass this Bill into law in its present form, would he in effect to take independent action, causing a breach in the common status, a breach which, as has been repeatedly declared is not to he contemplated."[OFFICIAL REPORT. 1st. December, 1930; cols. 1734–5, Vol. 295.]
  Those words are true to-day. There has been no agreement. Independent action would cause a breach, as was stated by Mr. Clynes, which is not to be contemplated. That is the answer to the question that was asked. me by the hon. Member who moved the Amendment. In 1932 we informed the League that His

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  Majesty's Government were prepared to ratify the Hague Convention but that, whether they could go further—these were the exact words that were used—
  "in the direction of giving effect to the principle of equality between men and women must depend upon the extent to which that principle receives the support of the Governments of other countries, and especially those of the other members of the British Commonwealth of Nations."
  Our intention was nude perfectly clear as recently as 1932. At the League Assembly in that year, as a result of prolonged discussion, the Government were advised to ratify the Hague Convention as being the utmost upon which international agreement could then be obtained and as not preventing full acceptance of the women's demands if at any later time agreement could be reached on them. It is perhaps worth while to quote the wording of the Draft Resolution which was afterwards adopted by the Assembly of the League of Nations in 1932. It first considered certain matters: it notes certain opinions, it recognises certain facts, and then it expresses satisfaction that the coming into force of Articles 8 to 11, the Articles with which we are now dealing, would in no way prejudice further concerted international action when such action became practicable. Then, finally, this Resolution expresses the hope
  "that the States which have already signed the Hague Nationality Convention will introduce such legislation as may be necessary to give effect thereto and will deposit their ratification at an early date.
  We are giving a practical application to that expression of hope by introducing this Bill. The whole crux of this matter is that we are not prepared to do anything which will make a breach in the unity of nationality law throughout the Empire and, at present, agreement to give effect to the women's demands cannot be obtained within the Empire. As I have said, we on this side of the House have riot come to that conclusion alone; that conclusion was shared by the Labour Government when it was in office on the last occasion.
  Mr. KNIGHT: The right hon. Gentleman may not have been present, but when I made some observations I asked him to give us some of the grounds of opposition. With great respect to him and the Government, I suggest that
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  when the Government ask us to pass legislation and inform us that certain other legislation cannot be passed because certain Dominion Governments do not agree, that may be good grounds, but we are entitled to be told what are the grounds of disagreement.
  Mr. HACKING: Our grounds for not conceding anything further in this particular Bill before the House of Commons are, as I have already told the hon. and learned Member, that we are not prepared to do anything which would make a breach in the unity of nationality law throughout the Empire, and that opinion of ours has been shared by Governments in the past. A general answer to the Amendment which has been moved is that in my opinion it confuses two things. The present Bill is in no sense an alternative to the demands of the women's organisations, but the fact that the Government for inter—Imperial reasons is unable at present to give effect to the demands which are made by those organisations is surely no reason why it should refrain from doing something else which will admittedly remedy a hardship, which it is pledged internationally to do, and which the Dominions and ourselves have agreed at an Imperial Conference should be done—moreover, something which Canada has already done.
  I am conscious that it must be a great disappointment to many that the Government, are not in a position to deal with the major question of equality between the sexes in the matter of nationality, but I would ask those who urge the claims of women to he treated in the same manner as men to be content for the moment with the very good opportunity that they have had of stating their views not only here but also in places outside this House. They obviously feel a keen regret, which has been expressed to-day in the House of Commons, that the issue which they have so much at heart cannot be brought before the House for decision to-day. They must, however, rest assured that the issue is being in no way prejudiced by this Bill, and I hope that they will accept from me the repeated assurance that the whole issue has received the fullest consideration not only by the League of Nations but also by the Governments of the British Commonwealth in consultation.

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  There are occasions on which it is right to postpone the achievement of some minor object until a greater object can be secured, but I am satisfied that it would not be right to treat the present Bill in this manner.
  The grievance of those who have become stateless by reason of their marriage is no light one. It is a grievance which is widespread; it affects women of very many nations. Now that agreement has been obtained internationally to remove this grievance by a method which can be adopted without difficulty by all the countries concerned, I cannot see how we would be justified in withholding a remedy from those state. less persons who have been anxiously awaiting it. The House would, in my opinion, incur a serious responsibility if it denied this remedy any longer. A delay of three years has already occurred since the Hague Convention was signed. That delay was interposed solely for the purpose of enabling further consideration to be given to the views of the advocates of the principle of equality. Now that it has become clear beyond all question that the Hague Convention represents the maximum of possible agreement at the present time, both in the Empire and throughout the world, further delay would be obviously unjustifiable.
  I would like the House to consider for a moment the difficulties to which persons are exposed who are in the unfortunate position of possessing no nationality. For a woman to have no national status, either in her country of origin or in her husband's country, is surely a serious disability. Passports cannot be obtained; travelling presents difficulties, uncertainties and embarrassments. Even residence, either in her husband's country or her own, is not a matter of right but only a matter of grace. I also stress the fact that the Dominion which has the greatest number of women who have been rendered stateless by marrying aliens
  found the problem so pressing that they were constrained to legislation in advance of the other members of the Commonwealth to deal with it. They took that action in the full expectation that their example would be followed throughout the Commonwealth. Their example is being followed here.
  Uniformity of British nationality law ought to be speedily restored. If the House were to reject the Bill it is obvious that serious difficulties would soon arise, if only from the fact that the same person could be a British subject in one part of the Commonwealth and not in another part of the Empire. The removal of the hardship dealt with in this Bill can be effected without requiring any country to commit itself either to the principle of equality or to principle whereby the nationality of the wife must always follow that of the husband. Whichever view we may hold, we are in no way committed by accepting the provisions of the Bill.
  While I fully understand and sympathise with the view of those who regret that it has not been possible to fight out the major issue here and now, I hope that it will be realised in the House and outside that the reform to which the House is now asked to give its assent is one which ought to be brought into operation at once. I repeat that it does not stand in the way of the object which the women's organisations have so enthusiastically championed at Geneva and elsewhere. They will, no doubt, possibly under the leadership of the Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor), continue their efforts, but I ask them not to think that they are being discouraged by the passage of this Bill.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 179; Noes, 43.

  Division No. 299.]

  AYES.

  [7.20 p.m.

  Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel

  Baillie, Sir Adrian W. M.

  Braithwaite, MaJ. A. N. (Yorks, E. R.)

  Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)

  Barclay-Harvey, C. M.

  Brocklebank, C. E. R.

  Agnew, Lieut. Com. P. G.

  Beit, Sir Alfred L.

  Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'I'd., Hexham)

  Albery, Irving James

  Blaker, Sir Reginald

  Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.

  Allen, Lt. Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd.)

  Bllndell, James

  Burnett, John George

  Anstruther Gray, W. J.

  Borodale, Viscount

  Caporn, Arthur Cecil

  Aske, Sir Robert William

  Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Boyd Carpenter, Sir Archibald

  Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (ChTppenham)

  Bailey, Erie Alfred George

  Bracken, Brendan

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N.(Edgbaston)

  Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)

  Hurst, Sir Gerald B.

  Rankin, Robert

  Clarry, Reginald George

  Johnston, J. W. (Clackmannan)

  Ray, Sir William

  Clayton, Sir Christopher

  Ker, J. Campbell

  Ross, Ronald D.

  Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.

  Kerr, Hamilton W.

  Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)

  Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.

  Lambert, Rt. Hon. George

  Runge, Norah Cecil

  Cook, Thomas A.

  Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)

  Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)

  Cooke, Douglas

  Lees-Jones, John

  Russell,Hamer Field (Sheffield.B'tside)

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Lennox-Boyd, A. T.

  Russell, R. J. (Eddlsbury)

  Crooke, J. Smedley

  Lewis, Oswald

  Rutherford, Sir John Hugo (Liverp'l)

  Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)

  Lindsay, Kenneth Martin (Kilm'rnock)

  Salt, Edward W.

  Croom-Johnson, H. P.

  Lindsay, Noel Ker

  Samuel, Sir Arthur Michael (F'nham)

  Crossley, A. C.

  Little, Graham-, Sir Ernest

  Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart

  Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard

  Llewellin, Major John J.

  Savery, Samuel Servington

  Culverwell, Cyril Tom

  Lloyd, Geoffrey

  Shakespeare. Geoffrey H.

  Curry, A. C.

  Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'ndsw'th)

  Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwcil)

  Davies, MaJ. Geo. F.(Somerset, Yeovil)

  Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.

  Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  Lyons, Abraham Montagu

  Skelton, Archibald Noel

  Dickie, John P.

  Mabane, William

  Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)

  Doran, Edward

  MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C.G.(Partick)

  Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)

  Edmondson, Major A. J.

  MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)

  Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.

  Elmley, Viscount

  MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)

  Spears, Brigadier-General Edward L.

  Emmott, Charles E. G. C.

  Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)

  Spencer, Captain Richard A.

  Emrys-Evans, P. V.

  McKie, John Hamilton

  Spens, William Patrick

  Entwistle, Cyril Fullard

  McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)

  Stevenson, James

  Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)

  Makins, Brigadier-General Ernest

  Stewart, J. H. (Fife. E.)

  Falle, Sir Bertram G.

  Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot

  Stourton, Hon. John J.

  Fermoy, Lord

  Margesson. Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.

  Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Martin, Thomas B.

  Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart

  Fox, Sir Gifford

  Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)

  Sutcliffe, Harold

  Ganzoni, Sir John

  Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John

  Templeton, William P.

  Glossop, C. W. H.

  Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)

  Thompson, Luke

  Goodman. Colonel Albert W.

  Morrison, William Shepherd

  Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles

  Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas

  Moss, Captain H. J.

  Thorp, Linton Theodore

  Grimston, R. V.

  Munro, Patrick

  Titchfleld. Major the Marquess of

  Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.

  Nail, Sir Joseph

  Todd, Capt. A. J. K. (B'wick-on-T.)

  Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.

  Nail-Cain, Hon. Ronald

  Train. John

  Guy, J. C. Morrison

  Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.

  Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)

  Hacking. Rt. Hon. Douglas H.

  Nicholson, Godfrey (Morpeth)

  Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)

  Hamilton, Sir George (lltord)

  Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid

  Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)

  Hamilton, Sir R. W.(Orkney & Zetl'nd)

  Nunn, William

  Warranter, Sir Victor A. G.

  Hartland, George A.

  O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh

  Whiteside, Borras Noel H.

  Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.

  Palmer, Francis Noel

  Whyte, Jardine Bell

  Herbert, Capt. S. (Abbey Division)

  Pearson, William G.

  Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)

  Hills. Major Rt. Hon. John Waller

  Peat, Charles U.

  Williams. Herbert G. (Croydon. S.)

  Holdsworth, Herbert

  Petherick, M.

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George

  Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)

  Peto, Geoffrey K (W'verh'pt'n, Bllston)

  Withers, Sir John James

  Hore-Belisha, Leslie

  Pike, Cecil F.

  Womersley, Walter James

  Hornby, Frank

  Powell, Lleut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.

  Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)

  Horsbrugh, Florence

  Procter, Major Henry Adam

  Hudson, Capt. A. U. M.(Hackney, N.)

  Pybus, Percy John

  TELLER FOR THE AYES.—

  Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)

  Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)

  Sir George Penny and Dr.

  Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)

  Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)

  Morris-Jones.

  NOES.

  Attlee, Clement Richard

  Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)

  McGovern, John

  Banfield, John William

  Grentell, David Rees (Glamorgan)

  Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)

  Bevan. Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)

  Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)

  Maxton, James

  Briant, Frank

  Grundy, Thomas W.

  Parkinson, John Allen

  Buchanan. George

  Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvll)

  Price, Gabriel

  Cape, Thomas

  Harris, Sir Percy

  Rathbone, Eleanor

  Cove, William G.

  HIcks, Ernest George

  Salter, Dr. Alfred

  Cripps, Sir Stafford

  Hirst, George Henry

  Smith, Tom (Normanton)

  Daggar, George

  Jenkins, Sir William

  Tinker, John Joseph

  Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Joslah

  Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)

  Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George

  Williams, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)

  Dobbie, William

  Leonard, William

  Williams, Thomas (York, Don Valley)

  Edwards. Charles

  Llewellyn-Jones, Frederick

  Wllmot, John Charles

  Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)

  Logan, David Gilbert

  George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)

  McEntee, Valentine L.

  TELLER FOR THE NOES.—

  Mr. Groves and Mr. G Macdonald.

  Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, land agreed to.

  Bill read a Second time.

  Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next.—[Mr. Hacking.]

  FIREARMS AND IMITATION FIREARMS (CRIMINAL USES) BILL
  [Lords]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Captain BOURNE in the Chair.]
  Clauses I (Penalty for use or attempted use of firearms or imitation firearms to avoid arrest); 2 (Penalty for possession of firearms or imitation firearms in certain cases); 3 (General provisions as to offences under Act), and 4 (Firearms or imitation firearms to be deemed offensive weopons for purpose of 6 & 7 Geo.5, c. 50) ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  FIREARMS AND IMITATION FIREARMS (CRIMINAL USES) BILL

    CLAUSE 5.—(Short title, interpretation and extent.)
    Mr. HACKING Mr. HACKING: I beg to move, in page 3, line 5, at the end, to insert the words:
    "and includes, except for the purpose of the definition of the expression 'imitation firearm,' a prohibited weapon as defined by section six of the Firearms Act, 1920."
    I gave my reasons yesterday for the inclusion of these words, and it is not necessary for me to say anything more at this stage.
    Amendment agreed to.
    The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The three new Clauses standing on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Elland (Mr. Levy)"Surrender of firearms to police," "Issue of permits," and "Penalty for possession of firearms "—are outside the scope of the Bill.
    Schedule (Offences to which Section 2 applies),agreed to.
    Bill reported, with an Amendment; as amended, considered.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
    7.33 p.m.
    Mr. RHYS DAVIES: This Bill has had a very easy passage indeed, as it deserves, and the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State has explained the several Clauses in the Bill, but I think he will remember that I put the point to him last evening as to what in fact has induced the Government to
    420
    produce this Bill at all. When I say that, it does not indicate that we are opposed to the Bill, hut I think the House is entitled to know from the Government the reasons why they bring forward a Measure of this kind. I should have thought that criminal statistics, actual facts from police authorities, would have been given to the House of Commons to warrant the introduction of the Measure, and when I raised this point last evening, the hon. and gallant Member for Chelmsford (Sir V. Henderson) tried to reply to my question by stating that out at a banquet of magistrates somewhere the other day he was informed by the magistrates there that there was great necessity for a Bill of this type, but even then his answer did not convince me that there, vas any real justification, from facts, for the production of this Measure. As I have said, I am not opposed to it, arid we on this side agree with the Measure, bet I think the House is entitled to some more information as to the reasons for the emergence of the Measure at all, and it would please me personally very much if the right hon. Gentleman could give us those details now.
    7.35 p.m.
    Mr. HACKING: The hon. Member asked me to produce statistics to warrant the introduction and passage of this Bill into law. Frankly, we have no statistics which would prove the necessity for such a Bill, but the Government are very frequently ridiculed for being behind the times and only introducing legislation when it is too late. Certainly on this occasion we cannot have that accusation hurled at us, and it may be claimed then that we are legislating actually ahead of a necessity. I said yesterday that although gunmen are not particularly numerous in this country, not as numerous as they are in some other countries in the world, we do not desire that that undesirable profession should be. remunerative or should become popular in any way, and that is the reason why we have introduced this Bill. There is no doubt whatsoever that many criminals have been assisted in escaping by the threatening attitude that they have taken up, by using what may only have been a dummy revolver. It is because we know there have been cases, although I am not prepared, and would not be able even if

    421
    notice were given to me, to give full statistics as to the number of offences of this kind that have taken place, that we bring in this Bill. We know that there have been instances of this kind, and we desire to legislate in advance in order to prevent this profession from becoming, as I say, either popular or remunerative.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT [MONEY]
  Resolution reported,
  "That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to consolidate with amendments the enactments relating to authorities for the purposes of local government in England and Wales, exclusive (except in relation to certain matters) of London, it is expedient to authorise the forfeiture and payment into the Exchequer in certain eases of sums payable by county councils to councils of county districts equal to one-half of the salaries of persons appointed to act as medical officers of health of county districts."
  The remaining Government Orders were read, and postponed.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE (JAPANESE COMPETITION).
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Captain Margesson.]
  7.38 p.m.
  Mr. BAILEY: I desire to raise a matter which, to us who represent Lancashire Divisions and the people of the whole county, is a matter of urgent and grave importance. The question to which I refer is that of the competition to which our industry, the great staple industry of our county, has been subjected with increasing severity for several years. In 1913 the Lancashire cotton trade exported 7,000,000,000 square yards of cotton piece goods. The figure at the present time is in the neighbourhood of 2,000,000,000 square yards; in other words, something like two—sevenths only of that great industry remains on its export side, which is its primary side, and that is why some of us to-night are venturing to detain
  422
  this House on what is considered to be a matter of primary importance, not only to our county of Lancashire, but to the country as a whole. I should like to say how much I appreciate the presence of my hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department to deal with this matter.
  The position is this: In the first place, the Japanese are flooding markets which, in our view, rightly should be ours. Take our Colonial markets. I do not want to weary the House with a great many figures, but I will give one or two instances which are typical. Let us take the case of Ceylon. If we take the year 1924, Ceylon consumed 42,800,000 square yards of cotton piece goods. The United Kingdom supplied 20,000,000 square yards, or roughly 50 per cent., and Japan 3,100,000 square yards of those goods. We will take 1928 next. The consumption of goods as a whole had gone up from 42,800,000 to 55,400,000 square yards. The United Kingdom then produced 23,800,000 and Japan had gone up from 3,100,000 to 7,200,000 square yards. She had doubled her production, and we had slightly increased ours. Now take the last year that we have on record, 1932. In that year the consumption in Ceylon had gone up to 68,600,000 square yards. Our share of that consumption had gone down from 23,800,000 in 1928 to 15,800,000 square yards, but the consumption of Japan had gone up from 7,200,000 to 40,400,000 square yards. In other words, in the course of less than 10 years, Japan had increased from 3,000,000 to 40,000,000 square yards in that market, and we had decreased from 20,000,000 to 15,800,000 square yards.
  I could give other figures of a similar character, but I do not propose to weary the House with a recital of figures like that, because it is very difficult to make figures interesting. I might mention in passing that we are still taking 80 per cent. of Ceylon's exports in this country, and yet that is what is happening to our cotton trade in Ceylon. Those figures are not very interesting, because I know there are not, possibly, many Members here who understand much about the cotton trade, but those figures have a significance behind them. Thousands of men are walking the streets in Lancashire to-day because of those figures, because in our own Colony, which we have

  423
  brought to its present constitutional and material prosperity, cheap goods are being dumped whereas our goods are not being bought. If you take foreign countries, such as China, the same story can be told. The figures for India are particularly illuminating. In 1913 we sent something like 3,000,000,000 square yards to India, and Japan sent something like 7,000,000 square yards. To-day Japan is sending as much as, or more than, we are. There again you have the reason for the plight of a county which used to be one of the most prosperous parts of England and which to-day has 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 people.
  The point, that we have to consider is, What can be done to remedy that position It is no use merely stating it. In the first place, not only are our markets being flooded, but the prices we are being paid for our goods are being broken. I will give an instance of what I mean. I was talking the other day to someone high up in the trade, not a person given to exaggerating figures, and he told me that on the average line of goods that Japan is producing they are selling at prices 30 per cent. below the mere cost of production in this country, let alone the cost of salesmanship; and they are sending coloured prints to Lancashire to be sold in England at less price than we can produce the plain gray. That is due to a disparity which is too wide to be bridged for many years between the standards of life, the social conditions, wages and so on, which exist in Japan and those which exist in this country. When I say that I am casting no reflection on the standard of life of the Japanese people. East is East and West is West, and that position is likely to remain for very much longer. What may be a perfectly proper standard of life in Japan is not a proper standard of life here.
  How are we going to tackle this question? The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, whose sincerity of heart I admire, was the other day in Salford, which is one of the hardest hit areas, and his suggestion was that we must try to persuade the Japanese people to accept a better standard of life. In the same speech he said how impossible it was to persuade British employers, who are giving a far higher standard of life, to do their duty by their employés.
  424
  How does he think that, if with all his persuasive powers he cannot persuade British employers, he can persuade the Japanese employers? We in Lancashire realise that of all the criticism on this question the worst comes from the Socialist party. It would be a tragedy for Lancashire if a, Government came into Office that had no constructive policy on this question. It is because we are afraid that the people may go from bad to worse that we are endeavouring to persuade the Government, to take a rather stronger line than we think they are taking at the present time. We appreciate the sympathy which the Government have for Lancashire on this question. The things which are most worth while in life are those very often for which we have to wait the longest, and I tell the President of the Board of Trade that we in Lancashire are deeply appreciative of the sympathetic words which were used about Lancashire in a speech the other day. If we might venture a humble suggestion to him it is that it will not take quite as long for action to result as it has done for the expressions of sympathy that he made, which we do value very highly indeed.
  The real difficulty is simply this: You can have no good wages in Lancashire—I do not care whether the industry is nationalised or not—and there can be no profits for masters unless we can get first of all a reasonable proportion of the markets which we used to have, and markets which can take our goods at a price which we are prepared to sell them at and which will give us a reasonable profit. We shall get neither of these two conditions while Japan, which the Leader of the Opposition in another connection called "an international pirate," has most of our markets, and there will be no possibility of Lancashire being prosperous again unless we secure for her markets at prices at which she can produce. We will not do that until there is an apportionment of markets between this country and Japan, whether these markets be imperial or markets of the very good customers who are not in our Dominions.
  The most-favoured-nation clause bangs, bolts and bars the door, in the opinion of many of us, to any substantial revival in our cotton trade. I say "in our cotton trade," but I would go further than that,

  425
  because the peril through which the cotton trade is passing is going to be faced by the great prosperous centres like Birmingham and the iron and steel manufacturing trades in 15 or 20 years' time. It is our turn to-day, but it will be the turn of others to-morrow. Therefore, I feel that this is a question which does not concern only Lancashire, although at the moment we have to bear the forefront of the battle. The solution is only by an apportionment of markets—Japan, say, taking 40 or 50 per cent., and we taking 40 or 50 per cent. We in Lancashire recognise the right of our neighbours to live. We hope that conciliation may produce results. We do not for a moment think that a great expanding country like Japan can be deprived of its fair share of the trade of the world. I go further and say that we do not think it ought to be so deprived, but we say that Japan has no right to deprive us of markets which were built up by foresight and prudence in the past, markets to which we are entitled on business and moral grounds. If Japan can live on cheaper standards, it ought not to deprive our people of their work and living.
  It is not a, question of having a preference against Japanese goods; the margin is too wide. We say, in the first place, that the most—favoured—nation clause ought to go; at any rate, if it does not go, Japan should voluntarily concede to us a proper share of the markets. If you take our Trade Agreements with Denmark, Finland and the Argentine, it is true that we can point to small agreements in thousands of yards. You can quote them in Debate where many people do not understand precisely what they mean, but when you take the broad fact of 2,000,000,000 square yards as our present rate and 7,000,000,000 as our pre-War rate, it will be seen that we cannot get a great improvement until we have a quota from the various countries with whom we trade. With regard to the agreement with the Argentine, a merchant from that country called at my office the other day and told me that opinion in business circles in the Argentine is that, so far as the textile trade is concerned, the Agreement will do harm rather than good, for it does nothing for the Lancashire cotton trade. He said that the duties have been lowered on some forms of textiles, but they are being
  426
  lowered on Japanese as well as on ours. He said that the duties on the lighter counts are remaining more or less the same, but the duties on the heavier counts are being greatly lightened.
  The result of that, if it be true, would be that the heavier counts would be cheaper, whereas the lighter counts would have the same price, and the heavier in relation to the lighter counts would be better value, and the sale of the heavier counts would rise and those of the lighter would fall. Japan specialises in the heavier counts, and we specialise in the lighter. That man was not interested in producing a single yard of cotton goods, but he was speaking on sentimental grounds for what he believed to be the interest of the whole country. Ho may be wrong. It may not be that the duties have been lowered on the heavier counts. We ought to be able to say to a country from whom we buy £40,000,000 worth of goods and. which buys only 210,000,000 from us, "You want to sell £40,000,000 worth of beef to us and we are anxious to buy, but we cannot buy from you until you buy from us and, therefore, we suggest that you buy £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 worth of textile goods from us at a price at which we can sell." If that is unreasonable, I shall be glad if the President of the Board of Trade will explain why.
  Until we have quotas giving us the right to a specific share of the markets at a price at which we can produce without sweating our people; until we have that in all our imperial and foreign markets, there will be no prosperity in Lancashire. The only question is how are we to get what we want. That is perhaps where some of us are most widely apart, but our hearts are in the same direction in this matter. There is the method which the Government are employing, of conciliation and talking in as friendly a way as possible and asking for as much as possible. That is a very good method if it produces results. It may be asked to-night, as negotiations are going on, why we raise this matter. If when the Government came into office they had dealt with this matter at once, it would have been unreasonable for us Members from Lancashire to have done anything that might embarrass them, but we have seen our people suffering and we have waited for two years before raising this question. We feel that we are now

  427
  entitled to ask for haste and expedition. I hope with all my heart that negotiations with the Japanese representatives may be successful. I believe them to be as patriotic, as honourable and as capable persons as those who are representing us. I hope that the negotiations are successful, and that is the desire of everyone in Lancashire.
  We do not want to embark on a trade war with Japan, but the negotiations will not be successful if they do not result in giving us substantial, not paper concessions, concessions which will bring back some of our trade and enable us to retain it on a profitable basis. It is only right that we should let those with whom we are going to deal know that that is our feeling. What is the good of letting them think that certain lines of concession will satisfy us when we know they will not? Japan will be wise if she meets us. The fundamental feelings of Lancashire are unchanged on this matter. Every operative and employer who does not agree on details is agreed on the essence of what he wants. We want the same thing, and you will get what happened 70 or 80 years ago, when Lancashire forced her policy on the country, if she does not get what she is entitled to.
  I do not want to say anything unkind of the Government, because I realise how much they have done in many respects. I realise that in some respects the cotton trade has reason to be grateful to them. They have done far more than a Labour Government ever would have done, but the great problem still remains. We feel that it must be made definitely clear to Japan that we should have what is, in effect, a quota. If we can get that by negotiation, well and good. If we cannot, then we call upon the Government to abrogate the Most—Favoured—Nation Clause and take steps to use our powerful bargaining weapons as a counter in the effort to bring about that state of affairs.
  This is my last word, and I apologise for having taken a long time, though the question we are discussing is a far more vital one than 9 out of 10 questions which we consider here. I hope I have said nothing discourteous to the Government or anything to embarrass them, because I have tried not to do so. I realise their difficulties and their anxieties, but
  428
  we ordinary, humble Members, seeing the lack of prosperity among our people, realise that it is up to us, if we can, to impress upon the Government the urgency of the problem. At any rate they know it now, and we await the results of these negotiations, and if they fail we hope that other and drastic action will be taken.
  8.16 p.m.
  Sir NAIRNE STEWART SANDEMAN: My feeling, having just come back from Lancashire, is that the people there are rather tired of sympathy. We have had expressions of sympathy for the last 10 years, with very little done. I had a good deal of experience of sympathy over India. Tariffs were put on against Lancashire and we were told, "Wait a little. It will be all right. If you make a row at the present moment you will be interfering at a bad time, and it is going to be worse for Lancashire." It is always going to be "worse for Lancashire," but now Lancashire has got to the state where, certainly as regards the heavy counts, things cannot be worse for Lancashire, and sympathy is net going to help very much. I was asked by somebody to be discreet if I spoke to-night, and not to say anything which would make it harder for the Government. I find it very difficult to follow those instructions. I will try as hard as I can, but, as I have said, I have just come back from Lancashire, where we see so many fellows who cannot get a job and mills closing down. The mills are being sold, and the second—hand machinery is going to our competitors. That is one thing that is definitely had for the country. We are putting machinery which is not 10 years old into the hands of foreigners, some going to Japan and some to other countries which are definitely competing with us, and we are not keeping Platt Brothers, and firms like that, in employment. I do riot say that the owner of the machinery has not a perfect right to sell it in the best market, but surely it is not beyond the wit of the Government to devise some way by which that machinery does not go into direct competition with the people of Lancashire.
  We are told that trade in Lancashire is getting better. Perhaps it is, but that is in fine cotton spinning, a trade which Japan has not yet got hold of, though as sure

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  as day follows night, Japan will be after the fine cotton counts trade very soon. She has an extraordinarily able lot of workpeople, who will soon be able to make both qualities. I was presented with a pair of scissors by a poor fellow in Lancashire. I could sell them to Wool—worths and make 100 per cent profit; the price of them was only 3d. Japan is going to get our other trades. I admire Japan, because the Japanese have shown all along that they have courage and are not afraid, yet here are we, the biggest Empire in the world, rather afraid to say anything. Perhaps we shall get over that attitude. Perhaps we shall realise that it would be better for the working people in this country that we should not be so afraid and should assert our authority.
  I know something of the methods of Japan, and I will tell the House a story. On Saturday night I was in a club, and one of the managers of a big printing concern told me this. He said they had spent a great deal of money on getting out a very fine design, which they sent out to the East. Two or three months later a friend of his in the market showed him a bit of printed cloth. He said, "We make that." The other man said, "Are you sure?" And the manager replied, "Yes, there is even our name on it." Then his friend said, "I will sell it to you at half the price you are asking for it." Is that fair? That is the sort of thing which must be stopped in the case of higher—class stuffs. When the Government are treating with Japan I am sure Japan will respect them all the more if they say, "We are going to have no more of this, we have had enough." If you are going to have a bargain, very often it is better to tell the other people straight out what you mean. I have done a lot of bargaining, and I have always found that it is better to say exactly what you think and feel about a subject, and then the other side know that you are in earnest, and are not afraid of them. I hope that will be the attitude adopted by our people who are treating with the Japanese over here. It is not a case of give and take; we want fair play.
  We know that we cannot knock Japanese competition out altogether but we can get a very great deal if we go about it in a brave fashion. I know that Japan is a very good customer of this country, but what about the Empire? If we take the Empire as a whole and consider what
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  Japan buys from the Empire as compared with ourselves, and what Japan sells to the Empire, there is an enormous difference. I know that in the case of this country the balance of trade figures are not so bad, and that if we do something which puts up Japan's back the Government may find other trades coming down on them, but we have to take that risk.
  There is only one thing which is rather comforting, so far as the political point of view is concerned, and that is that all the Socialists are Free Traders. I heard one of them say yesterday—he did not say it in so many words, but he inferred it—that he would let all the Japanese shirts come into this country. Shirts at a "bob" a time! That is pretty cheap. We cannot make them in Lancashire at under 6s. We cannot blame the working men for buying them, but we pay trade union rates. The Socialists insist upon trade union rates, but what about getting work? It is work that we want for the people, and I think they are getting pretty sick of their trade unions and their trade union rates. They want to get back to jobs. It is work they want in Lancashire. We hear talk about people being "work shy." I know a great many workpeople and if it were said that that description applied to five per cent. of them it would be overstating it. But they are getting into a condition in which they have lost their skill. Spinning is an extraordnarily skilled trade, and if a person is off work for a year he cannot be expected to take up mule spinning again with all his old dexterity. He is going to be very slow for a bit, because he has lost his skill.
  I hope this question will be taken up very strongly by those who are interested in Lancashire. I am perfectly certain that the President of the Board of Trade wants to help us all he can, but we are going to insist upon a good big "can." There are a great many Members who will not allow this subject, which affects the lives of tens of thousands of people in Lancashire, to lapse. Practically everybody in Lancashire is vitally interested in it. People in the South cannot grasp what it means to Lancashire. People who go to Manchester may not grasp it, but let them go out to places like Oldham and Middleton and see what a rotten time the people are having there. They are beginning to wonder what the

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  politicians are doing for them, and I do not wonder that they are getting sick of politicians.
  8.10 p.m.
  Major PROCTER: I rise to intervene in this Debate because throughout the whole of my life I have had first—hand experience of conditions in Lancashire, and, with the exception of the brief period when the last Labour Government were in office, I can say that the condition of the Lancashire cotton industry has never been worse than it is to-day. The last speaker said that people in the South of England have little understanding of the conditions obtaining in some of our cotton towns. The prosperity policy of the National Government, which has greatly assisted the South of England, has not yet reached the North with the full tide of prosperity which we hope eventually to see. We see towns in the North with silent factories and empty smokestacks, and the streets are no longer filled with the clattering clogs of the operatives going to work. There is hopelessness on the faces of our operatives. Their trust in us to do something for them compels every Lancashire Member to be active in this mater.
  I am sure that every Lancashire Member is trying to tackle this problem, and we are all looking to the Government for guidance and help in securing the objects at which we are aiming. We have been at work now for two years. Two years is not a long time in the life of a Government, but it is an eternity in the minds of the unemployed. When we go through our towns and speak to our manufacturers, as I have been doing during the last week, we find some of them are hopeless, some of them have optimism, and some of them trust that out of these negotiations there will at length emerge a programme and a policy which will bring back something of that prosperity which was the glory of Lancashire and the wonder of this country.
  We have been told to-day that we must be courteous in our speeches. We have in this country five wise men from the East who are negotiating with our own people about the apportioning of Empire markets which they have done nothing to build up. They have made no sacrifices for them whatever. It seems to me that we are afraid of this new
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  Power—a, Power which has put its fingers to its nose to England and to America and walked out of the League of Nations —and therefore we must share the markets of our Empire with her. We called this a menace two years ago, but to-day we have got beyond that; to-day, it is a calamity.
  Look at the position to-day. The first hon. Member who spoke on this Motion showed how Japan developed her cotton industry far beyond any expectation. I am not going to weary the House with figures, but, in addition to the figures for Ceylon, we must remember that from 1930, and up to the end of 1931, this country exported to the Colonies 30,700,000 yards, while Japan exported to those same Colonies over 89,000,000 yards. Formerly we exported 0,500,000 yards of cotton goods abroad; to-day we are only exporting 2,000,000 yards, and Japan, for the first time in her history, is exporting a yardage equal to our own. It seems to me that the time has come when this National Government should devote its energies, its power and its wisdom, and the tact of the President of the Board of Trade, at the very outset of the new session, to including the plight of Lancashire in its programme.
  No one should stand here and say that the Government should do something without indicating in some way what the Government can do. I suggest that the problem resolves itself around markets. The policy of the British Government, as the centre of the British Empire, should be to preserve and conserve the textile trade of the Empire for Lancashire, which is the manufacturing centre of textiles in this country. What have we done? When Jamaica, one or our oldest Colonies, wished to give a preference to this country and to impose a depreciatedcurrency tax, we said: "Hush, we do not want to hurt Japan. We cannot put into operation what we would like to do, and we are going to negotiate." I am sure that the President of the Board of Trade knows full well that the whole British Empire wants to help this country, and if the persuasiveness of the Government were used with the Dominions, we could say to Australia: "When you buy Japanese cottons you may be buying the shrouds of your own Australian soldiers." The Dominions

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  should realise that this attack on our markets may be the beginning of a larger attack upon the Empire itself. It is the Empire we have to consider, and it is not a tariff that should be put on but a complete embargo throughout the British Empire, until the standard of life of the Japanese workers at least equals that of the British workers.
  This competition means that there has been a scramble for the remaining trade. Manunfacturers cut one another's throats, agreements are Made to he broken by unscrupulous manufacturers, operatives want work and take less and less wages. If we are able to denounce the various treaties which entangle us, I am confident that we should have more trade, and should stop this insane internal competition. We should prevent the standard of life of the British operative becoming the rice standard of the Japanese. There is another thing that I suggest the Government might do, without pointing a weapon at Japan. Is it impossible for us to put on a depreciatedcurrency tax in our own Colonial possessions? How does France, for instance, run her colonies and her textiles In the first place, she has 500 different classifications for cotton goods entering her colonial possessions. She puts a tax, ranging- from 20s. to 6d. on the lb. on textiles.
  Mr. CROSSLEY: Into which of the French Colonial possessions?
  Major PROCTER: Into every one. Between France and her colonies there is free trade, but upon those who are not French duties are imposed. Those duties range from 20s. to 6d. per lb. and, in addition, there is a depreciatedcurrency duty of from 11 per cent. in the case of Canada, to 25 per cent. in the case of Japan. This country pays 15 per cent. Why cannot we have a depreciated-currency tax? Once they were enabled to compete with a depreciated yen, British manufacturers right away would have a preference that might range from 40 per cent. to 62.1/2 per cent.
  A third thing I suggest. Lancashire to-day is suffering from immoral competition, by reason oft the violation of what may be called common decency. The Japanese are stealing our designs. There was a time when Lancashire had a
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  monopoly in cotton manufacture because of her climate, but artificial humidification of factories has done away with that. We had inherited and unrivalled skill, but the automatic loom has ruled that out. To-day, we are left only with fine designers and the Japanese are stealing their work. I ask the Government if they can make representations to the Indian Government and to the Colonial Governments that these pirated designs should be confiscated at the ports of entry. If we are able to do that, we shall at least have fair competition.
  It may be said that we cannot do this, because we are tied with treaties dating from our Free Trade days. There is the most-favoured-nation clause, and there is this treaty and that treaty. It never was contemplated, when these treaties were made, that Japan would arrogate to herself the most-favoured-nation position in the British Empire because of her depreciated currency, but that is the position that she occupies to-day. I ask that, in the new Session, this Government will set up an ad hoc committee composed of men who are in the trade, so that, if the Government do not know what to do, those trained experts will tell them, and will help them. This country cannot afford to let Lancashire fall. I am certain that, in their heart of hearts, every Member of the Government wants to see sorely-stricken Lancashire revive, and prosper as she did in the days of our past.
  8.24 p.m.
  Mr. J. P. MORRIS: I feel deeply indebted to the hon. Member for Gorton (Mr. Bailey) for having raised this question on the Motion for the Adjournment. I feel particularly pleased, for the reason that I hope to be able to extract from the Government a declaration of policy, and in that hope, I beg to inform my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, during the course of my speech I will put leading questions to him, and I hope that his answers to those questions will show the position as it really is. The question of Japanese competition is occupying and exercising the minds of a large number of people in Lancashire. They have the opinion that the Government have done nothing for the cotton trade, and they also have the opinion that in the South of England

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  people are entirely ignorant of the appalling conditions obtaining in Lancashire. That may be so, but it is idle and useless for anybody to criticise the Government on the manner in which they have dealt with this question unless they are able to inform the Government what is the best line to adopt. I ask myself this question: What is it that the National Government have not done that they could have done? What is it that the National Government have left undone that they ought to have done, arid in regard to which part of the British Empire can effective action be taken here in the House of Commons?
  The general impression in Lancashire is that we can in this House enact legislation which will affect the competition in the Dominions and India. That, to my mind, is an idle suggestion, because the Dominions have full fiscal freedom, and, in my opinion, so also has India. India, up to the Ottawa Conference, had full fiscal freedom subject to the qualification of an impracticable veto in the possession of the Secretary of State; and at Ottawa we signed an agreement which gave to India not only the right to impose duties for revenue purposes, but also for the purposes of protection. Therefore, it is impossible for His Majesty's Government to do anything that will affect the question either in the Dominions or in India. Indeed, I would say that any action by His Majesty's Government dictated in the interests of the cotton industry would do no good at all unless it had the co-operation and sympathy of the Governments of the Dominions and of India. To attempt to force the Governments of the Dominions and the Indian Government into action of that kind would destroy the bonds of friendship on which any powerful Empire must rest.
  Then let me take the question of the African Colonies. The area covered in Africa is governed by the Congo Basin Treaty and the Anglo—French West African Convention, and I would suggest to His Majesty's Government that, in connection with those two treaties, some effective measures might be brought about to deal with Japanese competition in the African Colonies. I would like my right hon. Friend either to deny or confirm this: Is it a fact that the late Mr.
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  William Graham, in 1930, extended the period of operation of the Congo Basin Treaty until 1935? If that be so, of course nothing can be done until the expiration of that time. But I would suggest that His Majesty's Government might have a conference with the Governments of Belgium and France in order that there might be a reconsideration of these two treaties which govern those areas in Africa, and, if possible, in reconsidering those two treaties, try to find out if we can eliminate Japan from those areas. I think that on that line we can deal successfully with Japan in the African Colonies.
  I want now to deal with the question of Ceylon. According to the Ottawa Agreement, Ceylon promised to extend preference to our exports of textiles. That she has failed to do, although I believe Ceylon exports enjoy free entry into this country. The question was raised some few months ago, and my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary said that the matter was under notice, and that he had sent a telegram to Ceylon. Is it not possible, in a case of that kind, when Ceylon refuses to implement an agreement signed at Ottawa, for some action to be taken in this House? Would it not be possible, in the next Finance Bill, to introduce some Measure whereby we could impose a tariff on the exports of Ceylon to this country? If Ceylon will not give us a preference, I maintain that that is the only possible way to deal with Ceylon.
  With regard to the Anglo-Japanese Treaty, there is a large consensus of opinion in Lancashire that that Treaty ought to be denounced, but we want to bring to bear a certain sense of proportion. Let us not forget that, since the War, we have enjoyed a favourable balance of trade with Japan, amounting to £153,000,000, and far be it from me to suggest the denunciation of that Treaty unless one is prepared to realise all the implications arising there from; but I would like to hear from my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade if what I have outlined has not been the case since this Government came into power. To me and to other Members from Lancashire this question of Japanese competition has been a positive nightmare. We have had it morning, noon and night, and we have had to stand

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  the brunt of hostile criticism and considerable baiting by people who are not aware of the true facts and of the position as it really is. Therefore, I hope that my right hon. Friend will not forget, in his reply, to point out that the Government have done everything that they possibly can to deal effectively with this question of Japanese competition, and that, outside the two cases which I have mentioned, it was impossible to have done anything else; but I hope also that he will not forget that in the African Colonies there is, on the lines I have suggested, a possible way of dealing with this competition other than by negotiation with Japan.
  8.32 p.m.
  Lieut.-Colonel Sir WALTER SMILES: When I raised this question last year, it was impressed upon me by the speaker from the Front Government Bench how much the Government had the interests of Lancashire at heart. I am reminded of a film which I saw last week, in which a young boy was telling a girl how much Ire loved her, and, after he had told her half a dozen times, "I love you, my darling," the girl turned round to him and said, "Well, what are you going to do about it, then?" That is the position in which Lancashire is at the present time. We quite admit that the Government loves Lancashire very dearly, but we want to know now, "What are you going to do about it?" Of course, the question how the cotton trade in Lancashire is getting on is not a front—page feature; you do not see it in the front pages of the London papers; but in my own constituency every week the papers put in a statement that so many mills are running that week. Last week I saw in the "Blackburn Times":
  "69 mills running"
  That is out of about 136. I, unfortunately, have to endorse what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Middleton (Sir N. Stewart Sandeman) when he spoke about mills being sold up. Only this week two mills are up for sale in Blackburn that will never work again, and will never give any more wages to the people of the town. There may be different ways of getting these Lancashire mills back to work again. There may be something in what Lord Beaver—brook and the "Daily Express" say, namely, that they want to put a ring
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  round our Colonial Empire and give a preference to the raw material coming here from our Colonies, in return for a preference on our manufacured goods. I do not think the solution is as easy as all that. We have to get foreign nations and the Colonies also to take goods from us, because I do not think our Colonies alone will absorb the full production of the Lancashire mills. Fifty years ago Japan was not a competitor of ours. She used to produce artistic goods which took years to complete and sold for very high prices, but the bread and butter things, like the manufacture of cotton, were entirely confined to Europe.
  It looks as if the position is going to change and in the future England will have to produce these artistic goods, and the cheaper things of every day use will be produced by the people who work under cheaper conditions abroad. Of course, in Lancashire the people realise that Free Trade has gone for ever. Forty or fity years ago they used to say, "Give us cheap food and, with our efficiency and our lead in machinery and engineering, we will produce goods cheaply enough to capture the world markets." They realise that it is a different matter to-day. Like every one else, they realise Japanese efficiency and we look to the Government for help. The employers here realise that wages cannot be cut down, hours cannot be increased, coal cannot be got any cheaper, you cannot buy raw cotton cheaper, and the only hope of these millowners and their employés is for Government assistance.
  8.37 p.m.
  Mr. PIKE: I have no desire to distract the right hon. Gentleman's attention from the very important requirements which have been submitted from the representatives of Lancashire and the cotton trade in general, but I would beg him to take notice that cotton is not the only industry that is suffering very severely from the effects of Japanese competition. I represent a division of Sheffield which is very severely affected by competition in light tools, cutlery, scissors, razors, razor blades, needles and pins, safey pins, and novelties. I have no desire to encroach on the division of my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Glossop), but a very severe attack is being made there on the old

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  established industry of umbrellas and umbrella frames. Umbrellas which can be sold at from 5s. to 7s. 6d. can be bought in Sheffield for ls. 6d. Against that no British firm can compete and, irrespective of what the hon. Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee) interjected, that the condition of the cotton trade was largely due to the wages paid——
  Mr. ATTLEE: I said nothing whatever of the sort.
  Mr. PIKE: The hon. Member who was speaking was outlining the conditions of the workers in Lancashire, and the hon. Gentleman said, "You cannot get it on the wages that you pay."
  Mr. ATTLEE: The hon. Member is entirely mistaken. The hon. Member who was speaking asked how you could get markets for your goods, and my remark was that you could not get markets unless the workers had adequate wages.
  Mr. PIKE: I am sorry if I misinterpreted the hon. Gentleman, but the inference appeared to me to be that the cotton manufacturers were underpaying the workers. Hence my interjection that they were paying trade union rates. The interest of the Opposition in the question of trade and the wages of Lancashire workers undercut by Japanese workers is shown only too clearly by the absence of at least 52 of their members during this discussion.
  Mr. ATTLEE: And 450 of yours.
  Mr. BAILEY: The absence of Lancashire Members is due to no fault of their own. They are engaged more usefully elsewhere.
  Mr. PIKE: I said Labour Members, not Lancashire Members. I want to ask the opinion of the President of the Board of Trade on importations, originally from Japan, which are coming from other countries—what may be regarded, for instance, as the re—export trade of Czechoslovakia. These goods are coming into this country via other countries, and they give Japan the excuse that she is not directly exporting them into this country. Any overtures that we might make to her may be considerably weakened if she can put in that plea with any great force. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to make sure, before these
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  agreements are actually reached, that he will not be defeated in his plea by the excuse that Japan cannot be responsible for the re-exports of some other nation with which she is trading.
  It has been suggested by an hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite that Lancashire was never in a worse position than she is at present. But, as the result of Government action, I believe that Lancashire's position to-day is slightly better than it has been, and, if this anomaly can only be eliminated, she will be able to give a greater measure of industrial security to her people than she has been able to give for a considerable period. The message that the House, and especially the Government, have received from Skipton is surely one of faith and confidence in them to carry their full policy into effect, and, if the right hon. Gentleman will reflect upon the message of the Prime Minister to the people at the last election, I am convinced that he will see the necessity of immediately removing the barriers that exist for equitable treatment as between the workers of this country and the workers of Japan, because Sheffield and the industrial area are at the moment, if not wholly, certainly sectionally disturbed at the rate at which Japanese goods are coming in and the price at which they are selling on the market. I hope he will at least assure the House that the Government are doing everything they possibly can to eliminate the menace to our general existence.
  8.44 p.m.
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Runciman): The Debate that has arisen on die Adjournment tonight naturally follows on the anxiety felt throughout Lancashire during recent years, and particularly during the last two years, the result largely of Japanese competition. The hon. Member who opened the discussion, and who was very anxious to avoid anything that might embitter feelings either in this country or in Japan, took, I think, too gloomy a view of the course of our trade during the last two years. It is true that the foreign trade of Lancashire has suffered severely. No one could be more conscious of that than we who are responsible for Government policy, and who have certainly given evidence of our desire in a practical way to deal with the

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  grievances of our traders wherever they arise. But do not let us imagine that Lancashire is completely defeated. I doubt very much whether any good service is done by taking such a gloomy view of Lancashire prospects as has been taken in some quarters here to-night. There is a great deal of latent ability in Lancashire upon which she can call. There are men of great influence in the Lancashire trade who are quite ready to give of their ability and time in dealing with Lancashire problems. They have been giving us assistance during the last two years in almost unmeasured quantity.
  I should like to point out a few cheering facts since so many of our hon. friends have taken such a gloomy view of Lancashire. Let me point out one or two things which show clearly that the volume of trade has indeed grown during the last two years. Perhaps the best way of measuring it is to survey the importations of raw cotton and the deliveries to spinners. These returns provide a fair index of the demand for the raw material. In the season 1931–32 between August and October the imports of raw cotton amounted to 279,000 bales. In the season 1932–33 these imports had risen to 458,000 bales, and for the season of 1933–34 there has been a further increase to 571,000 bales. If the deliveries to spinners is to be a gauge let us see how that matter stands. In the season 1931–32 the deliveries to spinners between August and October came to 510,000 bales, and in the following season it had fallen, it is true, to 455,000 bales, but in the season 1933–34 all the leeway of the last two years has been met by the deliveries to spinners amounting to 547,000 bales. Simultaneously with that, I agree, there has been a drop in our foreign trade in many directions, yet it is a fact of which we can take note—and it certainly gives point to the Debate in which we are engaged to-night—that the only cotton exporting countries of importance which can show a general upward tendency in cotton exports since 1931 are the United Kingdom and Japan. Do not let us overlook these facts when we are endeavouring to assess the state of Lancashire at the present time.
  I do not for a moment wish to discuss the facts with which we are all familiar. You can go to any of the Lancashire
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  towns and look below the surface and see what is happening there. There are many quarters where it is clear that recovery, if it comes at all, is likely to be slow. There are some of the Lancashire towns with a huge proportion of unemployment, a state of things to which they were not used, 10, 20 or 30 years ago. These people are our chief concern. We want to see them back again in regular work. It is our desire to do everything we can within the four corners of Government policy and Government powers to provide employment for these people. The only way in which there can be a very rapid and considerable recovery in Lancashire trade is through an expansion of her export trade. I presume that this was what was uppermost in the mind of my hon. Friends who have taken part in the Debate to-night. They are very conscious, as we all are, of the depression which hangs over many of the Lancashire towns. Of course, they cannot see above the surface all that has been done by the Government in the last two years, and they are a little inclined to infer that nothing at all has been done.
  When this subject was last debated in this House my hon. and gallant Friend the Secretary of the Overseas Trade Department made a speech in which he pointed out what had been done in the Trade Agreements in favour of United Kingdom exports of cotton. I think that some of my hon. Friends must have forgotten what he said on that occasion. We have heard nothing of the Trade Agreements to-night, except the reference made by my hon. Friend who opened the discussion to the Argentine Agreement. I would like to repeat to the House what actually has been done in those Trade Agreements in order to help the cotton industry. In the case of cotton piece goods, which are of special importance to the trade of the United Kingdom with Argentina, the Customs Duties on bleached and printed tissues weighing over 80 up to 160 grammes per square metre have been reduced by 31 per cent., and the duty on dyed tissues, over 80 up to 130 grammes, by 22 per cent. That is proceeding along the right lines. It is reducing the trade barriers which affect us here and which have been erected in Argentina, and now under our

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  new Agreement there are these reductions.
  What is the criticism offered of these reductions? It is that they apply, not only to goads which come from this country, but to other cotton imports into the Argentine. That is perfectly true, but if we get anything like fair play in Argentina—and this is proceeding in the direction of fair play—we are quite prepared to hold our own. I am assured by those who have kept in the closest touch throughout these negotiations that reductions such as these are of material benefit.
  Sir N. STEWART SANDEMAN: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the exports to Argentina have gone up?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: The Agreement has only become operative, as my hon. Friend knows, during the last day or two, so that I am afraid that we cannot yet show any improvement in the returns as a result of it, but if my hon. Friend will put down a question to me, on the lines of that which he put to me a moment or two ago, six months hence, I will tell him then; and I shall be very much disappointed if they do not show that there has been a material increase of United Kingdom goods into Argentina in the course of those six months. There have also been reductions of 15½ per cent. for certain other cotton piece goods. The Customs Duty on cotton yarn counts over No. 40 has been reduced by 25 per cent., and still more substantial reductions have been secured for cotton sewing, embroidery and other threads. Other cotton manufactures will benefit by reduced Customs Duties, and they include quilted coverlets, kerchiefs, terry towels and machine belting and so on. The present Customs Duties have been conventionalised in respect of various cotton tissues and other manufactures, so that we shall not be subject to a rise in these duties during the period of the Agreement.
  If I turn from the Argentine to Denmark, I can tell a tale which is very much of the same kind, nothing sensational but all working in the right direction, and the accumulative effect is bound sooner or later to place the Lancashire trade in a stronger position. The duty on printed cotton piece goods imported into Denmark from the United Kingdom was
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  reduced by about 11 per cent., and a similar reduction was obtained in the duty on lighter weight unbleached piece goods. A reduction of nearly 40 per cent. was obtained on certain piece goods of mixed cotton and artificial silk. The existing import duties on heavier unbleached piece goods and on bleached, dyed and coloured woven piece goods mere stabilised. In Sweden pretty much the same changes have been made, all to our advantage. In Norway, and finally in the Agreement with Finland, which was signed during the Recess, there have been similar reductions in the duties imposed upon cotton goods from this country.
  I hope that my hon. Friends in making an examination of the conditions of Lancashire will not leave these facts out of account. They all work in the right direction. They do not, however, touch in any very material degree the points of discussion which are now engaging the attention of the representatives of the Lancashire and the Japanese cotton industries. It was at my initiation, early this year, that Lancashire selected some of her most prominent and public-spirited men from the cotton trade to go out to India to confer there with the Indian industrialists and the Japanese representatives of the cotton industry, who went to India for the purpose of the discussions. It is our view—a view which I am glad to think is supported in most quarters—that in the competition between the United Kingdom and Japan it is very much better that we should regulate our relationships by agreement than that we should involve ourselves in anything in the nature of tariff wars. Tariff wars are a very costly way of solving trade problems, and we want, if we can, to avoid them.
  By agreement between the Japanese interests and our own we may be able to obtain a better allocation of business for ourselves, assuring us of some degree of security in the future. I hope that the progress made in the discussions which have taken place in India will be continued over here in the conference which, I understand, is to resume within the next few days in London. The representatives of the Japanese cotton industry have recently been in Manchester and have already expressed their views with frankness and candour to our friends in Lancashire. Knowing Lancashire men as I have done for the

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  whole of my life I have no doubt that they are still capable of expressing their views with equal candour and fairness. I have not the least doubt that the representatives will be able to understand each other completely as a result of the conference; but do not let us do anything at the present time which is likely to impede negotiations and bring friction where we desire to see nothing but harmoney and co—operation.
  I do not think we need detain the House very long to-night in a discussion of this question, because other opportunities will arise, and I am sure that my hon. Friends will not expect a declaration of first class policy on a Motion for the Adjourment, taken after dinner. We shall have to choose some later and better occasion for that. I hope that when next we have an opportunity of discussing this matter in the House we shall be able to do it in the light of an understanding reached by the Japanese and ourselves. One thing is quite certain and that is that we do not intend to leave the situation exactly where we found it. It is just as well that all the world should know that this Government take a live interest in the conditions under which our industries are conducted here at home as well as in the sale of our products in commercial channels abroad. I cannot say anything at the present time as to the means we may have to adopt in order to secure what we think to he necessary for our well—being, but I will say at once that if we can arrive at a favourable result by agreement in any quarter I would rather do it by agreement than any other means.
  I daresay that some of my hon. Friends may think that it is not very wise on our part to ask them to exercise their patience at the present time, but I would remind them that these are not very simple problems. It is far easier to abrogate a most-favoured-nation clause than it is to build up a prosperous business. My hon. Friend the Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Sir N. Stewart Sandeman) said that Lancashire was sick of politicians.
  Sir N. STEWART SANDEMAN: I said Middleton and Prestwich.
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I have no doubt that if they thought that the whole of Lancashire's trade was to depend upon poli-
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  ticians that they would have every reason to despair. I believe that Lancashire is quite capable of producing from her own people sufficient ability to enable her to survive the stresses and strains under which she is labouring. All that the Government can do is to give them a fair chance, and it is with the object of giving them a fair chance of extending their markets that the whole of our policy has been directed during the last two years, and will be directed in the future.
  Sir N. STEWART SANDEMAN: May we have a word about second—hand machinery?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I do not think that I can commit myself to any statement on that subject now as there are a good many interests which are concerned in that subject. The hon. Member is no doubt well aware of the suggestions which have been made in Lancashire from time to time for rationalising the industry and getting rid of superfluous spindles. I am not able at the present time to give a full answer in this Debate to the question my hon. Friend put to me.
  Mr. PIKE: Does the same answer apply to the commodities that I mentioned, and will the President of the Board of Trade be in a position to give a statistical reply to various questions on this subject if I put them to him early?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: I should be very glad to give my hon. Friend as much information as we have at our command. If he will put down a question—an un—starred question will be best, because the answer will be in tabular form—we will give him such information as we have at our disposal.
  Mr. THORP: I do not rise to take up the time of the House at any length, but in a concluding observation the right hon. Gentleman suggested that there were matters in connection with the cotton trade that he did not think ought to be raised on the Motion for the Adjournment, as he considered that they were too complicated and required too careful a study for them adequately to be dealt with upon 'an occasion like this. I would ask the Government if the Lancashire Members can be assured that in the near future they will be afforded an adequate opportunity to enable them to go into this question when the time of the House can be spared to discuss it, because the

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  opinion prevails in Lancashire, perhaps rightly, perhaps wrongly, but none the less it undoubtedly prevails, that the cotton trade is not getting the time and attention of this House or of the Government that in view of its position in the world it really deserves.
  Major PROCTER: In the trade agreement the right hon. Gentleman has made, although he has secured a reduction of
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  15 per cent. in the tariff, he has not met the case of the Japanese competitor who gets 621 per cent. advantage through the depreciation of the yen.
  Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Sir Dennis Herbert): The hon. and gallant Member has exhausted his right to speak.
  Adjourned accordingly at Five Minutes after Nine o'Clock.