Commons Sitting of 7 April 1937

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Waltham Holy Cross Urban District Council Bill [Lords],
Read a Second time, and committed.
London and North Eastern Railway Bill (by Order),
Consideration, as amended, deferred till this evening, at Half-past Seven of the Clock.
London Midland and Scottish Railway Bill (by Order),
Consideration, as amended, deferred till To-morrow, at Half-past Seven of the Clock.
Southern Railway Bill (by Order),
As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  DANZIG.
  Mr. Manderasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the present position in Danzig: and whether the High Commissioner has now taken up his permanent residence there and is experiencing any difficulty in carrying out his duties?
  The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): The High Commissioner arrived in Danzig to take up his post on 1st March. I understand that he left again shortly afterwards in order to make official contacts with the Polish Government. He has now returned to Danzig and is in permanent residence. Professor Burckhardt may be relied upon to bring to the Council's attention, in accordance with the terms of the report adopted by the Council on 27th January, any matters on which he considers that
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  they should be immediately informed. But he cannot be expected to make any general report on the situation until he has had time to examine it in all its aspects.
  Mr. Mander: Is he not, in fact, being treated with just the same discourtesy and contempt as Mr. Lester was?
  Mr. Eden: No, Sir. I rather hoped that the hon. Gentleman would not say that. I have had no report showing that, and I think that the position is better.
  Sir Archibald Sinclair: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is free access on the part of citizens of Danzig to the High Commissioner?
  Mr. Eden: I am afraid I cannot say without notice. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes for a report, I will try to get one, but the new High Commissioner is working under different conditions in some respects from those of his predecessor, and I understand that the position is easier.
  Mr. Vyvyan Adams: What prospect is there of fresh elections being held in Danzig at an early date?
  Mr. Eden: That is another question, which depends on the Constitution.
  Mr. Adams: Did not the High Commissioner accept office on condition that they should be held fairly soon?
  Mr. Eden: No, Sir.

  JIBUTI-ADDIS ABABA RAILWAY.
  Lieut.-Commander Fletcherasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any official or semi-official talks are in progress concerning the status of the Jibuti-Addis Ababa railway?
  Mr. Eden: Not so far as I am aware.

  NORTHERN CHINA (SITUATION).
  Mr. Dayasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the present position in Northern China; and whether the reports received by his Department give any particulars of the progress made with the disbandment of the various military forces?
  Mr. Eden: The present situation in Northern China, according to the latest reports received, is quiet, and the troops formerly under the command of Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang are being moved from the neighbourhood of Sian to the provinces of Honan, Anhwei and Kiangsu. I have not received reports of the disbandment of any military forces.
  Mr. Day: Are we to understand from those reports that hostilities are still going on in Northern China?
  Mr. Eden: The situation is quiet, but I am not quite sure what that means in Northern China.

  TRIPOLI (BRITISH SUBJECT'S IMPRISONMENT).
  Mr. Gallacherasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that Mr. Robert Ghirlando, a British subject sentenced in Tripoli last March to three and a-half years' imprisonment for remarks hostile to the conduct of Italian troops in Abyssinia, is now released from prison; that in the meantime his business has been destroyed and he is destitute; and whether His Majesty's representatives in Tripoli will take steps to secure compensation for Mr. Ghirlando?
  Mr. Eden: As I informed the hon. Member on 4th May last, Mr. Ghirlando, on the advice of his lawyers, did not appeal to the Higher Court, but forwarded a petition to the proper authorities for the cancellation or reduction of the sentence imposed upon him. As I informed my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cleveland (Commander Bower) on 22nd June, the petition was successful and Mr. Ghirlando was released on 12th June. The course taken in this case by the petitioner precludes His Majesty's Government from taking steps to secure compensation; I am, however, doing what is possible to secure for Mr. Ghirlando an offer of alternative employment.

  LONDON NAVAL TREATY, 1936 (JAPAN).
  Lieut.-Commander Fletcherasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received an official intimation as to whether or not Japan will
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  accept the 14-inch gun limit proposed by the London Naval Treaty, 1936?
  Mr. Eden: Yes, Sir. The Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs communicated to His Majesty's Ambassador at Tokyo on 27th March the reply of the Japanese Government declining to accept the 14-inch gun limitation for future capital ships.
  Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: Are there any communications in process between this country and the United States of America arising out of this decision?
  Mr. Eden: We have communicated this decision to the other negotiators in respect of the London Treaty.
  Lieut.-Commander Fletcher: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, arising out of this decision of the Japanese Government, the value of the London Naval Treaty of 1936 is now practically nil?
  Mr. Eden: No, Sir, I would not at all assume that.
  Mr. A. V. Alexander: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is intended to ask for a revision of the conditions of the London Treaty?
  Mr. Eden: No, Sir, that is not the intention at present.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    NEW CRUISERS.
    Mr. Alexanderasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether work has yet been commenced on the two "Dido" class cruisers of the 1936 new construction programme allocated to Chatham and Portsmouth dockyards?
    The First Lord of the Admiralty (Sir Samuel Hoare): Orders were issued for the building of these cruisers to commence on 15th March, 1937, but it has now been found necessary, owing to present and prospective demands for ship repair and other work at Chatham and Portsmouth, to defer the commencement of work on the vessels until later in the year. In the circumstances, contracts have been allotted for the two "Dido" class cruisers of the 1937 programme, orders for which, in the normal course, would have been placed towards the end of the year.
    Mr. Alexander: Do we understand, then, that these ships are not to be built in the Government dockyards?
    Sir S. Hoare: No, Sir. It is a question of re-arranging the dates, and it does so happen that the Government dockyards at the moment are full up with a great deal of unexpected repair work. That means that we are ante-dating the contracts of the "Didos" and we are postponing the dockyard built "Didos" until the dockyards are ready to take them.
    Colonel Gretton: Can my right hon. Friend say at what date these two cruisers will actually be commenced?
    Sir S. Hoare: I think, at once. I am not sure to which two cruisers my right hon. and gallant Friend refers.
    Colonel Gretton: The two cruisers referred to in the question.
    Sir S. Hoare: At once.

    OIL DISCHARGE (SEPARATORS).
    Mr. Dayasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the new ships that are being built for His Majesty's Navy will be fitted with separators for the purpose of preventing the discharge of oily refuse into the sea, thus affecting the birds?
    Sir S. Hoare: All the large ships now under construction are being fitted with separators.
    Mr. Day: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, when the other ships are constructed, they will be fitted with separators?
    Sir S. Hoare: No, Sir. I am informed that it is the large ships that matter. The hon. Member will remember that there is a general prohibition against discharging oil from any ships within, I think, 50 miles of the coast. That remains. It is a general prohibition, and, as far as the large ships are concerned, we think that it is a sufficient provision.
    Mr. George Griffiths: Will the Admiralty consider the desirability of using coal instead of oil, and then these birds will not be affected?

    SOUND-FILM EQUIPMENT.
    Mr. Dayasked the First Lord of the Admiralty particulars of what provisions are being made for the installation of
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    sound-film cinematograph apparatus on the new ships that are being built for His Majesty's Navy?
    Sir S. Hoare: I have nothing at present to add to my answer to a similar question on 24th February.
    Mr. Day: Will the Minister assure the House that, if sound-film apparatus is introduced into the ships, it will be of British manufacture?
    Sir S. Hoare: I will certainly remember the hon. Member's point.

    DOCKYARDS (DISMISSALS).
    Mr. Ede (for Mr. Kelly)asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, as a result of the investigation into the case of the five men dismissed from the dockyards, the men will be informed of the reasons for their dismissal?
    Sir S. Hoare: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given by the Prime Minister to the hon. Member for Shore-ditch (Mr. Thurtle) on 8th February.
    Mr. Paling: Is the statement in the newspapers true that the names of these men have been circulated by Government Departments and that they are not finding work anywhere else?
    Sir S. Hoare: I cannot answer that question without notice?
    Mr. Gallacher: Will the right hon. Gentleman not consider reinstating these men?

  WEST INDIES.

    CUBA (IMMIGRANT LABOUR).
    Mr. Lunnasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any information he can give to the House regarding the stranded condition of more than 100,000 British West-Indian negro labourers in the republic of Cuba; and whether he is aware that the Cuban Government is insisting that these British subjects should be repatriated from the republic?
    The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): According to the most recent information received from His Majesty's Minister at Havana, the suggestion that more than ioo,000 British West Indian labourers are in a stranded condition in Cuba bears no relation to the facts, nor is it the case that the Cuban

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    Government are insisting that they should be repatriated. The effects of the Cuban Government's attitude towards immigrant labour have hitherto been felt not so much by the British West Indian field worker, several thousand of whom are finding profitable employment in Cuba, as by office workers, who have had to give up their posts to Cubans. Some of these are in a state of destitution and are being gradually repatriated with the assistance of the British West Indian Governments under the supervision of His Majesty's Consulate-General at Havana.
    Mr. Lunn: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the numbers that are in a state of destitution?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I have asked for the numbers, but I have not got them yet. They are largely clerical workers.

    BANANA CROPS (PANAMA DISEASE).
    Lieut.-Commander Fletcherasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether his attention has been called to the increase of Panama disease among the banana crops of the West Indies; and whether, in these circumstances, he will agree to nothing at the International Sugar Conference which will reduce the ability of these islands to absorb unemployed natives in increased sugar production?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I am only too well aware of the spread of Panama disease, particularly in Jamaica, and of the difficulties which threaten to arise there in consequence; but having regard to the considerations referred to in my reply to the hon. Member for Clayton (Mr. Jagger) on 24th March, I cannot give an unqualified pledge in the sense requested.

    RUM (IMPORT DUTIES).
    Sir Patrick Hannonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the duty in the United States on standard rum made in Jamaica as compared with the duty in the United Kingdom tends to continuous increase of United States export trade to Jamaica; and whether he will consider a modification of existing duties on the import of rum to this country so as to encourage larger purchases of British goods by West Indian colonies?
    Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The conclusion drawn in the first part of the question is not one which would appear to be
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    borne out in fact. My hon. Friend will, no doubt, appreciate that the question of the duties levied on spirits imported into this country is one for the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

  AIRPORTS (FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE).
  Mr. Roland Robinsonasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air, what financial assistance it is proposed to give to municipalities and other owners of airports?
  The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Sir Philip Sassoon): The Maybury Committee, whose recommendations the Government have accepted in principle, reported definitely against the direct grant of a State subsidy to civil aerodromes. Government assistance for civil aviation should take the form, they considered, of the provision of radio facilities and an air traffic control organisation. Financial assistance for municipal or other airport owners is, therefore, not in contemplation.
  Mr. Robinson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that practically every municipal-owned airport in this country is operating at a heavy loss, and that these commitments were entered into as the result of the direct encouragement from the Government; and does he not think that it is time that some real measure of assistance was given to them?
  Sir P. Sassoon: I have given the answer.
  Mr. Robinson: In view of the very unsatisfactory reply of the Under-Secretary of State, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

  ELECTRICITY SUPPLY.
  Mr. Edeasked the Minister of Transport whether he has yet circulated to the associations he intends consulting his proposals for legislation on the supply side of the electrical industry, and, if not, when he expects to circulate them; and will he simultaneously publish the proposals so that the consuming public may have knowledge of them?
  The Minister of Transport (Mr. Hore-Belisha): In accordance with the statement I made in the House, I have now circulated to associations representative of

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  electricity supply, of local authorities and of industry and agriculture who are interested on behalf of consumers, a memorandum outlining the proposals of His Majesty's Government for reorganising electricity supply. I do not propose to publish the memorandum.
  Mr. Ede: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the difficulties that are created in local authorities when a Member may desire to discuss this matter at a meeting of the authority, if he has to refer to a document which is still regarded as confidential?
  Mr. Hore-Belisha: I shall be happy to consider any representations which the hon. Member may make to me. I have circulated a memorandum to the representative bodies, and, of course, they will consult their constituent bodies. If there is any difficulty, I am most anxious to remove it.
  Mr. G. Griffiths: Why has not the right hon. Gentleman circulated the Trades Union Congress? He has circulated about 18 or 20 bodies. Why has he left out the Trades Union Congress?
  Mr. Hore-Belisha: If the Trades Union Congress desire to make representations, I shall be only too happy to have them. My one desire has been to circulate the representative bodies interested in electricity supply.
  Mr. Griffiths: The Trades Union Congress are interested—very much so.

  TRUNK ROADS (LIGHTING AND FOOTPATHS).
  Mr. Edeasked the Minister of Transport whether he has yet formulated any proposals for the more adequatee and uniform lighting of the roads for which he is now the highway authority; and whether he has taken any steps to secure the co-operation of the lighting authorities and the electricity and gas undertakers concerned?
  Mr. Hore-Belisha: A survey of the needs of 4,500 miles of trunk roads will necessarily take a considerable time, and lighting cannot be separated from other questions of layout and construction relating to the modernisation of these highways. In any case, a satisfactory policy
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  in relation to lighting cannot be formulated until the Departmental Committee on Street Lighting have made their final report.
  Mr. Edeasked the Minister of Transport the number of miles of trunk roads for which he is the highway authority on which he proposes to provide footpaths during the year ending 31st March, 1938?
  Mr. Hore-Belisha: In advance of the survey I cannot say with precision, but I hope 120 in the current year.

  IRON ORE (IMPORTS FROM NEWFOUNDLAND).
  Mr. Louis Smithasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that iron ore in very large quantities is being purchased from Russia, whereas in Newfoundland there is one of the largest iron ore mines in the Empire; and whether his Department will ascertain the possibility of exploiting the mineral wealth of our own Empire rather than that of foreign countries?
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Dr. Burgin): I have no information that iron ore is being purchased from Russia, but I am informed that substantial quantities of iron ore are being imported this year from Newfoundland where the mines are now fully occupied.
  Mr. Smith: While thanking my hon. Friend for his reply, may I ask whether he will get into touch with the industrial association concerned, and see whether a greater tonnage of iron ore cannot be imported from Newfoundland during the next year or two?
  Mr. Paling: Have we not some Commissioners in Newfoundland who are supposed to look after the interests of that Dominion?
  Dr. Burgin: All the iron ore that can be got from Newfoundland is being imported.

  DEFENCE.

    FOOD SUPPLIES.
    Major Stourtonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make a statement on the progress

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    made in the storage of wheat and other essential foodstuffs in order to provide for a possible national emergency?
    Dr. Burgin: My right hon. Friend will carefully consider my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion, but he is not in a position at present to make a statement such as is suggested.

    AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS.
    Major Stourtonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department to what extent underground protection would be made available to the civilian population of London in the event of an air attack?
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): Where accommodation exists below ground level which can be suitably protected against splinters, falling debris and poison gas, the occupiers of premises will be advised to make use of it. As, however, underground accommodation is rarely proof against a direct hit by a high explosive bomb, the overriding consideration in the choice of air raid refuges must be to keep the population well dispersed in splinter-proof and gas-proof accommodation, whether it is below or above ground level.

    ARMAMENTS MANUFACTURE (PROFITS).
    Mr. Manderasked the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence the maximum and minimum limits of profit permitted to contractors for the rearmament programme?
    The Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence (Sir Thomas (Inskip): For reasons which the hon. Member will readily appreciate, I think it would be contrary to the public interest to give the information asked in the question.
    Mr. Mander: Is there such a thing as a definitely fixed maximum of profit?
    Sir T. Inskip: I have previously stated that no maximum or minimum profit is fixed. The profit has to be settled in each case in relation to the particular job in question.
    Mr. Mander: Is it possible to say the highest amount of profit permitted in any one case?
    Sir T. Inskip: No, and it would be most undesirable, because every contractor would then desire a profit which would be wholly excessive in his particular case.
    Sir A. Sinclair: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the White Paper which is to deal with this question and with the recommendations of the Royal Commission on this question will be published? I mean the White Paper which was promised two or three weeks before Easter.
    Sir T. Inskip: The right hon. Gentleman had better ask that question in another quarter.
    Mr. Shinwell: If it were discovered that excessive profits were being made, would it not be open to the Government to deal with the matter?
    Sir T. Inskip: That is a purely hypothetical question. The profits are in many cases, or the rate of profit that is to be added to the cost incurred, are very often not settled until the job has been finished.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is not my question bound to be hypothetical, and also every other question until the right hon. Gentleman reveals the facts?
    Sir T. Inskip: I have stated on many occasions in the fullest detail the principles upon which prices are fixed in Government contracts.
    Sir A. Sinclair: In view of the anxiety which exists in many parts of the House, may I ask the Prime Minister when the White Paper which he promised about a fortnight before Easter is to be published?
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Baldwin): Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will put that question down.
    Sir A. Sinclair: We have put the question down on more than one occasion. We were told two or three weeks before Easter that it was to be published. May we now know when it is to be published?
    The Prime Minister: That does not help me to answer a question of which I have not had notice.
    Sir A. Sinclair: I have given notice.

    GERMAN MACHINERY (BRITISH ORDERS).
    Mr. Manderasked the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence the amount of orders placed in Germany for machinery this year?
    Sir T. Inskip: I am advised that since 1st January, 1937, the Defence Departments have placed with German firms through British agents orders amounting to about £62,000. In addition, orders to the amount of about £168,000 are known to have been placed in Germany for what are called shadow factories. I regret that information is not available as to orders placed by private firms in Germany, whether for their own purposes or for the purposes of the Defence programme.
    Mr. Mander: Is it not possible to equip the shadow factories other than by purchasing the materials in Germany?
    Sir T. Inskip: Every effort is made to equip the shadow factories at the earliest possible moment and, broadly speaking, they have been equipped from British sources, but in particular cases it has been thought desirable to get equipment from other countries.
    Mr. Thorne: Is this machinery which is being obtained from Germany machinery that cannot be made in this country?
    Sir T. Inskip: I am not prepared to answer a general question. Generally speaking, machines ordered from Germany are either machines of a special class or machines which can be delivered at an earlier date than the same machines in this country.
    Mr. Thorne: Are there any special tools ordered in Germany?
    Sir T. Inskip: I cannot answer that without notice. The hon. Member will see that only a comparatively small amount is involved and that the orders for Government purchases have been placed in this country.
    Mr. Bellenger: May I ask whether in the case of the replacement of this machinery from Germany for shadow factories it will also have to come from Germany in due course?
    Sir T. Inskip: As I understand, that by no means follows.
    Mr. Alexander: Will the right hon. Gentleman lay a White Paper showing the class of machinery which is being ordered from Germany?
    Mr. H. G. Williams: Is not the right hon. Gentleman gratified with this outburst of protectionist enthusiasm on the part of hon. Members opposite?
    Mr. Stephen: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many German engineers have been employed in connection with these orders?
    Sir T. Inskip: I cannot say. In reply to the right hon. Gentleman I am not aware that any class of machinery has been ordered, but particular machines have been ordered in some cases.
    Mr. Alexander: May we have the particulars?
    Sir T. Inskip: I will consider whether I can get a list if the right hon. Gentleman thinks it is of any importance. I should hardly have thought it was worth a White Paper.
    Mr. Alexander: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many private firms are being held up over licences and tariffs and we should like to know what is being done by special orders?
    Sir T. Inskip: My information does not agree with that of the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. V. Adams: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that this country has the fullest possible control over its own rearmament?

  HOUSE OF COMMONS (MEMBERS' ALLOWANCE).
  Sir Assheton Pownallasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that, under the regulations affecting the salaries of civil servants, those who would prior to the War have drawn £400 per annum now receive £515; and whether he will take steps to have the question of Members' salaries reconsidered with a view to their being given somewhat similar increases?
  The Prime Minister: As compared with pre-war rates there has been an increase, in money terms, of the remuneration of the several Services of the Crown. But I can see no close analogy between Government employment

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  and membership of the House of Commons. As regards the second part of the question, I note the suggestion made by my hon. and gallant Friend, but I should not care to commit myself to any statement upon it until I have made further inquiries.
  Sir A. Pownall: Does the Prime Minister realise the difficulties in view of an increase of, roughly speaking, 50 per cent. in the cost of living since this sum of £400 was fixed, especially in the case of Members who live at a distance from London and therefore have to keep a home in the country, or in Scotland or Wales, and have to be in London four days in each week?
  The Prime Minister: I shall want notice of that question.
  Mr. Bellenger: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what form the inquiry will take, and whether he proposes to endeavour to arrive at some definite decision at an early date?
  The Prime Minister: It will be exactly the form of inquiry which will lead most directly to the end I have in view.
  Mr. Gallacher: When the right hon. Gentleman is considering the difficulties of Members of Parliament, will he also consider the difficulties of people living on the means test?
  Mr. Bellenger: Will the right hon. Gentleman disclose what end he has in view?
  The Prime Minister: The hon. Member will have an opportunity of putting a question later.

  NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM (ROYAL OPENING).
  Rear-Admiral Beamishasked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement concerning the National Maritime Museum?
  The Prime Minister: His Majesty the King has graciously consented to open the National Maritime Museum on 27th April. He will be accompanied by Her Majesty the Queen. Their Majesties will proceed to Greenwich from Westminster Pier in an admiral's barge, escorted by motor torpedo boats. Representatives of all aspects of the maritime life of the country will attend the opening ceremony.

  MALAYA (RUBBER ESTATES, WAGES).
  Mr. Ede (for Mr. Kelly)asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the rate of wages in English money values now being paid to the native rubber workers in Malaya?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: As the information involves a statement of particulars for different categories of labour, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate the full reply in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Mr. Paling: Are not the wages of these natives particularly low, especially when prices have increased by 100 per cent.? In view of the fact that these rubber planters exercise what is virtually a monopoly, will the right hon. Gentleman ask the committee to see that decent wages are paid to the people who work for them?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I do not know to what committee the hon. Member refers. He will see from the reply that the minimum wages have recently been raised between the Government of Malaya and the Government of India. These are not natives of Malaya. The bulk of the labour employed is of immigrants from India on temporary contracts, and the rates of wages are fixed between the Government of India and the Government of Malaya irrespective of anything to do with the rubber planters.
  Mr. Paling: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us any idea of the average daily wage?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I have in the answer.
  Mr. Paling: Is it so long that is cannot be given in the House?
  Following is the statement:
  The rates of wages at present being paid to the various categories of labour on rubber estates in Malaya are approximately (in sterling exchange):

  Per day.

  s.

  d.

  Indian Males

  …

  1

  2

  Indian Females

  …

  11¼

  Chinese

  …

  1

  9

  These rates for Indian workers are the standard rates which were fixed between the local Government and the Government of India, and came into operation

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  on 1st April, 1937. The rates represent an increase of approximately 1½d. in the case of males and slightly over 1d. in the case of females, over the wages which were previously paid. The rates for Chinese tappers have progressively increased in recent months and the above figure represents the present minimum scale. In some districts higher rates are being paid.
  In addition to wages the following statutory perquisites are provided by employers:

  (a) Free housing, of a type approved by Government, for labourers and their dependants.

  (b) An adequate supply of good water.

  (c) Free hospital and medical treatment, including diet for labourers and their dependants and free transport to hospital.

  (d) Free allotment of 1/16th of an acre, to be cleared at the expense of the employer, to every labourer of six months' service who has dependants.

  (e) Maternity allowance for women.

  (f) Free nursery for infants, with a supply of free milk and rice on estates where more than 50 women are employed.

  (g) School, maintained at the expense of the employer of the estate where 10 or more children betwen the ages of 7 to 14 reside.

  (h) Rice may be supplied at cost price by the employer, should the labourer desire.

  (This is usually done in the case of Indians, but not in the case of Chinese.)

  UNEMPLOYMENT.

    AGRICULTURAL WORKERS.
    Mr. H. G. Williamsasked the Minister of Labour whether his attention has been drawn to the difference between the number of agricultural workers insured against unemployment and the number recorded last June in the agricultural statistics; and whether he can furnish any explanation of this difference?
    The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Brown): This difference is accounted for mainly by the inclusion in the agricultural statistics of uninsured persons such as relatives of farmers and persons over
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    65 years of age. I should point out, however, that complete information as to the number of workers insured under the agricultural scheme will not be available until after the general exchange of unemployment books next July.

    UNEMPLOYMENT FUND.
    Mr. H. G. Williamsasked the Minister of Labour the surplus of the Unemployment Fund on 31st March, 1937?
    Mr. E. Brown: The financial condition of the Unemployment Fund at the end of last year was dealt with in the recent report of the Unemployment Insurance Statutory Committee. On 31st March, 1937, the Unemployment Fund had a total balance of about 43,700,000, but this is not properly described as a surplus.
    Mr. Williams: Is the interest which is received on this surplus greater or less than the interest paid on the debt?
    Mr. Brown: Perhaps the hon. Member will put that question down.
    Mr. Maxton: How much of the 43,000,000 can be described as surplus?
    Mr. R. Robinson: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider using some of this surplus for improving conditions?
    Mr. Brown: We took steps about a year ago, as the hon. Member knows.

    EXCHANGE BRANCH MANAGERS.
    Mr. Kellyasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that branch managers of Employment Exchanges are not allowed any holidays with pay, or sick leave with pay, yet, if absent from the work, the branch manager must find an approved deputy and pay such deputy 10s. per day; and whether he will consider a scheme for allowing leave with pay?
    Mr. E. Brown: There is no stipulation with regard to the payment to be made to a deputy appointed by a branch manager, but a deduction of 10s. a day is made from a branch manager's remuneration in cases where an officer of the Ministry is placed temporarily in charge of his office. In reply to the second part of the question, I would refer to the answer which I gave to previous questions on 18th March.
    Mr. Kelly: Why have instructions been issued that deputies must be paid this figure when the salary of the person concerned does not permit of such an amount going out of his salary?
    Mr. Brown: I cannot accept that way of putting the case. These appointments are in the nature of sub-contractors, and they differ from place to place according to the size of the office and the nature of the work to be done.

  SPAIN.
  Mr. Attlee(by Private Notice) asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can give the House any information regarding the report that His Majesty's ship "Gallant" was twice attacked by insurgent war planes off the coast of Spain yesterday, and what action he proposes to take in the matter.
  Sir S. Hoare: Yes, Sir. Reports have been received that His Majesty's ship "Gallant," whilst on passage yesterday between Valencia and Alicante, was twice abortively attacked by bombing aircraft belonging to the Spanish insurgent authorities, presumably in mistake for a Spanish destroyer belonging to the Government forces. No damage was caused to His Majesty's ship. In accordance with instruction which had been issued to His Majesty's ships to protect themselves against attacks of this character, fire was opened upon the insurgent aircraft. Steps have been taken to bring the matter to the notice of the Spanish insurgent authorities. I am not yet in a position to make any further statement.
  Mr. Thurtle: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many rounds were fired and how many hits were recorded?
  Sir S. Hoare: No, Sir. The aeroplanes were flying at a great height, and it is impossible to say whether they were hit or not. They were driven away by the fire of His Majesty's Ship "Gallant."

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. Attlee: May I ask the Prime Minister what business he proposes to take to-night?
The Prime Minister: It is hoped to get the Second Reading of the Physical Training and Recreation Bill, and the Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution. If there is time before Eleven o'clock, we shall move the Second Reading of the Statutory Salaries Bill. There is a private Bill down for half-past seven, which, I understand, will not take very long.
Mr. Tinker: If the Statutory Salaries Bill goes on after Eleven o'clock, how long does the right hon. Gentleman intend that the House shall sit?
The Prime Minister: I think we had better wait and see how we get on. I do not anticipate any difficulty.
Motion made, and Question put,
"That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this. day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]
The House divided: Ayes, 206; Noes; 110.

Division No. 128.]

AYES.

[3.20 p.m.

Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke

Bowyer, Capt. Sir G. E. W.

Colfox, Major W. P.

Acland-Troytt, Lt.-Col. G. J.

Boyce, H. Leslie

Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J.

Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)

Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)

Cook, Sir T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)

Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.

Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)

Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)

Allen, Lt.-Col. Sir W. J. (Armagh)

Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)

Cooper, Rt. Hn. A. Duff (W'st'r S.G'gs)

Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.)

Bull, B. B.

Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)

Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

Burgin, Dr. E. L.

Courtauld, Major J. S.

Assheton, R.

Campbell, Sir E. T.

Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.

Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)

Cartland, J. R. H.

Critchley, A.

Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley

Carver, Major W. H.

Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

Baillie, Sir A. W. M.

Castlereagh, Viscount

Croom-Johnson, R. P.

Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.

Cayzer, Sir C. W. (City of Chester)

Cross, R. H.

Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanel)

Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)

Crossley, A. C.

Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)

Cruddas, Col. B.

Bennett, Sir E. N.

Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. N. (Edgb't'n)

Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)

Bernays, R. H.

Channon, H.

Denman, Hon. R. D.

Birchall, Sir J. D.

Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)

Denville, Alfred

Blindell, Sir J.

Christie, J. A.

Draws, C.

Bossom, A. C.

Clarke, F. E. (Dartford)

Duckworth, Arthur (Shrewsbury)

Boulton, W. W.

Clarke, Lt.-Col. R. S. (E. Grinstead)

Dugdale, Major T. L.

Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart

Cobb, Captain E. C. (Preston)

Duggan, H. J.

Duncan, J. A. L.

Keeling, E. H.

Rathbone, Eleanor (English Univ's.)

Edge, Sir W.

Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)

Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

Reid, Sir D. D. (Dawn)

Elliston, Capt. G. S.

Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.

Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

Elmley, Viscount

Latham, Sir P.

Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

Emmott, C. E. G. C.

Leckie, J. A.

Roberts, W (Cumberland, N.)

Entwistle, Sir C. F.

Leech, Dr. J. W.

Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

Erskine-Hill, A. G.

Leigh, Sir J.

Ropner, Colonel L.

Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)

Leighton, Major B. E. P.

Rowlands, G.

Findlay, Sir E.

Levy, T.

Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)

Ganzoni, Sir J.

Lindsay, K. M.

Samuel, M. R. A.

George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)

Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.

Sandeman, Sir N. S.

Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir J.

Lloyd, G. W.

Sandys, E. D.

Grant-Farris, R.

Lumley, Capt. L. R.

Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir P.

Granville, E. L.

Lyons, A. M.

Scott, Lord William

Grattan-Doyle, sir N.

MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Soot. U.)

Seely, Sir H. M.

Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.

MacDonaid, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)

Shakespeare, G. H.

Cridloy, Sir A. B.

Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)

Shepperson, Sir E. W.

Grimston, R. V.

McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.

Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.

Guinness, T. L. E. B.

McKie, J. H.

Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's U. B'lf'st)

Guy, J. C. M.

Maclay, Hon. J. P.

Smith, L. W. (Hallam)

Hannah, I. C.

Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.

Somerset, T.

Hannon, Sir P. J. H.

Magnay, T.

Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)

Harbord, A.

Maitland, A.

Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

Harris, Sir P. A.

Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.

Southby, Commander A. R. J.

Harrington, Marquess of

Mander, G. le M.

Spears, Brigadier-General E. L.

Harvey, T. E. (Eng. Univ's.)

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

Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'l'd)

Haslam, H. C. (Horncastle)

Mayhow, Lt.-Col. J.

Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.

Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)

Mills, Sir F. (Layton, E.)

Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)

Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

Mills, Major J. D. (Now Forest)

Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.

Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)

Sutcliffe, H.

Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-

Moreing, A. C.

Touche, G. C,

Hoare, Rt. Hon. Sir S.

Morgan, R. H.

Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.

Holdsworth, H.

Morris-Jones, Sir Henry

Wallace, Capt. Rt. Hon. Euan

Holmes, J. S.

Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)

Warrender, Sir V.

Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

Munro, P.

Waterhouse, Captain C.

Hopkinton, A.

Nail, Sir J.

Watt, G. S. H.

Hore-Belisha, Rt. Hon. L.

Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.

Wedderburn, H. J. S.

Horsbrugh, Florence

Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

White, H. Graham

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

Nicholson, G. (Farnham)

Wiekham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.

Hudson, R. S. (Southport)

Palmer, G. E. H.

Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)

Hulbert, N. J.

Patrick, C. M.

Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

Hume, Sir G. H.

Peat, C. U.

Womersley, Sir W. J.

Hunter, T.

Peters, Dr. S. J.

Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley

Hurd, Sir P. A.

Pilkington, R.

Young, A. S. L. (Partick)

Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir T. W. H.

Porritt, R. W.

Jarvis, Sir J. J.

Radford, E. A.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

Ramsbotham, H.

Sir George Penny and "Lieut.-

Jones, L. (Swansea W.)

Rankin, Sir R.

Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward.

NOES.

Adams, D. (Consett)

Grenfell, D. R.

Maxton, J.

Adamson, W. M.

Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

Montague, F.

Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)

Groves, T. E.

Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)

Ammon, C. G.

Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)

Muff, G.

Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

Noel-Baker, P. J.

Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

Hardie, G. D.

Paling, W.

Banfield, J. W.

Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

Parker, J.

Barr, J.

Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

Parkinson, J. A.

Batey, J.

Jagger, J.

Potts, J.

Bellenger, F. J.

Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)

Pritt, D. N.

Benn, Rt. Hon. W. W.

Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

Quibell, D. J. K.

Bromfield, W.

John, W.

Richards. R. (Wrexham)

Brown, C. (Mansfield)

Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.

Ridley, G.

Charleton, H. C.

Jones, A. C. (Shipley)

Riley, B.

Chater, D.

Jones, J. J. (Silvertown)

Ritson, J.

Cluse, W. S.

Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)

Cove, W. G.

Kelly, W. T.

Rowson, G.

Dagger, G.

Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

Sexton. T. M.

Dalton, H.

Kirby, B. V.

Shinwell, E.

Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

Kirkwood, D.

Short, A.

Davits, S. O. (Morthyr)

Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G

Silverman, S. S.

Day, H.

Lawson, J. J.

Simpson, F. B.

Dobbie, W.

Leach, W.

Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

Leonard, W.

Smith, E. (Stoke)

Ede, J. C.

Leslie, J. R.

Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees (K'ly)

Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

Logan, D. G.

Smith, T. (Normanton)

Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.

Lunn, W.

Sorensen, R. W.

Gallacher, W.

Macdonald, G. (Ince)

Stephen, C.

Gardner, B. W

McEntee, V. La T.

Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)

Gibbins, J.

McGhee, H. G.

Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)

Gibson, R. (Greenock)

McGovern, J.

Thorne, W.

Green, W. H. (Deptford)

Maclean, N.

Thurtle, E.

Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.

Mainwaring, W. H.

Tinker, J. J.

188

189

Viant, S. P.

Wilkinson, Ellen

Young, Sir R. (Newton)

Walter, J.

Williams, D. (Swansea, E.)

Watkins, F. C.

Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

Walton, W. McL.

Wilton, C. H. (Attercliffe)

Mr. Mathers and Mr. Whiteley.

Westwood, J.

Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

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

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  PHYSICAL TRAINING AND RECREATION BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  3.28 p.m.
  The President of the Board of Education (Mr. Oliver Stanley): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  In moving the Second Reading of this Bill, I am in a certain difficulty. The whole plan of the Government for dealing with this question of physical training was published some weeks ago in a White Paper, and the House will remember that shortly after the issue of that White Paper we had a full discussion upon it in Committee. The whole matter, therefore, has already been debated, and the Bill, the Second Reading of which I am now moving, neither adds anything to the scheme nor makes any variation in it. It is simply to give the statutory authority to those parts of the scheme which were published in the White Paper, but which cannot be carried out by administrative methods. To a certain extent, therefore, it is inevitable that my speech to-day should cover some of the ground which I covered on that previous occasion, and I regret that I can think of no method of enlivening it. During the years I have been in the House, I have seen several experiments on the part of hon. Members. I have seen hon. Members who produced bottles from their pockets or pieces of stuff which they waved to the House, and of course, if the same privilege were extended to me and it were possible at some period during my speech to call upon the Front Bench to give a practical demonstration[HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"]—it would enable the House to see us trying to touch those toes which from some of us for years have been concealed. It would, I think, dispense with any need for a peroration, but I am afraid, you, Mr. Speaker, would not allow it.
  Therefore, I propose to commence by giving a brief explanation of the actual Clauses of the Bill and to end by making some rather more general observations on the whole purposes of the scheme. Hon. Members will realise that the Bill applies to England, Wales and Scotland, and
  194
  although in my remarks I shall be speaking exclusively about England and Wales, it will be realised that everything which I say about that scheme will apply mutatis mutandis to Scotland, and one of my hon. Friends from Scotland will be available during the Debate to answer any specifically Scottish points which may be raised.
  Clause r simply gives statutory authority to the National Advisory Council. That body is already in existence and has been at work since 1st March. I explained during the last Debate what the composition of that Council was to be, although I was not then in a position to say who the Members were. I explained then that members of the Council were not to be nominated as representatives by various bodies, but were to be invited as individuals, by the Prime Minister to act on the Council, and, of course, that they would owe their invitations to the fact that they could bring to the scheme some particular knowledge, or some particular help, whether it was knowledge of and prowess in athletics, knowledge of the work of voluntary bodies, knowledge of the work of local associations or knowledge of the work of physical training in the more technical sense.
  Immediately after the issue of the White Paper, the Prime Minister sent out invitations to 31 individuals. It says much for the importance which they attached to this scheme and the part which the Advisory Council were to play in it, that answers were received to all those invitations within a few days and that every answer was an acceptance. I am sure the House will be glad to know that several hon. Members found themselves able to accept invitations to serve upon this council. They are hon. Members who on many political questions would find the widest divergence between their views, and it is satisfactory that they should feel that here is a field in which they can co-operate with each other. General recognition has been given to the composition of the Advisory Council, and there is also general recognition of the fact that it is an important, an experienced and a varied body. I am sure I speak on behalf of the Government as a whole and of the House, when I tender our gratitude to them.
  The number of members of the council had to be restricted. Everybody understands the difficulty of working councils

  195
  which grow too large in numbers. There is a sort of inverse ratio between the amount of work done and the number of members involved. It was, therefore, felt important that the number should be strictly limited. That, of course, has meant that many individuals have had to be left off the council whom one would have liked to have had on it, because of some special knowledge which they bring to the problem. Hon. Members will see, however, that in this Clause, which gives statutory authority to the National Council, power has been given to the council to co-opt outsiders on sub-committees in order that they may make use of outside knowledge on particular points.
  Although that power of co-option is one for the Council to exercise, there is a particular way in which, I think, it might be used, and in regard to which I want to make an appeal to them. The success of this Measure must depend to a large extent upon its reception by youth. Therefore, the most important appeal which we have to make is an appeal to youth. Most people will admit, without any derogation from those of older age, that an appeal to youth usually comes best from youth. Certainly on any question of physical training of this kind it comes best from those whose figures are still concave rather than from those whose figures have become convex. [Laughter] I hear the cap being audibly fitted by some hon. Gentleman behind me. I hope, therefore, that it will be possible to enlist the services of young men and women who have a name in the world of athletics and who have personality which will add to the appeal and assist in popularising this movement. I understand the National Council has already set up several committees which are at work, dealing with publicity and propaganda, and with the technical side of training, and above all, with the part of the work which is most important and at the same time most urgent, and that is the setting up of the local committees which form the subject of the second Clause of the Bill.
  If hon. Members look at Clause 2 they will see that it provides for a scheme of local committees which are to be composed in very much the same way as the National Council, that is to say, members will be invited to serve as individuals
  196
  and not as nominated representatives of various bodies. Just like the National Council they will reproduce, in the area, a sort of microcosm of all the interests concerned in a scheme of this kind—voluntary workers and local authorities, and all persons who are interested in a general way. I would like to emphasise that the local committees are not being set up just as part of the machinery for distributing Government funds. It is true that they will play an important part in that machinery, but they have functions which would be important, and, indeed, necessary, if there were no Government funds to be distributed and, therefore, no machinery for such a distribution. They will be able to create an interest and make a drive in the localities which it would be very difficult to do from a headquarters in London. They can provide the local knowledge; they will have the local interest and their names will carry more weight in their localities than those of a central body.
  Their tasks will be of several different kinds. There will be, first of all, the question of propaganda, of seeing that the possibilities of the scheme and its objects and aims are brought thoroughly home to the localities. Secondly, there is the task of reviewing existing facilities. This question of physical training is a subject of which we are statistically very ignorant, due to the fact that it has been in a large number of hands, part of it done by local authorities, part by education authorities, much of it by voluntary bodies, and there are no collected statistics which enable us to form a picture of what is now provided and still less of what the demands are and what additions therefore are required. Thirdly, it will be their duty to examine all proposals which are put up, either by voluntary bodies or by local authorities in the area, for receipt of Government assistance from the Grants Committee. Of course, if a local authority wants to proceed without an appeal to the Grants Committee, and simply be in receipt of the automatic grants which it may get under the Education Act, then there is no necessity to submit proposals; otherwise, all proposals for work in the neighbourhood must be submitted through these local bodies to the Grants Committee. Only by that method can we ensure that in any locality there is no overlapping and no waste, that the Grants Committee do not receive

  197
  two proposals to cover the same hit of work, while alongside is a bit of work for which there is no provision at all. But the local committee will have to bring forward those proposals to the Grants Committee. It will not be able to act as a sort of local guard and decide the matter itself, but it will forward them, with its comments on the desirability or on the undesirability of a particular scheme. Finally, it will fall to the local committee, in cases where gaps are revealed which nobody else is prepared to fill, to make what arrangements they can to see that the gap is filled, to see that an ad hoc body, if necessary, is formed which does make the application, and to which the Government grant can be given.
  I have been talking, in discussing the duties of the area committees, of the Grants Committee. That is set up under Clause 3. Already on a previous occasion I have explained at length the functions of that committee, and hon. Members will see that the objects for which they can recommend grants from the Board of Education are set out very fully in the Clause, which I do not think needs any explanation. There is only one point upon the Clause to which I need call attention, and that is the question of maintenance. It is not the object of this scheme that in general money should be devoted to maintenance, that is to say to the running of the institution, with the exception of the help that can be given to the training and supply of teachers. I feel that if there really is a sufficient demand in the locality for an organisation to start and for buildings to be erected, it ought to be possible in most cases for the locality, from either public or voluntary sources, to provide for the maintenance and the running of the building when its erection has been assisted by the Government. But although that is true, I believe, of the vast majority of areas in this country, there may be cases—hon. Members opposite will know of some—where it is not and where, whatever the local interest may be, however great the real local demand for facilities of this kind, neither from voluntary sources nor from public sources would sufficient money be forth-coming to maintain them. Therefore power has been retained, only to be used in exceptional circumstances, for giving assistance for the maintaining as well as
  198
  the erection of any of the objects specified. That power can only be exercised in the case of a voluntary body, because, of course, hon. Members will realise that where a local authority is acting in the capacity of an education authority, it will already automatically attract a 50 per cent. grant for maintenance of this particular work.
  I think I need add only one matter about the Grants Committee. Since the matter was last discussed in the House, Sir Henry Pelham, for long Permanent Secretary to the Board of Education, has accepted the position of Chairman. Sir Henry is known to many Members of this House, he has had 40 years' experience of dealing with local authorities, he has a unique knowledge of voluntary bodies, and the affection in which he is held in the board ensures smooth working between his committee and the board. I think that no more suitable person could have been found to take that position.
  Clause 4 is a machinery Clause, which deals with the powers of local authorities, and it is to some extent merely consolidation. Certain powers which the local authorities already possess under the Public Health Act and under the Museums and Gymnasiums Act, 1891, it is felt, are more appropriately re-enacted in this Bill, but there are some new powers, and the most important of them is the power given to a local authority—a local authority is described in Clause 9 —to provide throughout the area that sort of community centre which at the present moment a housing authority can provide on its own housing estate, but which a local authority is not able to provide anywhere else. That, I think, is an extension of power to local authorities which may be most useful.
  Clause 5 deals with the compulsory purchase of land and, for the purpose of this Bill, extends to all local authorities, other than parish councils, the machinery for the compulsory acquisition of land under the Local Government Act, 1933. Clause 6 remedies a difficulty under the Education Act. Under Section 86 of that Act it was possible for the local education authority to provide certain facilities for social recreation and for physical training, but there was a difference in their powers as to whether those facilities were being provided for boys and girls under 18 or for young men

  199
  and women over 18; if they were provided for the juveniles, their powers were unlimited, but if they were provided for those over 18, they could only be provided if they were attending educational institutions. We have struck that out under this Clause, and in future the education authorities will have the same power with regard to the provision of this kind of matters for people over 18 as they have long possessed for those under 18.
  Clause 7 deals with the setting up of the National College, and I regard this as one of the most important parts of the whole scheme. To a large extent the success of the scheme will depend upon the sort of leaders and instructors who can be provided, and to a large extent the quality of those leaders and instructors will depend upon this new National College. On the last occasion that we debated this matter I gave certain ideas of mine with regard to the college, its size, its curriculum and so on. Those preliminary ideas have now been worked out in full detail, and the whole scheme is ready for submission to the National Advisory Council and for their advice, and I hope very soon to be able to make a practical start with this college. The other Clauses of the Bill are largely of a machinery character, and although, of course, my hon. Friend, when he winds up the Debate, will be glad to answer any questions on it, I do not think there is any matter which calls now for explanation. I should, therefore, like to pass to some more general observations upon this scheme.
  Mr. George Griffiths: I see that Clause 10 gives power to district councils in Scotland, but Clause 9 does not appear to give power to urban district councils in England.
  Mr. Stanley: The hon. Member will see in Clause 9 the words "county district."
  If I may pass to some more general observations, I think I may say that both the objects and the details of this scheme have met with general approval. The scheme, after all, raises no issue of party politics. It is one of those rare, but for that reason all the more welcome, occasions when we can all co-operate with out any sacrifice of principle. I still hear criticisms that this scheme is militaristic
  200
  or, at least, totalitarian in character. Anyone who holds that view sincerely must be completely ignorant of contemporary developments on the Continent. It is true that during the last few years more publicity has been given to developments in the realm of physical training in Germany and Italy, and those developments may or may not be militaristic in character; but the leaders of this movement on the Continent have not been in the past, and are not now, those particular States. They are States like Sweden and Czechoslovakia, the democratic popular States which set an example to all Europe in the origin of these schemes, and which to-day yield place to none either in the enthusiasm that they evoke in those countries or in the success with which they are carried out.
  I think we can draw valuable lessons from the systems adopted in those countries, systems which have no element of compulsion in them, as we are determined to have no element of compulsion here; yet these systems are not applicable as a whole. What is suitable for one country can never be applied wholly to another. To try to translate the Swedish or the Czechoslovakian schemes into terms of England, Wales or Scotland will be to ignore all the developments of the last 20 or 30 years and the work that has already been done by local authorities and voluntary bodies, and all that experience and good will which have been built up in this country which we want not to sacrifice but to retain. It is interesting to look back on the history of the growth of physical culture in countries such as Sweden and Czechoslovakia and in this country and to see the very divergent lines upon which it has developed. I do not think it is true to say that there has been any less enthusiasm for physical exercises in this country than there has been in Scandinavia or Czechoslovakia; but whereas there they have from the start concentrated on the individual, on the training and development of the body of the individual, on rousing the pride of the individual in his own development, we have here concentrated on games, on the prowess and success of the individual or team. The danger of the latter is apparent. It is particularly apparent in a highly urbanised State. It is that the participant tends to degenerate into a spectator until you come to a period when too large a number,

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  after spending an afternoon at Goodison Park or an evening at the Oval, pleasantly feel that they have done their bit to make a fitter Britain. The defect of the former is that it tends to be dull. In a country where among athletes the competitive spirit survives in a thoroughly un-Marxian form, some spice of game and contest is necessary if people are to retain interest. We do not want under this scheme to substitute physical training for games. What we hope to do is to supplement games by physical training, and perhaps to find a happy medium for an all-round development.
  Some suspicion, I know, has been expressed with regard to the timing of the Government scheme. Why has it come out now just in the middle of a rearmament programme? The time of the Government's scheme has not been dictated by armaments or politics or even, I think, by the Government. It has been dictated by what has been going on for some years in the schools. As soon as had begun to put physical training in the schools on a different basis, as soon as it became, as the President of the National Union of Teachers said, part of the curriculum which the children enjoy most, it was inevitable that the children who enjoyed it when at school should want it when they left, that the demand would go on increasing, and that finally the Government would have to help in its supply.
  It is natural that public attention has so far been concentrated on the scheme largely from the health point of view. It is, of course, a most important and indispensable part of any campaign for a better and fitter Britain. Anyone can see that the effect of physical training has been the maintenance of fitness. The "Keep fit" slogan was one of the best ever invented. What is not so widely known is the remedial effect that physical training can have, that wise scientific training given under proper instruction and with a scientific basis behind it can do much to remedy some of those minor and, indeed, some of the major ills to which a highly civilised and industrialised society is liable. The habits of our civilisation do result in certain physical defects.
  Finally, I do not think that we can over-estimate the value to the individual and to his general health of creating for the individual an ideal of personal fitness,
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  making him feel that to be fit is his duty, and that to do his duty in that way is worth giving up something for, because it has results which are psychological just as much as they are physical. They develop his self-control and self-discipline just as much as they develop his muscles and his sinews. This approach to national health by means of physical training is not, of course, exclusive of the approach to national health on the lines of nutrition. It must not be exclusive of it; it has to be parallel to it. Attempts have been made in certain quarters to found arguments against this scheme upon a nutritional basis. Those arguments could only be valid if it could be shown that the great proportion of the community were so suffering from nutritional defects that physical training was not good for them or, indeed, was a positive disadvantage. I submit that any attempt to raise an argument of that kind is to paint a picture which is completely false.
  I will give only two illustrations. The other day the President of the National Union of Teachers was addressing the annual conference at Portsmouth, and he "took this topic of physical training in the schools as the basis for what, I thought, was a very wise and moderate speech. He specifically denied that there was in the schools any such general under-nutrition as would render children unable to profit from physical training. He called attention to one unsatisfactory feature. He demanded that this feature should be remedied, and he made use of words which I should like to repeat when he said that existing machinery if used can ensure that every school child comes to physical training with a well-nourished body. That machinery is in existence. If the machinery is properly used there should be no question of malnutrition in our schools, and, as far as I am concerned, I am determined that the machinery shall be used. I appeal to hon. Members in all Parts of the House to help me in impressing on local education authorities, as I intend to do, that this machinery in their areas has to be put into the fullest possible operation. In so far as, perhaps, in the past the poverty of a particular authority has been pleaded as a bar to working this machinery fully, I must remind the House that the recent block grant made available to many authorities largely increased

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  sums, and increased sums on which services of this kind may well have the first call.
  Mr. A. Jenkins: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that the block grants are already absorbed by many local authorities owing to the falling rateable value and that there is very little surplus left, particularly in the Special Areas?
  Mr. Stanley: I am not going to enter into a general conversation on the subject. I cannot agree for one minute that that is a real picture of the benefits which have been conferred by the increased block grant. I am going to press on local authorities the importance of putting these services into their proper position. It will be for the local authorities to raise the possibilities of doing it.
  So much for school life; now for after school life. I do not want to go into details, but no doubt many hon. Members have read the First Report of the Advisory Committee on Nutrition. Anyone who reads pages 10 to 11 of that report will gather, from the whole tenor of it, that the picture of a nation in general suffering from malnutrition is a false one. There is a problem of malnutrition, but it is a problem of a minority, and I would say of a small minority. Of course that is no reason for complacency; there should not be a minority, however small it may be. But the existence of a minority is no reason for depriving the great majority of people of facilities which they desire and from which they are able to profit.
  I notice that the committee in its report lays great stress on the possibility of extending the consumption of milk both in the schools and after children have left the schools. That report, of course, will receive careful consideration from the Government. In some respects my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health has already acted upon it. I hope the House will excuse me if I say a word or two upon this question, because it is one in which I have taken great personal interest since I have been at the Board of Education. I have been disappointed that a scheme which started so well with a large proportion of the children should have seemed to have halted. I have been frying to ascertain the reasons. I want to give the House one warning on this question of extend
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  ing milk consumption. It is a most difficult problem. It is not only an economic problem, it is not just a question of the price of the product and the pocket of the purchaser, but the questions of taste, of belief in it and of condition come into play. I am very much in favour of drinking milk, speaking objectively, but I would remind the House that although a child can lead a man to a milk bar a whole Cabinet cannot make him drink.
  Let me give two instances to show what I mean. The other day I was in South Wales and I spoke there to the headmaster of a school in one of the most distressed areas. He told me that he had 200 children on his books, and that during term 80 were receiving free milk. His local authority conceived the idea of trying to extend the milk supply scheme into the school holidays and his school was selected as one of the experimental places. During the holidays, there was not a single day when lie had more than 10 of those 80 children as applicants for the milk, and yet not one of those children had more than half a mile to walk to school to get the milk. There was, therefore, no question of economics or of difficulty of supply there; it was a problem of individuality and psychology and taste which cannot be solved on the basis of economics. Take the case of this House: a very large number of us are so fortunately placed in our economic circumstances that it does not matter very much to us if milk goes up or down a penny a pint. If it went up 2d. we could still afford to drink the optimum pint which the scientists desire. But I wonder how many hon. Members do so.
  Mr. G. Griffiths: Let us have a show of hands.
  Mr. Stanley: I should have thought that the hon. Member, with his well-known devotion to butter, would be the hon. Member who least of all needs an additional milk supply. As I have said, public attention has largely concentrated itself on the health side of this scheme, but I would remind the House that it is a scheme not only for physical training but also for recreation. It is, therefore, part of another problem which to my mind is just as important and just as great, and that is the problem of the use of leisure. Why has anyone to meddle with that? It may be said, "Take care of the leisure

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  and youth will look after itself." I do not think the problem is as simple as that. The whole trend of industrial conditions to-day is a trend towards shorter working hours. We may argue as to whether this particular programme should be carried out at this particular time, but if we look back on the history of the past few years we must realise that legislation, regulation, trade union action and collective bargaining have all tended to a shortening of the working hours.
  Who can doubt that if we avoid those catastrophes to civilisation which are so liberally predicted by prelates out of pulpits and by statesmen out of office—similar prophecies have been made before by similar people and have proved to be wrong—we shall see an era of shorter and shorter working hours and of more and more real leisure, that is to say leisure which is not occupied in eating and resting and sleeping and just making oneself fit for work again, but leisure which can be devoted day by day to whatever use the individual wishes to put it? That leisure is going to be different not only in content but in quality from anything that the general masses of the people have experienced up till now. It is going to be regular; there will be certain hours for it every day; it is not to be spasmodic, a day off here and there. It is not to be like the England of the seventeenth century, the England that in history books is called Merrie England, the times which of all times perhaps were times of spontaneous enjoyment. But the leisure was not regular, daily; it was a holiday, a Holy Day, a feast now and then.
  The civilisations of Rome and Greece were civilisations founded on slavery. The whole of the hard labour was done by one section of the community, and for a privileged section leisure was reserved. It was a complete and regular leisure. It is the same kind of leisure, if not the same amount, to which the twentieth century is tending. What use are we to make of leisure of that kind? We know what use the Greeks made of it. Over 2,000 years later we are still acting Greek plays and admiring Greek art, and we still imitate Greek games. What, I wonder, shall we do with our leisure? We all know from our own experience that when we have been working hard for a time and we go for. a holiday, the first day or two we do not want to do anything;
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  it is good enough that we are not working. But as we get rested, as the reaction passes away, we want more and more to occupy ourselves, whether mentally or physically.
  I am certain that regular leisure of the kind I mention will demand some more active occupation than just sitting about and resting. Are we to occupy it by going to more football matches and more cinemas? They may be very good things to fill up our spasmodic leisure. It is good for all of us to do these things occasionally, but too much football and too many cinemas are pretty expensive and pretty cloying. The real use of leisure will call for the development of interest, of taste, of knowledge. Heaven forbid that this Government or any Government should teach the people what they must do in their leisure. But we ought to be prepared to teach them what they can do with their leisure, to find out what their interests are and how those interests can be developed, and we ought to provide them with the facilities for developing those interests if they wish it. Physical recreation, vigorous games, physical training and hiking will form a part, and an important part, of any right use of leisure, but it can be only a part; it cannot be all.
  I do not believe that physical activity alone is ever going to be wholly satisfactory, but the facilities provided for in this Bill may well lead to the development of other and wider interests. The community sense which comes from being part of a class, the social contacts of games or of the gymnasium, the touch with the interests of other people, the knowledge of other individuals' tastes—all these may combine to make the physical training and recreation of the Bill a gateway to wider activities. Hon. Members will see that in the Bill and the scheme the Government have been careful not to isolate physical training and physical recreation, not to confine the scope of the assistance to be given to activities of the body only. Help can be given to other activities. So this scheme can make a double contribution to the problem, a problem which I hope hon. Members will not think me fantastic in describing as a problem of supreme importance. I believe that on our ability to solve this problem of the use of leisure, more perhaps than on anything else is going to depend the future of this country

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  and of this civilisation. I think it was Bertrand Russell who said:
  "To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilisation."
  I would add that to be unable to fill it intelligently may well be its final failure. How much had this failure—for failure it was—to do with the collapse of the Roman Empire? They failed to solve this problem, but I believe a greater Empire, greater not only in size and in power, but greater in its ideals, in its equality, in its freedom, in its toleration, and, above all, in its kindliness, can succeed where they failed.
  4.16 p.m.
  Mr. Lees-Smith: The right hon. Gentleman has made a speech which, especially in the later portion of it, was of a type such as we do not often hear in this House, and which we very much welcome. Many of the general observations were full of a wisdom which we all appreciate, and there was one section of his remarks which, I think, will be supported by the whole opinion of this House—the section in which he developed the difference between the ideas behind physical training in a country like this, or Sweden, or Czechoslovakia and those in the totalitarian States. I have noticed that some hon. Members who have travelled in the robot countries of Europe have been rather impressed by the type of physical training which consists of hundreds of thousands of men marching like automata. I have not seen them, only pictures of them, and I have not been impressed at all. If I were a native of one of those countries and saw those pictures and realised what is behind them, I should tremble for the future of my native land, because some time ago I noticed when in a museum that the species which are becoming extinct are those with huge bodies and pin-point brains.
  This scheme, by contrast, is based upon the voluntary principle, but it is this very fact which leads to the central danger, the central weakness, of it. I notice that the right hon. Gentleman did not refer to that in his speech, although I pointed it out to him in the earlier debate. The central danger of this scheme is that it is based upon existing organisations which have been doing work of this in the past. The plan is to provide
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  them with large capital sums by which they can, more or less, extend the work, and, inevitably, extend it more or less along the lines on which it has been developed. These organisations have confined their efforts almost entirely to one section of the community—the clerical section, the commercial section, the black-coated workers. They are the section who feel the need for this kind of exercise, who demand it, and who are already utilising the opportunities afforded to them; but the greatest need of physical improvement is not among this section but among factory operatives and others such as those who work in pits. The whole bias of this scheme, being based upon the organisations which work for another section of the community, will leave the needs of this particular class in the background. Unless very special precautions are taken, of which there are no signs, the scheme will help those who without a scheme of this kind, would still be able to obtain most of the physical education, or at least physical recreation, which they need.
  If the House bears that fact in mind it will see that it is essential to realise the importance of the distinction which the right hon. Gentleman drew between physical recreation and physical training. So far as physical exercise is concerned, I think there is a great deal of exaggeration in the belief that strenuous physical exercises up to about 25 years of age will guarantee you health for the rest of a long life. Most of us have been reading the observations of medical officers of health and medical men upon this subject, and they point out that if you look at the hikers, footballers and tennis players among those clerical sections of the population, you notice how many physical defects are to be found among them—one shoulder higher than the other, contracted chests, wrong muscle development, all of which is going to take a toll of them many years hence. Lord Dawson of Penn, in a letter to the "Times" a few days ago, pointed out that he saw a group of Territorials marching—here you have very selected men—and he carefully noted them and came to the conclusion that 5o per cent. of them were suffering from physical defects which mere exercises will not remedy, and which will take a heavy toll of them in later life.

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  The right hon. Gentleman spoke with some pride of the composition of the committee which is controlling this scheme. Lord Dawson is one member, and I think there is one other scientific member, and I wish there were a good many more of that type, but he specially called our attention to the athletes on the committee. While I agree that all those sprinters, sloggers, tennis stars, and boxers may add to its standard of physical beauty, I doubt whether that particular section have in the past specially concentrated their minds upon problems like that of the factory girl suffering from anaemia, and those are the problems on which we need to concentrate in this scheme. Therefore, I would say that this scheme needs not only the development of the remedial exercises to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, but the development of open-air recreation differing in type from violent physical exercises. When I go through a factory in my own constituency and see all the mill girls at work, the first thing that comes into my mind is not that those girls need more exercise—they have got too much exercise; they are driven all day—but quietude and rest in the open air.
  The right hon. Gentleman made one remark which I thought was unjustified about football matches—a rather superior remark—in which he spoke of the spectators who never became participants in games of football. He may learn very valuable lessons from the great crowds which attend football matches. After all they are mostly middle-aged people. Young fellows of 18 or 19 will play football if they can find the means and the opportunity. Those who watch are mostly middle-aged people and it has always seemed to me that it is a sign of the instinctive common sense of the workers of this country that they have realised that what they want on a Saturday afternoon is some quiet interest in the open air. A week or two ago I read some interesting observation about football crowds by Canon Peter Green, one of the greatest temperance advocates in the land. He said in one of his articles in the "Manchester Guardian" that he had come to the conclusion that the habit of the workers going to watch football matches on Saturday afternoons had done more for temperance than all the temperance societies in the land. Therefore, I do not agree at all with the right hon.
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  Gentleman's superior attitude towards that particular form of recreation.
  Mr. Stanley: Would not the right hon. Gentleman prefer that if they were young and fit they should play football rather than watch it?
  Mr. Lees-Smith: I should certainly prefer it, but I am speaking of the football crowds, among whom the majority are not young men of football age, and I am saying that from those older men the right hon. Gentleman may learn the lesson that what is wanted for those who are hard-driven in factories during the week is a form of restful occupation in the open air at the end of the week. Therefore, I should suggest the development of holiday camps and camping sites—I see that he puts them last in the order of importance—to which these people could go at week-ends and during holidays with pay, where they would have good air, and not more physical exercise than that for which their occupations would create a desire.
  There is another feature of this scheme which needs to be borne in mind. The right hon. Gentleman has concentrated mainly upon the young men and women of an age, as he says, when they can take physical exercises, but a man's health, taking the whole of his life through, depends just about as much on what he does after he is 25 as on what he has been doing before that age. I believe the committee are in touch with the B.B.C. In a country like Norway, I understand, the vast proportion of the population undertake physical exercises every morning under directions given over the wireless, and I have never understood why the B.B.C. should not provide a course of physical exercises during that part of the day when they broadcast nothing, except occasionally a few cricket scores. I am suggesting that the right hon. Gentleman might follow that up by getting into touch with gramophone companies. Why should we not have gramophone records for physical exercise for those who do not find the hours of the B.B.C. convenient? [An HON. MEMBER: "There are"] Yes, but I rather mean with all the publicity of which the right hon. Gentleman has spoken behind them, and the kind of exercise which would be sponsored by the committee, who would watch the whole thing.
  Mr. Crossley: May I point out that the National Council for Health and Beauty have a regular series of such gramophone records?
  Mr. Lees-Smith: I am suggesting to the right hon. Gentleman what I think is not done at the present time, namely, that he should get into touch with those who have such a scheme. I would make one further observation on the remarks made by the right hon. Gentleman about the use of leisure. If he wishes to develop the use of leisure he might take a very strong step to develop in the schools a liking and understanding of gardening. [Interruption.] Do not let us be too superior about this matter. My experience is that if a man wants to maintain health after he is 25 years of age for the rest of his life, it is far more valuable for him to have an interest in gardening and opportunities to develop it than for him to have been a great centre-forward before he was 25.
  I come now to that part of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in which he spoke about a matter which is quite definitely at issue between the two sides of the House, that is, the connection between this scheme and the problem of nutrition. Our view of that problem is very well put in a letter by Lord Baden-Powell published in the "Times" recently, in which he summarised his experience thus:
  "It is no good imposing on underfed and ill-nourished boys hard physical exercise. The thing is to get them properly fed on good plain food"
  I think the right hon. Gentleman would accept that proposition.
  Mr. Stanley Mr. Stanley indicated assent.
  Mr. Lees-Smith: The right hon. Gentleman said that he would use all the machinery at his disposal to ensure that no child should go to school with an ill-nourished body. That was a most far-reaching statement to come from one in his position. From the way he spoke and some of the observations he made, he gave me the impression that he thought he was committing himself to something rather small, and that the proportion of children who would come under the definition would be comparatively minute; whereas, I am going to argue that he has committed himself to a very large under-
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  taking indeed, far larger than he has hitherto led the House to expect. He says that there is only a small minority who would come under the attempt to ensure that physical training was backed by proper feeding. I know that the Board of Education have issued the figures, which have been frequently quoted in Debates by Members of the Government Front Bench upon the subject, in the annual report of the Medical Officer on the subject of the health of the school child. The number in which nutrition is apparently bad, and who would come under the scheme, is only 7 per cent. I do not think that the record of the Board of Education on this question of the proportion of children suffering from malnutrition is a very reliable one; as a matter of fact, it is now notorious that even a year or two ago their figures were quite unreliable. The Board have, in fact, in this report, repudiated their original data.
  The figures upon which the right hon. Gentleman relies are based upon the impression made upon medical officers of health by looking at children. It is clear that the standard taken by a medical officer of health in looking at children is that to which he is accustomed in the neighbourhood in which the school is situated. According to that standard—if you take that as a standard—you get the figure of 7 per cent. with bad nutrition and 74 per cent. who are normal. Suppose the medical officers of health took as their standard the children at, say, Rugby, Eton or Winchester. You would then find that your 74 per cent. would be abnormal. I was very much impressed in the last Debate by the anecdote told us by the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). He gave away the prizes at Spennymoor County School, and when he looked at the children he made an inquiry, because he had taken it for granted that they were two years younger than they were. That is to say, the standard of the Spennymoor County School was two years behind the Surrey standard to which the hon. Member was accustomed. Therefore, if you take the Spennymoor standard you get your 75 per cent. but, if you took the Surrey standard, your 75 per cent. would be subnormal. In fact, the whole basis of attempting to judge this problem by the method of looking at the children in front of you and asking whether they are up

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  to the average of the neighbourhood is entirely unscientific, and is now being condemned.
  Mr. Stanley: When the hon. Member says that the method is now being condemned, may I point out to him that the Nutrition Advisory Committee say that the method of the Board of Education is the most promising?
  Mr. Lees-Smith: I will refer in a moment to the right hon. Gentleman's statement. What is the present method of assessment? You take the average as your standard and then you discover that the average is normal. That is all. I could have predicted the result in advance, without any of this elaborate investigation. As a matter of fact, the whole of the system has been swept aside in one sentence in a letter to the "Times" on 26th February by Professor Julian Huxley who spoke of:
  "the highly unscientific method of taking as our standard merely the existing average."
  There is an alternative method, and the method has been followed up in the very report which the right hon. Gentleman quotes. The committee make those very tentative remarks about the Board of Education and they go on to say just what I have been saying. They sum it all up by saying that they could not recommend any known method as reliable.
  Mr. Stanley: The right hon. Gentleman has stated that the method of the Board of Education has been condemned by all scientists. Perhaps he will read the paragraph of the report in which the committee say:
  "So far as our present knowledge goes, it would seem that the clinical method given in detail in Administrative Memorandum No. 124 of the Board of Education is the most promising."
  Nobody could say from that comment that the method has been condemned by all scientists.
  Mr. Lees-Smith: The right hon. Gentleman must read the whole paragraph. They say that the method of the Board of Education is the most promising, but I have already read the sentence in which they say that no known method is at present reliable. Then they go on to say that part which the right hon. Gentleman has read, and they add the following:
  "The trial of this method (of the Board of Education) has not been sufficiently prolonged to establish its reliability."
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  That is exactly the point that I am making; the method is not reliable. I am saying also that there is another method, which is the method on which we have relied since I have been in the House. It gives results which scientists say are far more reliable. That is the method of calculating in what is called the science of nutrition, and which, I see, this report says is one of the most valuable contributions to knowledge that the medical profession are now making. The method of the science of nutrition is to calculate the number of proteins, calories and vitamins required for physical efficiency at different ages. Then you calculate what it costs, taking the average over a group of people, to buy sufficient food to provide the minimum essentials of those elements. Then you calculate what proportion of the people of this country are buying that food and can afford to buy it. On those lines, they say, you can get to a reliable result. Those are exactly the methods that are being followed up by the Committee on Nutrition. They say that those are the lines to follow, and they give no countenance whatever to the belief that you can ever get reliable results by the rule-of-thumb, mid-Victorian methods on which the figures are based upon which the right hon. Gentleman relies.
  That committee has not yet reached 'a final conclusion as to what percentage of the population, judged by this method, will be found to be suffering from malnutrition, but individual members have reached their own conclusion. What are their reports? You can take either of the two limits, the report of the British Medical Association, which has come 40 the conclusion that this line of inquiry reveals that 30 per cent. of the school population are suffering from malnutrition as against the 7 per cent. of this report; or the report of Sir John Orr, who is a member of the committee, and who has come to the conclusion that the optimum diet was absent from 50 per cent. of the school children. That is why I say that this is a much larger issue than the right hon. Gentleman believes. If he is going to carry out the undertaking that he has given to the House this afternoon, he will find himself faced with a revolution. Indeed, the most valuable part of this scheme is not likely to be the scheme itself, but those results of it which have not been intended. The most valuable part of it will undoubtedly be that the

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  scheme will force open the whole issue of the standard of living of the people of this country, on which hon. Members behind me have for years been asking the public to concentrate their minds.
  4.44 P.m.
  Sir Francis Acland: On behalf of those whom I represent, and as one of those Members of the House who, though no longer youthful, have preserved relative concavity, and as one who regularly takes his pint of milk a day, I very much welcome the Bill, and particularly the speech in which the Minister put it before the House this afternoon. I welcome particularly that part of his speech, towards the end, in which he talked in such an interesting way about the use of leisure, though, having been in Westmorland lately, I was not wholly unprepared to hear some of it this afternoon. It was, however, nice to hear it instead of only to hear about it, as I had previously done.
  Undoubtedly the Bill is a move in the right direction, and will do great good. I say that without reserve. But I am bound to say, on the topic referred to by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Keighley {Mr. Lees-Smith), that I am sure the campaign which it would be necessary to have behind this Bill to ensure better physical training and recreation—a campaign into which the Minister is throwing so much energy and ability—would have gone better, and would go better in the House, if it were being more visibly connected with and accompanied by a preliminary campaign for better nutrition. I do not want to go into the question of nutrition, but, realising all the difficulties to which the Minister refers, I do say that it is surely high time that we took some step, in spite of those difficulties, to bring to an end the present position as to milk, under which, according to the latest figure I can get, no less than 400,000,000 gallons a year are sold at ½d. a quart for factory purposes, whereas it is a penal offence to sell that same milk for human consumption at less than 3d., or sometimes more, a pint.
  I should also have been even more pleased with the Bill if alongside of it the Minister of Agriculture—and here I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Keighley—were promoting a Bill to give those who have no posi
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  tive inclination towards playing football or physical training classes more opportunity than they have now for another use of leisure, namely, the cultivation of allotments under secure conditions of tenure. It seems to me that the cultivation of allotments, and I have been connected with that movement for more than 3o years now, provides good health and recreation for the workers in the best sense of the word "recreation"—recreation of body and mind and spirit—combined with food production, which is likely to be very important if we get into international difficulties, and with nutrition in almost the best way, namely, the production of a variety of vegetables. We all remember what the allotment holders did for us during the late War. None of these things can be done by the methods envisaged in the Bill.
  I hope that those people, both inside and outside this House, who as yet have not had any practical experience of what are generally called "keep fit" classes, will obtain it as soon as they can, so as to judge of their value by seeing them for themselves. I believe that where they have been already introduced they are and have been a great success; certainly that is the case in those parts of the country which I know; and it is obvious, without saying anything against some of the other things which are also necessary and are to be provided, that they can be provided more cheaply than the football fields and swimming baths and camping sites which are also properly part of the scheme. I said that I had been in Westmorland lately, and there I heard of classes of that type in which grandmothers and granddaughters together have been waving their legs in the air in complete unison and harmony, much to their own satisfaction and physical benefit and to the edification of the beholders; and I believe that the same sort of thing is going on in other parts of the country.
  So far as my limited knowledge goes, women are at present keener on this work than men are. I think that that is partly because they have generally more sense—sense to take up quickly new things which become possibilities for them—and partly because they are more accustomed, as most of us realise, than men and boys are, to come together without regard to the class to which they

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  belong in organisations such as the women's institutes, which have no proper counterpart on the male side.
  It would, however, be a mistake to regard these "keep fit" classes as being wholly or mainly for women and girls, and it would be almost equally a mistake—and here I am not sure that I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Keighley—to regard these classes as being mainly intended for those who are not manual workers. The movement is a comparatively new one, and none of us know all about it yet, but, so far as my experience has gone, when young men who may have been engaged all day in quite hard manual work go to these classes in the evening, they do not find that they are too tired to enjoy them and get great refreshment from them. I suppose the reason is that, while most manual work is rather monotonous, and tends to exercise exclusively certain sets of muscles, the work in these "keep fit" classes exercises the whole bodies and minds of those who take part in them, and in a really re-creative way, which does not make people too tired, but, on the contrary, fitter next morning When their ordinary work time comes round. It would be a mistake, therefore, for those who are more interested, as some of us are, in getting better exercise and training for young men, to think that no progress can be made under this scheme without an extension of football grounds, swimming pools and so on, however important they undoubtedly are.
  On the Bill itself I want to take three points, which are rather more than committee points, and I hope the Minister will take them, as they are meant, as constructive rather than negative criticism. In the first place it seems to me that the National Advisory Councils are left a little in the air in regard to one matter. I refer to the last Sub-section of Clause 3, which rightly provides that the Board of Education may take steps for disseminating knowledge with respect to the value of physical training and recreation. That is to be done on the recommendation of the Grants Committee, but I venture to think it would have been more natural that it should have been done on the recommendation of the National Council. One reads in Clause I of the Bill that it is the job of the National Councils to advise on matters relating to the maintenance and improve
  218
  ment of the physical well-being of the people by means of exercise and recreation, and it seems to me that it would be more natural that they rather than the Grants Committee should at any rate take the initiative in advising the Board of Education as to the dissemination of knowledge on the subject. I say that particularly in view of the Minister's statement, which I was glad to hear, that the National Council had already appointed a sub-committee to consider propaganda.
  Coming to my second point, I made some comment, which I do not want to repeat to-day, when we discussed the White Paper, on what seemed to me to be there intended, namely, that organisations interested in what were called, I think, local projects, should have some power of applying for grants direct to the Grants Committee. I am glad to hear definitely from the Minister to-day that this is not intended, but that, quite rightly, any such application must go through what is called in Clause 2 the local committee, and not direct to the Grants Committee.
  But, although that is cleared up, and I think in the right way, there still remains a point in connection with Clause 2. It seems to me that the powers of the local committees are rather unnecessarily restricted. They are to transmit any applications they receive, with their recommendations. That means that they will, for instance, say that the application of place A is for a 100 per cent. grant, and the application of place B is for only a 50 per cent. grant, and they cannot agree with that disparity in request considering the means and needs of the places. My point is that, although that is all to the good, and is no doubt a stage to which you must go, it will in many cases only be the beginning of the matter, because the Grants Committee, instead of deciding simply on that report, will, if it knows its business, as of course it will, particularly under the chairman who has been appointed, refer the matter back to the local committee to go into the relative claims of the two places and make something which will in effect be a well-ordered scheme for the area, in which there will be reasonable uniformity, corresponding, of course, with local means and local needs, and which will, therefore, go far beyond the making of recommendations on local projects.

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  My last point is this: Under Clause 6 of the Bill the present restrictions on what local education authorities may do to promote social and physical training are quite rightly removed, and under Clause 3 the Board of Education is given wide powers to aid local authorities or voluntary organisations, primarily with respect to capital needs, and exceptionally with respect to maintenance. Under Clause 4 we have the corollary that local authorities are given the same rights, in a rather more direct way, to aid capital undertakings and also to undertake maintenance.
  I think that, if those of us who know something of county government visualise the working of that machinery, they will find that in many counties one of the main practical matters to be determined will be the relative and respective shares of the government and of the local authorities in providing the money that will be required to get some of these things into permanent working order, and one asks oneself by whom will the local authorities be advised; on whose report will they act; which department of the authority will submit the necessary estimates? I suggest that it will be undoubtedly the education authority and the education committee of the council, because I do not see that Clause z provides that these local authorities will have any direct access, in the way of asking for money, to the county council without going through some committee, presumably the education committee, which has full power to deal with the matter. If I am right in that, my point comes down to this, that I would ask the Minister, seeing how much he will have to depend on the active interest of the local education authorities, both as to the use of their powers under Clause 6 and as to advising the local authorities under Clause 4, not to be too much taken up with promoting new and "super" local committees under Clause 2 of the Bill. I feel rather strongly that, unless this work, in the main, grows naturally out of the schools and out of what local education authorities have been and are now increasingly doing, there may be a danger of imposing a new edifice of authorities without getting very much done after all. These are my only points, and I hope the Minister will realise that I have meant them to be helpful. Again I say that I welcome the Bill.
  5.0 p.m.
  Viscountess Astor: I apologise to the, Minister for not having heard his speech, but I have been on a deputation to another Minister. I congratulate him on bringing in the Bill, because it will be helpful in many ways. I believe he said something about the difficulty of getting young children to take milk. I do not want to agree too much with the Opposition, but I am certain that the question of malnutrition is one of the problems that the country will have to face in the next two or three years. Our standard of health now is much higher than it used to be, but 95,000 children entering our elementary schools are physically defective in some way. They have some small physical defect which, if taken in time, could be prevented. Of 100 medically examined children who enter our schools, 15 need medical attention, 15 need observation, half of them show signs of rickets and two-thirds have defective teeth. All that is really not necessary and, if the Government would say to the country, "We have to get to the bottom of this and see how we can prevent it," it can only be done by open-air nursery schools. It is not only milk. A great many of these children need sleep, fresh air and proper play. Men in the House of Commons keep on talking about giving people proper food. A child needs more than food to keep fit.
  Mr. G. Griffiths: Give it food first.
  Viscountess Astor: How little the hon. Member knows about it.
  Mr. Griffiths: I know more than you do.
  Viscountess Astor: I wish the hon. Member would be patient with me. Sleep, fresh air, play and proper environment are just as important as food. I wish the House of Commons as a whole would take the trouble to go and see what can be done in open-air nursery schools, and see how few there are in the country. The London County Council talks tremendously about them, but has not built one. It is not a party question. All parties have said they are good things, but we are getting very few built. I know the Minister believes in them, and it would not be very difficult to change our infant departments into open-air nursery schools. We may not get

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  them for 10 years, but we ought to have a policy leading to them. This idea of keeping fit and giving more food in the schools is a patch-work policy. You want to get right down to the bottom of the problem. I am a little disappointed that there is not more pressure in the House of Commons to get down to the very root of the problem. If we want these young people to keep fit, we have to see that they are not allowed to work more than 40 hours a week. I should like to see almost a Ministry to deal with young people, and it would be very important to have a woman in it. I hope the Minister will look well into this problem of children entering school in an unfit state. It is sheer waste of time trying to educate children who are not properly nourished and trained. If you get these children in time you can teach them how to enjoy leisure. It depends more than anything else on training the faculties. I know an instance of a child who had been to an open-air nursery school and met his teacher again when he was 12 years old. She asked him what he had most enjoyed when he was at the nursery school, and he said, "When you showed me that beautiful butterfly." The thing that had lasted all those years in that slum child's mind was the beauty of a butterfly. That child had been trained for leisure and, if you begin young enough with these open-air nursery schools, you are beginning to train children for leisure.
  Mr. Cove: Am I to assume that the Noble Lady wants nursery schools for children of all classes?
  Viscountess Astor: Of course I want them. The hon. Member is making conversation. He knows it as well as I do. I have said often enough that I believe it is the basis of a democratic education. I do not believe you will get democratic education till you begin at the bottom. Of course I want it for all, but we are talking at the moment about crowded areas and the children living in them. I beg the Government, when considering the question of physical fitness, to bear in mind that there is no other way in which they can get the children properly trained, fed and nurtured unless they begin before they get into school. Only 7 per cent. of the children who have been to open-air nursery schools are physically defective in any way. The
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  expense is nothing compared with what we are paying for medical services. Our school service costs £4,500,000 a year. It costs five times as much to keep a child in a special school, and eight times as much to keep it in a hospital. It would be far more constructive to have a ten-year plan rather than giving way to popular clamour about keeping fit. Four million people in the country are undernourished. There are 1,860,000 children between two and five, and only 200,000 have any accommodation in infant departments; 80 per cent. of children under five belong to families earning less than £4 a week, and half the number have less than £3 a week.
  It is a terrific problem that we have before us, and it cannot be put right just on a keep-fit policy. When a child of 14 leaves school and then has to work 40 or 50 hours a week, it is no good talking about physical recreation and sports. We have to see first that they get a start in open-air nursery schools and, secondly, the hours of labour have got to be shortened. No child under 18 ought to work more than 40 hours a week. If we attend to that, we may have in time a really A.1 nation. I am grateful to the Government for what they have done but, being a National Government, representing all that is best in the country, I expect a national programme to deal with children right up to 18.
  5.15 p.m.
  Captain Elliston: I should like to join those who have thanked the Minister for introducing the Bill, which we believe will mean a very great deal to the health and happiness of the country. We have heard it said that the Minister of Labour will soon have his opposite number in the Minister of Leisure, or, as suggested by Lord Horder in another place the other day, that we should have a Minister of Pleasure. The Bill to-day marks a very definite first step in that direction. I think that we are all anxious, in these days of greater enlightenment, to supply an antidote to the deadly monotony of mechanised industry. I am glad that this afternoon we have heard nothing of the gibe that this scheme is for the production of cannon fodder. I have heard this suggestion in my own constituency, and I am glad that we are spared that suggestion to-day. We all agree that this scheme, as far as it relates to courses in physical training, is for voluntary

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  entrants, and that they are to be purely of a recreational character, that there shall be no enforced standard of efficiency and no compulsory attendance, and only very small fees, if any at all. In fact, it is to be an entirely voluntary scheme for the better health and happiness of the people.
  What is the present position? For generations past, there have been a host of organisations with recreational activities in all parts of the Kingdom. Clubs and societies have been run by old school associations, voluntary organisations, by such philanthropic bodies as the Y.M.C.A., and by great business houses. In spite of all that provision, it is estimated that as many as 80 per cent. of the boys of this country get no regular exercise after leaving school. In the case of women and girls the position is even worse. I would mention the magnificent pioneer work that is now being done in Lancashire in that connection. We have there a keep-fit movement, which is well known, I have no doubt, to the Minister. The effort was sponsored by the National Council of Girls Clubs to cater on a large scale for the physical needs of working girls. That movement has gained unique experience in organisation. Lancashire was the first county with fully organised classes open at a cost of a penny to all women and girls in every industrial town throughout the county. The results achieved have been quite remarkable. It not only appeals to young girls, but it is immensely appreciated by older women and by unemployed workers who have hitherto been quite unattracted by the sort of physical advice given to them in the' beauty magazines. The organisers have been assisted in their work, and in exploring the course which their scheme should take, by valuable medical advice, which has put them into a position to speak with an authority which is possessed by nobody else.
  How can the Government scheme co-operate with these voluntary schemes already in operation? Everything will depend upon the work done by the local committee set up by the National Council under the Bill. It is only through such Committees that you can get the necessary co-operation between the local education authorities and the voluntary organisations. The need for such co-operation has been recognised for many
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  years past. We have had juvenile organisations which have done remarkably well within their limitations. I have been told by a county council organiser that in the Borough of Willesden alone there are as many as 130 athletic clubs and organisations, with 3,000 members between the ages of i6 and i8 years. For a long time they were working as isolated units, but the Juvenile Organisation Committee has brought them all together. They have promoted between them a scheme of mutal assistance, and, in combination, they have got help from the county and the borough councils in the form of grants and facilities which they had never secured before.
  The Minister has summarised very clearly for us to-day the line to be taken by the local committees, how they are to survey the whole provisions available in the neighbourhood in the matter of recreation, how they are to supply what is missing, how they are best to utilise the resources available, what sections of the community are supporting each type of organisation, the possibility of development, and to what extent existing organisations are prepared to co-operate with the local committee under the Bill. Such a survey must undoubtedly do much to reduce the overlapping that exists to-day, and it will enable us to use to the best advantage the resources which are at present available. The organiser I have already quoted mentioned to me a typical case which may be dealt with under the Bill. A great business house provides ample playing fields for the benefit of its employés. There is a sufficient acreage for all requirements—tennis, cricket, football and bowls—but there is no indoor accommodation. The employés of that business firm who wished to set up other organisations for swimming, gymnastics, table tennis and so on, found it impossible to form special sections of the club because the cost of hire of the necessary accommodation was too much, and that accommodation was in most cases the property of the local authority. Under this scheme those people can go to the local committee and can state their requirements; the local authority, assisted by State grants, can supply their requirements, and, in return, they can say to the owners, "You can use our swimming baths and gymnasium if you in your turn will give us reasonable use of

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  your playing fields when they are not required for other purposes.
  Physical training is being exploited by all sort of cranks. We have weightlifters, beauty culturists, professional athletes and others, each with their own fancy system, but without any sound knowledge of the physiological considerations. It is here that the local committees will require the advice and assistance of trained experts with the highest possible qualifications, both theoretical and practical. At first there will probably be a shortage of men instructors, but for the past 35 years there have been training in this country a considerable succession of educated women who are fully competent to supply the needs to be experienced in the early days of the scheme. I hope that the matter of instructors will be largely undertaken by the local education authorities, because I can see no other way in which you can give full-time employment to properly qualified-persons. The local education authorities should take on sufficient physical training instructors for the whole time, for the purposes of the schools by day and for other purposes outside school hours.
  Mr. Ede: They will not get much leisure, will they?
  Captain Elliston: Naturally they will not work 24 hours, but it can be so arranged that they can be allocated for duties under the new scheme. I am anxious to see elderly and corpulent schoolmasters relieved of the indignity of having to touch their toes when teaching children physical jerks in school. There are many school teachers trying to teach physical exercises to-day who would gladly be relieved of that duty. We should provide a sufficiency of qualified instructors to do all the work in the schools, some of whom could undertake other duties outside.
  Given the right kind of instructors, I believe that there must be an immediate response from the people. There must be no suggestion of the barrack square or even of the class room. This wants to be a voluntary gathering together for enjoyable exercises. Many of our pleasure resorts have shown what a popular demand there is for this physical training. At some places instructors have gone almost unannounced on to the beach, and, within a few days, hundreds of
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  persons have assembled day by day for voluntary exercises. I hope that under this Bill we shall see on the gates of all our public parks and gardens notices that an instructor will attend to give exercises to those who require them at convenient hours on most days in the week. I believe that this would be welcomed by a great number of people, and that it would be of great advantage to the community. It should be possible to obtain much assistance in this direction from volunteers; the type of natural leaders who become officers and non-commissioned officers in the Territorial force would, no doubt, be willing to come along and assist a social service of this description. I hope also that before long a medical man will be attached to these instructional courses, one who will search for the signs of malnutrition we have heard about, and will warn persons who are unfitted for violent physical exercise and suggest to others ameliorative treatment in order to make them physically fit. Hon. Members the other day met Dr. Kurt Hahn, the distinguished German educationist, who has trained school boys in Germany to come over here and defeat us in athletic events in which we thought we could hold our own. His methods have been the subject of very great surprise and admiration. He is now conducting a school in Scotland where he is achieving the same results with British boys, and where he is working all the time on the principle of adapting the physical exercises to the physical condition of the boys.
  The Minister has rightly said that the success of the scheme will depend very greatly on wide publicity. The people have to be taught that the facilities are available and must be encouraged to make use of them. I am glad that the Bill includes power for the Treasury to sanction expenses to cover the cost of teaching the public the value of physical education. There will be a great opportunity for the Ministry of Health to include this subject in its coming campaign for the education of the people in matters of health. It is obvious also that this question of physical education might very well be included in the routine programme of the Central Council for Health Education.
  For this campaign we are thinking of the millions of people who at the present time get no training and who never expect to excel in any sort of games or sport. We are not looking for Olympic

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  champions or for potential soldiers. We are looking for citizens so improved in physique, that they may bear their load cheerfully, with full enjoyment of life. It will not be easy to achieve, but with the patriotic support of all classes in the carrying out of the objects of this Bill we may get not only better health for the people of the country but we may get back something of that spirit to which the Minister referred, the spirit of the old Merrie England that was submerged by the Victorian growth of our drab industrial towns.
  5.33 P
  Mr. G. Griffiths: I should like to congratulate the Minister on the way he has introduced this Bill for physical training and recreation. It is not often that I throw any bouquets. To judge from what certain hon. Members have said, this Bill might be regarded as a sectional Bill, but I think it is a cradle to the grave Bill. The only thing that is weighing on my mind is that the bulk of the finance of the Bill will be passed down to the rates. The rates to-day, with the exception of those of the pleasure resorts, are high enough. There is a cry all over the country about high rates, and I am satisfied that although the Treasury is going to provide £800,000 per annum for three years towards the expenditure, the brunt of the expenditure will be borne by the local authorities. I am much disturbed about that. I should have been far more grateful and I should have welcomed the Bill much more heartily if the Treasury had borne the full financial burden.
  The hon. and gallant Member for Blackburn (Captain Elliston) said something about a physical instructor going down to the beach at Hastings and that he had soon hundreds of people surrounding him. The people who need this physical exercise do not generally go down to the beaches. They have not the money with which to go. They cannot have holidays. Until I came to this House I worked for 43 years in industry and never had a day's holiday with pay. There are hundreds of thousands of workers who cannot afford to go on holidays. They have not sufficient to keep body and soul together. Therefore, I am afraid that that class of people will not materially benefit from the Bill.
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  There is another point to which I would direct the Minister's attention. In the industry with which I am primarily interested three shifts are worked at the pits. Thousands of boys between the ages of 14 and 18 work on the night shift. When are you going to give them physical training? When they arrive home in the morning, about 7.30 or 8 o'clock, they go to bed, and they have worked so hard in the pit that they would stay in bed until it was time to go to the pit again at night, if their parents did not rouse them. I know what I am talking about. I have gone through it myself. What are you going to do with those lads so far as physical training is concerned? There are those who are working on the day shift. There are lads in my village who get up at 4.30 in the morning and go to the pit at 6 o'clock and do not return home until 3 o'clock in the afternoon. When they come home they drag themselves along like old men. What are you going to do with those lads in regard to physical training? Those lads are between the ages of 14, 18 and 21. The Minister said that the secondary schools could not at present supply recreation for anyone over 18 years of age, but that under this Bill they would be able to supply it for all ages.
  Mr. Stanley: Not the secondary schools; the authority for higher education.
  Mr. Griffiths: I appreciate the correction. What I am worried about is in regard to those who have left school. There are thousands of men and women who have no desire and no energy left for physical training when they get home. The Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) was right when she said that we need shorter hours of labour. I do not want to introduce a jarring note this afternoon, but when we ask for shorter hours the majority of hon. Members opposite vote against us.
  Viscountess Astor: For juveniles.
  Mr. Griffiths: For the middle-aged as well as juveniles. The men who get out of bed at 4.30 in the morning and do not get back home until 4 in the afternoon need shorter hours. I should like to quote from a pamphlet issued by the Political

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  and Economical Planning Association. They give figures appertaining to the conditions in the country so far as the consumption of milk is concerned, and they show that the less the wage the less milk there is consumed in the home. Sir John Orr in his tables gives certain groups. In Group No. 1, where the weekly income per head is 10s., the consumption of milk per person per week was one pint of liquid milk and 6 of condensed milk. In Class 2, from 10s. to 15s. per head, the consumption was two pints of milk per person per week. In Class 3, 15s. to 20s. per head, the consumption was 2.6 pints. When you get down to an income of 45s. per week the consumption was 5.4 pints of milk per head per week.
  Viscountess Astor: What do they spend on beer?
  Mr. Griffiths: I do not know what they spend on beer. The Noble Lady is aware that I am a life teetotaller. I do not spend any money on beer.
  Viscountess Astor: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Griffiths: Thank you. Dr. M'Gonigle in his book on "Poverty" gives some astonishing facts. In Group A, where the family income per week was between 25s. and 35s.—he surveys the condition of 745 families—46 families consumed only one half-pint of milk per week. I am glad that the Minister has stated that he will put pressure upon local authorities who are not carrying out the instructions in regard to the feeding of children so far as milk is concerned. The most astonishing figures that I have relate to the international situation in regard to milk. We stand the lowest among 12 or 14 countries in our consumption of milk. What is still more alarming is that the price of milk in Britain is higher than it is in any of the other countries. In Switzerland they consume 435 pints of milk per head per annum and in Sweden they consume 42o pints per head per annum. The cost per pint in Sweden is 1.6d. The consumption of milk in Britain is 150 pints per head per annum and the cost is 3.25d. per pint. Therefore, the cost in this country is 3¼d. per pint compared with 1¼d. per pint in Sweden. In Norway, Denmark, the United States, Germany, France, and Belgium more milk is consumed than in this country. Why? Because the cost of
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  milk in Britain is higher than in any other country. I have one more table to which I want to refer—I know I am a little monotonous—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Dennis Herbert): I hope the hon. Member will remember the Bill on which he is speaking. I do not want to rule him out of order.
  Mr. Griffiths: I was trying to make the point that unless you get a healthy body there is not much chance of getting physical training. I have put the international situation, but when it comes to the farmers at home they are all squealing that they are going into the bankruptcy court or into the workhouse. I have been on a public assistance committee for a long time and I have never known of a farmer coming to the committee. However, here is an opportunity, as far as they are concerned, of getting the people to drink more milk. I have here two tables from Cardiff made by an independent inquiry; not a Socialist inquiry or an inquiry by Government officials. They took four sections of the workers: first, a good middle class; second, a good working class; third, a new housing estate; and, fourth, a poor working class. They analysed their conclusions in this way. In Group 1 the consumption of liquid milk per person per week was 3.88 pints; in the good working class, 1.87 pints; in the housing estate, 1.32 pints; and in the poor working class, 1.10 pints.
  Mr. Montague: How much beer?
  Mr. Griffiths: We will come to beer directly. The point I want to drive home is that if people were given increased wages they would spend the money on milk. My last group of tables—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member is really getting too far away from the Bill. His broad argument is in order, but he is going into details and matters which cannot be dealt with in this Bill.
  Mr. Griffiths: I am sorry, Sir Dennis, that you were not present when the President of the Board of Education spoke. He devoted a good portion of his time to milk, and the hon. Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) has been talking about milk.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member must accept my Ruling. There are different ways of talking about milk.
  Mr. Griffiths: I will talk about finance. The point I want to drive home is that the amount spent on this commodity in a good middle-class family is 4s. o¾d. per week—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I must ask the hon. Member to obey my Ruling, and not to proceed on exactly the same lines as those upon which I stopped him.
  Mr. Griffiths: Let me conclude then by saying that we desire that the leisure of the workers shall be well spent as far as they are concerned, and I am quite satisfied that the workers will spend their leisure in the right way and will be physically fit to enjoy life.
  5.52 p.m.
  Sir Samuel Chapman: This is a Scottish as well as an English Bill, and I want for a few moments to call attention to some aspects of the case as far as it affects Scotland. When we were last discussing this question the Secretary of State for Scotland, in reply to a question from me, said:
  "The hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir S. Chapman) particularly drew attention to the problem of the less well-off individuals. It is the less well-off individuals of whom we are all thinking.… It is to help those who are not so well off, who have not perhaps so much initiative, and do not know so well how to set about it, that the scheme has really been launched.''—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th February, 1937; col. 528, Vol. 320.]
  Those words have sunk deep into the minds of the people of Scotland. I have made it my duty to go amongst what I may call the decent young working men of Scotland, who at the present time have not the facilities which the middle classes have for enjoying athletic exercises. I have attended a number of meetings, and I was asked by the representatives of these young workers to convey to the Secretary of State their hearty thanks for his words, which will form the charter of the young athletes of Scotland. The right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) said that it would be the education authority who would work the Bill. I do not read it in that way, and I should like the Secretary of State to tell me who will really be responsible in Scotland for the working of the Bill. No fewer than five parties will have to be consulted
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  before anything definite is done. There is the National Advisory Committee—it is only advisory—then the Grants Committee, who will receive reports from the Advisory Committee, then the local advisory committees and the Secretary of State himself. That makes four. But the most important body of all, who are now in control of everything appertaining to physical instruction, is the local authority.
  In the City of Edinburgh it is the Parks Committee who alone will be able to carry out these duties. They are responsible for the public spaces in Edinburgh, and they have been very active of late years. I went round the public parks of Edinburgh the other day with the convener of the committee, and was shown in the most minute detail what they do to try and satisfy the athletic inclinations of the young citizens of Edinburgh. A rate is levied for the purpose. How can you have an education authority, or any other authority, coming in and exercising power over the local authority? I hope that that point will be cleared up by the Secretary of State. Dr. Thomas Chalmers, a very great citizen of Scotland, said that when big things were being attempted two qualities were essential to greatness—power and promptitude. It may sound a little like a modern dictator, but I want to ask who is going to have the power and who will see that there is promptitude in carrying out this wonderful national scheme? There must be a long view.
  The universities of the country were established in dark and difficult times. Our predecessors had vision and establised them in those parts of Scotland where they were wanted. But they give attention only to the spiritual side of education. Now we are going to complete education in this great Measure by paying attention to the physical side. I want to ask the Secretary of State to work with the utmost harmony with the advisory committees so that in the course of the next 10 or 12 years they will have in view the establishment of centres which might be called universities of sport, in much the same way as our predecessors established the universities. There should be, I will not say four Olympias, but four great centres in Scotland. We must strike the imagination of the youth of Scotland, and that we can do in one way. As has

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  been said in the House over and over again, we cannot use compulsion. We must substitute competition for compulsion. If we encourage the natural spirit of sport, which is pleasurable competition, by striking the imagination of the youth of the nation, so that one part of the country will compete with another part, each part doing its duty to uphold its traditions and honour, this great movement will spread like wildfire, and the two Ministers in charge of the Bill will then be able to say that they did a great deal in their day and generation.
  6.2 p.m.
  Mr. Ede: I am sure that all hon. Members who listened to the Minister this afternoon felt that we had a very wide and wise survey of this particular problem delivered in a manner which made it really enjoyable to all. I do not know what the right hon. Gentleman feels about the subsequent discussion, but I think he must begin to realise that in this particular matter he will have to be very careful to see that certain faddists and people of one idea do not push their idea on to him, and make it monopolise the scheme. The Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) foresees salvation in the open-air nursery school. The hon. and gallant Member for Blackburn (Captain Elliston) seems to find it in depriving teachers of the opportunity of teaching this particular subject in their schools. I agree with neither of the hon. Members on those points. The nursery school has its place, but we must be very careful to see that the nursery school is not made an excuse for the continuance of bad social conditions. The best person to teach a child under five years of age is the child's mother. It is unfortunate that our social system is such that so many mothers have not the time, the opportunity or the environment to do it to the best advantage, but I hope that the nursery school will not be used as an easy way of providing women who would be better employed at home with the opportunity of returning to factories or doing other forms of work instead of looking after the family.
  As to the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member for Blackburn, in view of the fact that he has again mentioned the subject, I would like to reiterate what I said in the Debate on the White Paper. I hope this subject will not be taught in
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  the ordinary schools of the country by people who are specialists in this one subject. I think that would be very bad for the schools. Every teacher who happens to be a specialist in one subject ought at least to have some other subsidiary subject, and some knowledge of the general work of the school. If the teacher does not have that, the particular subject in which he or she specialises is very badly related to the rest of the work of the school, and the teacher has no clear idea of the particular part which he or she is expected to play in the life of the community which he or she happens to be serving. Moreover, I believe it would be very difficult for women teachers who were physical training specialists only to be sure of employment after reaching 45 years of age or thereabouts. At the recent conference of the National Union of Teachers, I was very interested to note the almost unanimous way in which a proposal that this subject should be pushed on to specialists was rejected by the conference, which consisted in the main of general practitioners. One of the arguments put forward was the fact that unless the profession was very careful about pushing this subject on to specialists who were not qualified in any other subject, it would be faced with a very large number of people just beyond middle age who would not be qualified as general practitioners and who might find it exceedingly difficult to get permanent employment. Therefore, I hope the Minister will not listen too carefully to the proposals put forward by the hon. and gallant Member for Blackburn.
  There is one other thing with regard to the employment of specialists which I think ought to be said. There are very many schools in this country which are comparatively small. Physical education in a school derives a good part of its value from regularity. Thirty years ago, when I was an assistant master, the Surrey Education Committee established a regulation that there should be at least 20 minutes of physical education every day. Obviously 20 minutes every day is far better than 200 minutes a week. It would be absurd to suggest that in the case of some of these children it would be advisable to take more than 20 minutes, but 20 minutes every day in the hands of a school teacher is undoubtedly very useful. If there were specialists, how could one arrange for the rural

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  schools to get the benefit of a specialist every day? It would be an administrative impossibility. I hope that arrangements will be made inside the schools for this work to be done by people who may have rather more knowledge of this subject than some of their colleagues, but who will be general practitioners as well as physical training teachers.
  I was hoping that in the course of the very wise general remarks which the right hon. Gentleman made, he would deal with one subject in connection with physical recreation on which he did not touch. If on the Tyneside, among my constituents, some of the shipwrights' apprentices took up rowing and produced, as I have no doubt they could with a little practice and coaching, a first-class eight, would the right hon. Gentlemen use his influence with the authorities at Henley to get a relaxation of the rule that people engaged in manual occupations should not row at Henley?
  Sir John Withers: I have a good deal to do with rowing matters, and I should be very interested to know whether there is a rule at Henley that persons employed in manual labour cannot send an eight.
  Mr. Ede: I am so informed. Obviously the hon. Member for a University which has just had a bit of bad luck in rowing ought to know, but I have been so informed.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: My hon. Friend is quite right. The rule of the Amateur Rowing Association is that a man who earns his living by his hands is not eligible. There are many hon. Members in all parts of the House who would like to see that rule revised.
  Sir J. Withers: I will certainly do my best to get it revised.
  Mr. Ede: May I now be allowed to resume? I hope the publicity that I have given to this matter and the enlightenment that has been given to the representative of my own University may have some practical result. I would like to emphasise the point that undoubtedly there are in some sports social distinctions which have to be got rid of on the side of physical recreation. If we are to get the sort of spirit which the right hon. Gentleman voiced this afternoon—and I believe he spoke not merely for the whole
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  House, but for the whole country—then the mixing of all classes on the field of sport, without having the professionals and the amateurs walking through separate gates, would be a very great advantage, and one which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman, as well as myself, would welcome. I hope that now the matter has been mentioned this afternoon, he will give his support, and that it will be dealt with appropriately when an opportunity arises. With regard to the remarks I made on a previous occasion about the school quoted this afternoon by my right hon. Friend the Member. for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith), the Minister relieved me of the task that I had voluntarily undertaken of securing an anthropometric survey of the school that he mentioned and a comparative anthropometric survey of similar schools in Surrey. I have not heard whether the right hon. Gentleman has completed his survey, but when he has done so, I hope that if the results are illuminating one way or the other, they will be published.
  With regard to nutrition, I am convinced that the child most to be pitied in this country is the badly nourished child in the well-nourished district. For the past four years I have been chairman of the Surrey County Council, and during that period the provisions of the Act concerning meals for school-children were put into force. Then we had this sort of thing happening. There was a report from the medical officer that perhaps three children out of a regulation block of three department schools consisting of 1,128 children were suffering from malnutrition in an area where one naturally expects to find very little malnutrition. I am sure that it is more likely that those three would be overlooked than the children in an area where one expects to find malnutrition. I hope the Minister's statement this afternoon that he intends to see that local authorities do their duty will be applied in those areas just as rigorously as in the areas which he thinks have benefited by the recent division of the block grant. Those three children are just as important to the nation as three children in some area that is classified as "Special" or "distressed."
  I welcome whole-heartedly the Amendment of Section 86 of the Education Act of 1921, not merely because of what it allows the local authority to do, but because I am sure that when some of these

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  young people of 18 years of age are introduced into the educational system for physical recreation only, by the Amendment of the Section, they will be drawn in that way into some of the wider activities of the education authority in which they do not participate at the moment. If they are, I am sure the right hon. Gentleman's proposed Amendment of the existing law will be justified from the old academic educational point of view, as well as from the newer and wider point of view which he expressed this afternoon. I hope the Minister will not expect every local education authority to approach him through the medium of the local grants committee. Some authorities will, I think rightly, prefer to deal with him directly. They may feel that any funds which a grants committee has at its disposal could most justifiably be used in areas where the local rates press rather more hardly on the inhabitants than elsewhere.
  I am not sure whether a county council, apart from its position as an educational authority, will have the right under this Bill to build a swimming bath. I have tried to get advice on the point but I have not succeeded in getting any very definite advice. Undoubtedly a great impetus has been given to the library movement, for example, since county councils were allowed to act as library authorities. The county libraries which one now sees in rural districts throughout the country give some indication of the results of handing the library movement over to the county councils. There must be many areas in which there are several largish villages or small towns within reasonable proximity of each other, no one of which could be expected to provide a swimming bath. The problem of establishing a joint committee to deal with a question like that might prove insuperable and it would be advantageous if the county council were given power to provide a swimming bath in an area of that kind. I do not like special rates, but I would not mind such a power being accompanied by a power to levy a special rate on the parishes concerned at any rate in the early years of the scheme. I think there is in the Bill an exception with regard to swimming baths which would make it impossible for a county council to do what I suggest.
  Apart from that small criticism, I welcome not only the Bill itself, but the spirit
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  in which it has been introduced by the right hon. Gentleman. I sincerely hope it will be administered in that spirit and that the local authorities will realise that if the good words of the Minister are to be made fruitful, it is they who will have to do the work. This is one of those schemes for the success of which we must rely entirely upon the way in which it is applied in relation to the persons in each locality. The personal approach will mean everything. If it is wrong or injudicious in an area, the project will be a failure in that area. But with the right and judicious method of approach and the appropriate leaders, I am sure that the amount of happiness which can be provided for all sections of the community out of this Measure, cannot be fulfilled.
  6.20 p.m.
  Mr. Clement Davies: Every one in this House desires to see a healthy nation and every one desires that this Bill, as far as it goes, should have the success for which the Minister hopes. Speaking for myself, I say frankly that I do not understand the policy of the Minister and I do not understand this Bill. Every speaker in the Debate so far, with the exception of the Minister, has spoken of this Bill from the point of view of his own constituency. Every one has addressed his mind to the question of the urban area and the urban child. But what is the good of spending money upon the physical training of a child whose life has already been more or less destroyed and who is unfit to be trained? That is the condition in which many of the children in our rural areas find themselves. A very lurid picture of the conditions of young people between 14 and 18 was, rightly, drawn by the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. G. Griffiths) but I wonder whether Members who represent urban areas realise the life led by the rural child in many districts.
  Teachers from my constituency recently paid visits to the distressed areas in South Wales and they came back lyrical about the conditions under which the children were being brought up there, compared with the conditions under which the children are being brought up in my area. What is the good of physical training for children whose lives have already suffered because of the conditions under which they live? In the distressed areas the schools are perfect—they have central heating, the children are looked after, meals are

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  provided for them. Compare that with the conditions of the children in my own village. The bulk of them have to walk over 2 miles to school. Some of them, toddlers of 6, have to walk 4 or 4½ miles to school. They are called between 6.30 and 7 a.m. and they have gone to school every day throughout this wet winter. When they get there, there is no means of drying their clothes. The teachers do their best to deal with those who come the greatest distances, and who are always the first to arrive.
  I know the conditions because of my own experience. I had to walk 2½ miles to school every morning, having already done pretty nearly a day's work before starting and knowing that when I got home again in the evening there was another day's work awaiting me. I know what happens to these children. They arrive at school wet, they have to stay there until 3.30. All they carry in their little satchels is a packet of sandwiches. There is no means of heating food for them. At about 10.30 a.m. they are allowed out, and they are supposed to eat part of their sandwiches then. I am assured by teachers in the rural districts of Montgomeryshire that when the children are allowed out, say at 10 o'clock, by five minutes past 10 there is not a scrap left in their satchels. They finish it all in five minutes, and at 3.30 o'clock they start their long trek home. They arrive home between 5 and 6 o'clock, and possibly have to go out and get the cows or help in some other way on the farm before at last a meal is ready for them.
  Money is to be provided for the urban children, so that physical training can be given to them. By all means let that be done, but why cannot money be provided to help those rural children? We have asked the Minister for assistance. The Minister himself paid a visit to my county, but what did he see? He saw two schools which we have been able to erect and of which we are proud. He did not go to the schools to which he ought to have gone—schools of which we are ashamed, schools which we cannot better. A turn of the economic wheel and your distressed area in South Wales ceases to be distressed, but turn that wheel as you like, and we remain distressed. A penny rate in my county produces only £600 a year compared
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  with one county in England in which a penny rate produces £69,000 a year. [HON. MEMBERS: "Because the land is exempt."] What is the good of asking me to provide better schools? I agree that the land has been derated, but the villages in my constituency are poor. We are asked to build houses and to spend more money on roads, but we have not got the money. The amount which we can afford to pay to agricultural workers is the dreadfully low sum of 31s. 6d. a week. I have the honour to belong to a firm where the minimum wage is £3 a week and the day ends at 5 o'clock, but the day of the agricultural labourer in my county is 24 hours. We have very few agricultural labourers because most of the farms are family farms and every member of the family has to help. It is the children of these families for whom, as I say, decent schools cannot be provided. I know a school in which there are two rooms and in which the authorities did indulge in a form of central heating. The central heating consisted of placing a stove in the middle of one room and carrying a pipe into the other room. When the second room was made warm enough for the little mites who had to occupy it, the first room was insufferable.
  We have made our appeal through the County Councils Association, that special consideration should be given to rural areas. The total amount we are asking is the amount that can be provided under this Bill for the urban areas—something like £2,000,000. The County Councils Association representatives asked to see the Minister but the Minister for some reason could not see them. They were seen by civil servants. All praise to civil servants but what can they do with regard to policy. Policy is a matter for the Minister and something which he ought to lay before the Cabinet. Naturally, every one is anxious that we should have a nation of perfect men and women, as far as that is possible, but when the Minister is putting this Measure into operation, I ask him to consider those who are unfitted to receive any physical training whatever. To-day I dread to look at some of those who as boys went to school with me. They are racked with rheumatism, thank God I am not. I knew one family of 6 ranging from the age of 5 up to the age of 12. We walked together to school for the last

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  2½ miles of their journey every morning. Only one member of that family is alive to-day and he is racked with rheumatism. That shows the condition of things in the country schools.
  I beg the Minister to do something to help those schools. When I made a similar appeal on a previous occasion a Noble Lord who was then a member of the Government reminded me and the House that the Minister himself represented a division of Westmorland, where the conditions were somewhat similar to those in Montgomeryshire, and he said that my appeal would be like "deep calling unto deep." I have yet to plumb the depths of the President of the Board of Education, but I hope that my appeal now may be answered by him at some time in the immediate future.
  6.30 p.m.
  Mr. Tinker: We have heard an impassioned appeal from the last speaker, but he must know that the Government which he supports are responsible for the means test and that poverty is following on that and because of what has happened. His party is responsible for those conditions, and it is all very well to make an impassioned appeal at a time like this, when there have been occasions when, by a vote, he might have altered them by his own efforts. This Bill is not entirely for children but it is for growing people and for adults as well, and I gather from the outline given to-day that some thought has grown up in the minds of the Government and of the country that the time has now come when the nation must try to get its citizens in better condition. It is found now that the leisure time of the people is not being utilised in the best way, that other countries are trying to deal with it in a better way than we are, and that the time has come when this country must turn its attention to that matter. When we get a Bill like this, some may think that it is intended to get our people right for any emergency, and perhaps for a war emergency, but we are assured that that is not the case.
  I believe that physical fitness is necessary to intellectual fitness. I rather look upon the stout fellow as being capable of dealing efficiently with other matters. I may he wrong, but I am reminded about the lean man and the stout man. The stout man goes through life more com-
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  placently than the lean man, who is, I will not say always in search of trouble, but who is trying to get something done. The stout man, not having to carry so much extra weight, is better able to deal with physical jobs. The Minister, when he talked about a concave man, which means, I take it, a flat-bellied man, and a convex man, which means a round-bellied man, seemed to hit at two people on the Treasury Bench in different ways. The Home Secretary, lean, took it as a compliment, but the Minister of Health felt somewhat ashamed when he looked down at his belly and thought, "Does he mean me?" I think the Minister did.
  One welcomes this Bill in its general outline, but it calls to mind many inequalities in our social system. When we are talking about physical training, one's mind goes back to a certain section of the population as against the other section, and one wonders whether it will be required for certain people. Let me give an instance of what I mean. On Saturday last I travelled from Bolton in a compartment containing 20 people, which is rather unusual, but it was full of mill girls. There were the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. G. Macdonald) and I, with 18 mill girls. Many of the girls were so slight and toilworn that there was no question about their being able to get into the carriage. I questioned one of them, and I said, "Do you mind telling me what time you start out in the morning?" She replied, "I start out at a quarter past six." I said, "What time do you finish?" She said, "At 12 o'clock to-day, but on ordinary days it is after 5 o'clock." I wonder what the House feels about physical training for girls like that. There is no chance for them while their hours are so long. In the case of those girls it took from a quarter past six on an ordinary day till round about 6.30 or 7 o'clock to get to and from their work. Would anybody in their senses think that they wanted physical training when they got home? No; they were ready for bed. There is no room for physical training there, and that is why I say there are two sections of the community and that this Bill seems to me to be purposely drawn for one section, the middle-class section, only. I may be wrong in that, but I hope that regard is paid to a number of people who

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  cannot have the opportunity at the present time of making use of this physical training and fitness that the House so much desires.
  The Minister spoke about filling up leisure time, and the thought crossed my mind, Why not get shorter hours of work first, and then get ready for the physical training of those who could very well do with it? The Minister is not doing that, and, to my mind, he is starting at the wrong end. I think the Government should set out to adopt a shorter working week for all classes, and then turn their attention to dealing with this leisure time that so many people have on their hands. They have not done that, however, so that I cannot give my whole-hearted support to the Bill, because I am so anxious that my class should enjoy the benefits of the Bill rather than that the other class should. It is all very well to try and get particular benefits for one class, but I hope that an attempt will be made by the Government to bring along these benefits to all our people. Those who now have too much manual exercise, the drudgery of continuing from early morning till late at night, should have their hours lessened, and then the benefits of this Bill could go to them just as much as they will go to what I term the middle and upper classes.
  One of the speakers in the Debate this evening may be the famous athlete whom I see opposite, and I know he will make a very effective contribution. He is an example of what physical fitness can do, as his record shows, but I wonder how many of our class would develop, probably not as well as he has, because he is an exception, but, given the opportunities that he has had and that his class gets, I think that the young people of whom I am thinking would do very well in the great events of sport if they got those opportunities.
  Lord Burghley: If the hon. Member knew individually the members of the athletic teams which I was privileged to go abroad with, he would have found that the great majority of them were the very people to whom he is referring and that they were actually placed in the Olympic games. It is really marvellous how they find time, working as hard as they do, to produce such physical fitness.
  Mr. Tinker: If that is so, I accept the Noble Lord's statement, but what I am trying to do—and I hope he will see my position—is to secure that the benefits of this Bill should go to my class. At the moment I do not think they get the same opportunities as some other people get, and that is why I feel that, although I give a welcome to this Bill, it is not that whole-hearted support that I would give to it if I thought it dealt with everybody in the same way.
  6:38 p.m.
  Lord Burghley: I had not intended to intervene in this Debate. Rather had I come to listen to the suggestions which would be put forward, but there are one or two points that I would like to make after listening to the speeches so far. I do not propose to touch on the subject of nutrition, because, although it is obviously of the utmost importance, I think it comes rather outside the scope of the work of the Council which has been set up. Nor, for that matter, do I propose to say much about schools, in that the powers of recommendation of the Council are in that direction to a certain extent limited. Nor do I propose to go into the realm of journeys in railway trains, let alone with 20 of the fair sex. One thing has come out in the Debate very much indeed, and that is the very constructive suggestions which have been made from all sides of the House. I listened with eager anticipation to what the Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) had to say, and I was a little disappointed, because I expected to hear more, in that she herself has managed to breed and bring up a winner over hurdles.
  I would like to touch on one matter in particular, and that is the question which has arisen of the amateur status in one sport. I think there has been a feeling running through the speeches of several Members that there is a possible discrimination between the classes in various sports. In the one sport that I know a good deal about, and that is athletics, I can assure the House that it does not exist. Of the 150,000 members or so affiliated to the Amateur Athletic Association, the enormous majority come from the very classes about which we have heard to-day. Being myself privileged to live up in the Midlands I have run on

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  many occasions in the Midlands, and in the North too, and when you go into the tents and see the athletes changing, you find people from every walk of life happily congregated together for the sport. I would like to emphasise again how wonderful it is that many of these men who are miners or working very hard by the sweat of their brow during the day find time, for cross-country running or for other forms of athletics, to go out in the evening and train and produce the most magnificent results.
  May I pass to the question which has arisen about the medical side? I feel sure that the members of the council are fully alive to that point; but I think we have taken one point for granted which is not necessarily so, and that is that any form of exercise or recreation which is recommended should be of a completely exhausting sort. I think that the modern tendency in physical development exercises is that they are not completely exhausting, but rather that you should feel, if anything, refreshed from taking part in them. As far as the production of champions is concerned, I am sure hon. Members opposite will agree that they are freaks and not necessarily what we are wanting to produce. Rather, one wants to raise the standard for the modern performer, who in the past has not had the same facilities as have others. I welcome the suggestions made about the B.B.C. by the right hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith), and I want to assure him that that point has not been missed as far as the council are concerned, and the same with regard to the suggestion about gramophone records.
  On the more general subject, the problem is twofold. We have got not only to provide the facilities, which is relatively simple, but we have something far more important to do, and that is to bring about in many people a change of mind. That change of mind comes from propaganda. We want to develop a type of mind, or characteristic, which is already in existence but dormant, and that is to make people take a pride in their physique, to try as far as one can to make them realise the importance of being physically fit. We want them to realise that in all physical fitness there is happiness to be found, and in the preparation for the various sports and recreations there is also happiness to be
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  found. There is a further point, and that is that where people are enabled to take part in these various activities together friendships grow up, friendships which I value, so far as my running friends are concerned, as highly as any friendships that I have.
  This task of propaganda, which is a tremendous task in itself, can only be performed by the council if it has the cooperation and help of all men of good heart, from whatever party or walk of life they may come. I make an earnest appeal to Members of the House who are looked on in their districts as leaders in those districts, to do all that they can to help in this propaganda, and to help the work of the local committees which are to be set up under this Bill so that we may have what we all desire to see, a healthier and therefore a happier nation.
  6.46 p.m.
  Mr. Pilkington: I am sure the House will agree that it is a good thing the Noble Lord came here not only to listen but to give us the benefit of his great experience. I would like to add to what he said about those hon. Members who have dealt with people doing excessive manual work and to remind those hon. Members that the title of this Bill is "Physical Training and Recreation." Also I cannot allow the remark of the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) to go unchallenged, when he said that the result of a recent boat race was in any way due to bad luck.
  Everybody will agree that generally this country within the last two years has been accelerating the speed of its national evolution. Financially, we are back to our old position of being one of the soundest nations in the world. Politically, as was pointed out in the leader 'in yesterday's "Times," the working of Parliament to-day rivals that of the dictatorships in its scope, promptitude and effectiveness. Domestically, the Government are now dealing with these twin problems of nutrition and physical training. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Education has pointed out that these two questions are complementary, not exclusive. He has explained that the two principles upon which the Government base this plan are, first, that it shall be voluntary, and, second, that it shall be grafted on to existing machinery rather than be the inauguration of a completely

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  new system. The House in general has shown itself in agreement with those two principles, and although we may agree that in the long run we gain more than we lose by following them, it is undeniable that we do lose something. By keeping this scheme voluntary there will be a certain percentage, as there would be in any country, of slackers who will remain slackers. By grafting it on to existing institutions we lose something of the effect which a completely new plan would have upon the general imagination of the country.
  I want to make a few suggestions to offset these drawbacks while keeping the principles themselves intact. With regard to the question of making the system voluntary, I want to say something about how parallel systems work in other countries. In France the Blum Government have created an entirely new post. M. Lagrange has been made the Under-Secretary for the Organisation of Sport and Leisure. That shows the importance which the French Government attach to this question, and it bears out what my right hon. Friend said in what was perhaps the most moving part of his speech, when he was talking about the use of leisure by young people. In Germany the progressive compulsion in physical training culminated in the decree of December, 1936, by which the youth of Germany between 10 and 18, numbering some 8,000,000 young men, were incorporated into the Hitler Youth Movement. In addition to the ordinary school curriculum they have intensive sports every Saturday and camping out every other Saturday. When they leave the Hitler Youth Movement they have to do their six months arduous toil in the labour service. After that they are ready for their two years of conscripted service.
  We may compare this nation's record with the figures which were given last December by the Minister of Health, when he estimated that 40 per cent. of our population between 14 and 40 did not participate adequately, if at all, in physical training. That is the position in this country with our voluntary system. As might be expected, however, this voluntary system is something of a compromise because, wherever we have any compulsion for mental training, there is usually also a certain amount of compulsion for physical training. That is so in the
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  schools, but it is emphatically not so in the case of the universities. I should like to see the universities, led naturally by Oxford, remedy this state of affairs by having some scheme by which every undergraduate would partake in some form of physical exercises. A quarter of an hour's P.T. before breakfast would, I think, have the most excellent effect upon the undergraduates themselves and would have an even more valuable effect as an example to the rest of the country.
  That brings me to my second point, that the fact of having to graft on to existing institutions means that we lose something in the way of popular appeal which a completely new plan would have. Some such action as this by the universities would have a great effect upon both the public opinion of this country and public opinion abroad. I recall the vivid story which was related to the House the other day by the hon. Member for North Bristol (Mr. Bernays), when he described the way in which the young German student regarded his effete counterpart in England. If I may follow this thought even further, would it not galvanise the whole nation into activity, and other nations into amazed admiration, if this august House itself should set some sort of example? A few simple exercises every day in obedience, Mr. Speaker, to your word of command, would, I think, have a rejuvenating effect upon Members themselves and would also give a most valuable lead to the country.
  Unless the Government are able to capture the imagination of our youth this plan will not succeed. Co-ordination is obviously necessary. Would it not be possible to have some sort of State badge which would be awarded to those who attained a certain proficiency in some branch of sport? It is not the super athlete that we want, but the good all-round man. The possession of such a badge would mean that the owner had had to exert himself and go into training to win it. The non-possession of it would mean that the individual was not up to the general standard of fitness. Considerable choice would, of course, be allowed as to which particular branch of sport the individual would compete in. Some such scheme as this, if it were made nation-wide, would he very valuable in itself and would be of use to the Government in estimating the success of their plan as the months go by. It is the aim

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  of this Government, as it would be the aim of any Government, that every person should have an opportunity for health and happiness. The Government can do a lot towards achieving this object. The Press can do a lot, too, but success will never be achieved unless we can secure the whole-hearted co-operation of that individual whom Lord Balfour stated he had never met, but from whom I was privileged to receive a letter from this morning, that is, the "Average Man."
  6.57 p.m.
  Mr. Denman; I should like to join my humble voice to the general welcome which has been given to this Bill, and especially to the speech with which the Second Reading was moved. A Bill of this type which provides material and machinery may be very easily passed and may not mean much. If it is administered in the spirit of that wise and capacious speech with which it was introduced, I feel sure that it will have a great effect upon the future of this country. It is a brick in the structure which has been in process of building ever since the Jubilee year, the structure of the better organisation of the welfare of our youth. In recent years our appreciation of the duty of the State towards its youth has advanced very much. If we look back to the Victorian age, we are back in times when thought was dominated by the theory of the survival of the fittest. Consequently, public opinion tolerated a high infantile death rate without any great shock. We all remember meeting grandmothers who were proud of themselves for having been the mothers of 14 and for having buried five. That was the typical ratio which was familiar in the earlier years of this century. It is not only that we have become more humane in our regard towards youth in these later years, but we have come to realise that the greater care for youth is a sociological need. Youth has come to have a scarcity value, and we realise that we must develop British youth in the best way that we can. British youth is obviously the greatest of British assets, and we can no longer afford to waste it in the way that the Victorian age was content to do.
  The suggestion I wish to make to my right hon. Friend has already been made by hon. Members opposite, notably the right hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith) and the hon. Member for Leigh
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  (Mr. Tinker). It is that we must take active steps to prevent this Bill being one that is of benefit primarily to sections of the community rather than to the community as a whole. The hon. Member for Leigh instanced the particular case of people whose hours had made it impossible for them to enjoy leisure and recreation. But the workers of whom he was speaking were those who are protected by statutory regulations. They were mill girls, whose hours are controlled. I must remind my right hon. Friend that there are even less fortunate persons, youths of both sexes, whose hours are wholly unregulated and who work far longer than the mill girls to whom my hon. Friend referred.
  We have recently had a very interesting report from the Home Office on the hours of young persons in unregulated trades. There was a reference to the matter in the "Times" this morning and I need not delay the House with lengthy quotations. But I wish to put on record some of the hours of work which that committee discovered in the course of their investigations, because it will really be impossible for substantial sections of our young people to take advantage of this physical training and recreation if this Bill were the only achievement of the Government in this direction. I want to take three examples of different occupations that were inquired into by this Departmental Committee. This was the Home Office Departmental Committee on the Hours of Employment of Young Persons in Certain Unregulated Occupations, and the report was issued last month. They have a section relating to vanboys. They could not make an exhaustive inquiry into all these young persons, but they took large samples in many different parts of the country. They found that of 12,580 vanboys whose cases were investigated, 5,733, approximately 45 per cent., worked for 48 hours a week. Of these 4,170 worked up to 54 hours, 1,295 up to 60 hours, 205 up to 66 hours and 63 over 66 hours. These hours in all cases are exclusive of the average intervals for meals, which are taken as amounting to six hours a week. Then they examined the case of errand boys and messengers, but perhaps I need not worry the House with their hours.
  I will take the case of page boys and lift boys. They say that of 8,417 page

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  boys and attendants whose employment was investigated no fewer than 7,030 were reported to work for 72 hours a week including meal and rest intervals. These intervals were said to average 24 hours. The final case I will quote is that of page boys and attendants, in places of public entertainment. They investigated the cases of 1,082 attendants in cinemas and theatres and of these 119 were employed for periods of 60 to 66 hours, 'or for periods of 66 to 72 hours and 89 for periods of over 72 hours, including all intervals for meals and rest. It is not alleged that these are cases of gross overwork of young people. There are no doubt some cases where the children are overstrained and tired, but what happens generally is that the work is thinly spread out over these long periods and in such cases you have no chance for any social recreation or organised development of mind or body.
  The committee made recommendations. They recommended that as an immediate step these hours should be limited to 48. But what is much more significant is that they regard that merely as a temporary measure. They take 48, because that is the figure recently laid down for shops and the figure which is now proposed in the Factories Bill. They say that they are of opinion that for young persons as a whole a week consisting of as much as 48 working hours is definitely too long to afford the necessary opportunities for continued education and recreation. That, I believe, would also be the opinion of my right hon. Friend. So long as these prolonged hours for young persons, frequently lengthened by overtime, prevail over the large area of our youthful population, it will be impossible to give full effect to the Bill on which we are now engaged. I am confident that my right hon. Friend realises that and is not regarding these comments ag hostile to what he would like.
  I want to make one practical suggestion, and that is that the only effective solution is to go back to the solution we passed in this House 19 years ago, which was that of the day continuation school, a system that works in Rugby. Hon. Members can go there and see how it works. What actually works in Rugby is a working week of approximately 40 hours, and continuation classes, both
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  physical and other, for about seven and a-half hours in the course of the week. I do not say that that is the ideal, and it operates only up to the age of 16, but it is an example of something which is working, which is accepted by the whole population and has been working for some time. It is an admirable precedent for the Minister. I wish him the greatest possible success in the administration of this Bill. I think that before he came in I said that I welcomed the speech which he delivered, because it is on the spirit in which the Bill is administered that its success will depend, and as I know he will administer it in the spirit in which he spoke to us to-day, I have the greatest confidence that it will be of permanent value to the youth of this country.
  7.11 p.m.
  Mr. A. Bevan: I do not propose to occupy the House for more than a moment or two, and I would not have spoken were it not for the direction of a number of the speeches that have been made. The House could not be discussing a more important subject than this, but I am bound to say that I think the whole subject, apart from one or two speeches like those of the hon. Member who has just sat down and the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker), seems to have been debated in a vacuum. Everybody considers physical training to be quite removed from the economic and social background of those who are to be trained. That is an extraordinary situation. I was a member of an industry which offered me quite sufficient physical training and quite completely robbed me of any enthusiasm for any further physical exertion. I started in the pit when I was 13 years of age, and I do not remember any meal which I had for the following seven years that I did not fall asleep over. To suggest physical training to those engaged in the mining industry is utterly fantastic. What they desire, I agree, are other recreational facilities, but to suggest physical training to a man who for 7½ hours a day is performing herculean tasks of physical exertion is to talk utter rubbish.
  The same thing is true of a large number of manual occupations. I do not consider that to be undesirable. As a matter of fact I believe that I will carry most hon. Members with me when I say that the best form of physical fitness is

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  that which is a by-product of a man's occupation. There is nothing more obscene than a man who devotes many hours a day merely to the development of physical fitness. Such intemperateness and over-emphasis of one aspect of life does not produce good citizens, though it may produce a lot of trained athletes. In that case their athleticism is entirely at the expense of their mental development. The hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Pilkington) spoke in high terms of what is happening in Germany, where they have organised training of youth. If that is his idea, I do not share it, because they are robots.
  Mr. Pilkington: I want to make it clear that I was not holding that example out for admiration, but as a comparison.
  Mr. Bevan: I understood that the hon. Member desired that we should undertake in this country propaganda in order that we may be able to create in the youth of Britain the same enthusiasm for physical fitness that exists in Germany. There at once I join issue with him. I do not desire to see any enthusiasm for physical recreation. I desire to see physical recreation indulged in as a normal aspect of everyday life. I do not want to see this unbounded enthusiasm, with people performing on a trapeze and so on. It is not desirable at all. One of the reasons we have to provide facilities for physical training in the modern State is because of modern sedentary occupations in place of the occupations which formerly gave man most of the physical wellbeing which he needed. Because of sedentary occupations there is now a deficiency or malformation in many cases of physical development which must be corrected by some self-conscious effort. I want to emphasise that my view, which I know is the view of a good many hon. Members here, is that we ought to develop normal persons. I therefore welcome those provision in the Bill which give increased facilities, because I think they are desirable, but I deprecate any attempt to organise nation-wide propaganda in order to stimulate the youth of the nation to make use of those facilities too self-consciously, and at the same time I deprecate the rise of competitions and clubs. I know that there I join issue with many hon. Members, but I would ask them to consider this point of view for a moment.
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  Here we are, in the Mother of Parliaments, in 1937, discussing a subject which many Members regard as being neglected, and yet it is a subject upon which more propaganda is conducted than any other. There is not a newspaper which does not devote pages to sport and recreation. You cannot ride in a tramcar or an omnibus, or go into a "pub" or a club, without finding authorities on sport and recreation there. They know all about form. Nothing is followed with such eagerness and avidity as the great sporting events of the nation. No other problem gets the attention which this one gets. It gets so much attention as to amount to a national debauch. Yet hon. Members say it is necessary for us to provide facilities for sport and recreation. Why is that? Precisely because sport and recreation are now regarded as the special prerogative of exceptional persons, and physical development is not regarded as something which should be the ordinary attribute of the ordinary man.
  I remember that we constructed an open air swimming bath in my native town, Tredegar. It is a mining village high up in the valleys of South Wales. That is the sort of additional facility for physical training which I referred to when I said that even mining communities require some form of recreation in addition to the physical exercise they get from their occupation. When I was a boy those who wanted to learn to swim went to the mountain pools and tarns, which were also a great repository of dead dogs. Whereas in seaside swimming baths people swim from one mat to another, there we swam from a dead dog to a dead cat or sheep. We were swimming in a soup of decomposing carcases. Therefore, our local authority attached very great importance to the construction of an open-air swimming bath, and it is now a source of great pleasure to all of us on a summer's day—which infrequently occurs there—to see young children, in particular, lying out sunbathing and bathing in the swimming pool. The pool was opened by a display of swimming by a famous swimming team and afterwards we had a dinner to celebrate the event. At that dinner the captain of the swimming team said he hoped the time would arrive, in the near future, when a swimming team from Tredegar would be able to compete with the swimming pool

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  from his native town. In reply I said that no such thing was going to happen if I could stop it, that I wanted no swimming teams, no display of athletics in the swimming bath; that I wanted the whole population to participate in swimming and sunbathing if they could be persuaded to do so, and that I knew of nothing which would so much deter a timid would-be swimmer from going into the water as watching the performances of a human seal.
  The same thing is true of football. I am not an old man, but when I was a young man I remember that our mountain sides and fields were full of boys playing football. We did not organise competitions, but we played because we liked to play. We did not play for the reason that some people play golf, because it is good for them. I think the desire to play is a justification in itself for playing; there is no need to seek the justification of national well-being for playing. because your own well-being is a sufficient justification. The idea that you must borrow some justification for playing is one of the worst legacies of the Puritan revolution. We thought playing football was something which was worth while in itself, and we all played football, and as a result the juvenile population in that district were in such reasonable physical well-being as was possible, having regard to their lack of nutrition. Now we have football competitions and we have schoolboy leagues. We have more sport than ever we had. Every Saturday, all over Britain, thousands of miners are watching football matches—60,000 spectators all catching influenza looking at 30 fellows kicking a football about. That is their sport, and that is the sort of recreation which is going to be stimulated unless you are very careful.
  You will need to be exceedingly careful if you put the youth of the country into the hands of experts. It does not require great experts to teach the ordinary rules of a game, and once the children and young men know the rules of a game for Heaven's sake leave them to their own devices. They will play the game in a better way. They will do all that is necessary. Once you have some expert training them, taking them into a gymnasium and telling them that all those peculiar and unnecessary evolutions are
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  somehow good because it enables them to perform feats—that does not produce physical well-being, that merely produces mental and physical malformation. Therefore, I really do hope that more emphasis will be placed upon the development of facilities than upon national propaganda to get those facilities used.
  The hon. Member for Widnes made one or two practical suggestions which he thought would lead to a universal adoption of physical training. He said it might be a good thing if all university undergraduates went through some physical drill in the morning, and I suppose he would extend that idea to the elementary schools. As a matter of fact, it is now very largely adopted in schools. One of the reasons why this House insists on physical training in the elementary schools is that there are no playing fields for the children. When I was a boy at school hundreds of us used to pour out into an asphalt yard, and it was like having a dance at a night club; we could not move and we just kept shuffling round; we could not play there at all. Children of the upper middle classes have large playing fields, and it is not necessary to give them drill instruction, because they can play in those fields. This idea that you must get all the boys and girls in rows, like chocolate soldiers, and make them go through evolutions, is a miserable substitute for giving them sufficient playgrounds in which they can play their own games in their own ways. As a propagandist for physical training the hon. Member is the worst I have ever heard.
  We all know that nothing has given the British nation a greater distaste for good literature than having to parse and analyse the best known writers when at school. If Shakespeare is neglected, the schoolmasters of the last generation are largely responsible, because reading which should come to people in the form of a pleasure later on was imposed on them as a task when they were at school. The hon. Member wants to instil into the youth of the country the desirability of physical wellbeing, and to do that he would impose physical training upon them as an unpleasant task performed in an asphalt yard under the eye of an instructor. That is what will happen. I know that what I am going to say is sheer heresy and that I may call down on my head the wrath of many people, but I would abolish precise and formal physical train-

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  ing in schools. I would provide some other means of recreation. To perform physical evolutions perfunctorily because some good may come from them later on gives young people a distaste for physical training.
  Discursive though my remarks may have been, I hope they will have some effect upon the attitude of mind of the Minister, and that he will not try to set us all goose-stepping from John o'Groat's to Land's End, putting us, like robots, through evolutions which are entirely unnecessary in themselves and by no means pleasing to look at. I do not want to say anything about those who have specialised in particular sports. I know that an hon. Friend of mine on the Front Bench has been a distinguished runner and that the Noble Lord the Member for Peterborough (Lord Burghley) is another, and whilst I congratulate them upon their prowess I believe that, sometimes, they are the most dangerous members of the community, because nothing has a more unfortunate influence upon the man who wants to practise virtue than the spectacle of perfection. I hope that in applying the powers to be given under this Bill we shall take a normal and well-proportioned point of view, and try to prevent any lopsided development of our national health, and certainly not imitate the absurdities we see across the water.
  7.28 p.m.
  Mr. Vyvyan Adams: On a point of Order. Will my remarks be automatically interrupted at 7.30 by the Railway Bill?
  Mr. Speaker: I am afraid they will.
  Mr. Adams: Shall I be able to resume my speech afterwards?
  Mr. Speaker: Yes.
  Mr. Adams: May I venture to remind the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), who regretted the varying facilities for athletic pursuits in different classes, that it has not been unknown for the Welsh miner to transfer his herculean prowess to the football field; there his movements have been somewhat freer and more formidable than that dancing in a night club, which my hon. Friend described just now with such accuracy and with such graphic detail. I can also assure my hon. Friend, from my experience of Rugby football, that Welsh miners, or ex-Welsh miners, may be very
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  uncomfortable antagonists. I am glad that he elicited from the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Pilkington) a disclaimer that he admired the mass training of German youth, a training which seems to convert them into easy, muscle-bound, uncritical targets for official propaganda. The hon. Member for Widnes mentioned a matter which I regretted very much, the result of the recent Boat Race. That result, as he said, may not have been due to bad luck, but I sincerely' hope, for my own part, that it will not be allowed to occur again. As a Cambridge Tory I am an unrepentent believer in long and unbroken traditions.
  It being Half-past Seven of the Clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means under Standing Order No. 6, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.

  PRIVATE BUSINESS.
    LONDON AND NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY BILL (By Order).
    As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

  PHYSICAL TRAINING AND RECREATION BILL.
  Postponed Proceeding resumed on Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  Question again proposed.
  7.31 p.m.
  Mr. V. Adams: That, Mr. Speaker, was an unusual experience for me. This no less unusual and interesting Debate was set in motion, by a delightful speech if I may so describe it, from the President of the Board of Education. At an early stage in that speech he regretted that no practical demonstration was possible, but I could not help wondering whether some of us might not come to his assistance. I was personally dashed by the remark made by the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker), who said that he never believed that a stout fellow was capable of dealing with anything efficiently. I do not know from his speech whether I ought to regard myself as a deplorable example of physical deterioration. Although I have not reached the advanced age of 40, I have already acquired that senile con-

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  vexity which is generally and exclusively associated with elder statesmen. This terrible physical consequence is due, I am sure, to that lack of adequate physical training and exercise from which I have been compelled to suffer for the last six years.
  I would submit to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith) that the vicarious valour of vociferous football crowds, which I myself have not infrequently helped to swell, does not by any means advance the purposes of this Bill. Football matches have provided all of us, I am sure, in our later years, with moments of great moral elevation, but they have done the generality of spectators not one atom of physical good. Indeed, among the spectators, or the audience, or the chorus, or whatever you call that human cordon which hedges in 20 or so players, those matches are responsible for colds and increased obesity. However, we shall go on watching these matches and attending the cinemas, to which the President referred in his speech, but we need something more, and that, I believe, will be supplied by the Bill.
  I always object to unnecessary compulsion. I am glad that the experiment is to be tried of leaving out any element of compulsion from the Bill. It certainly is best to avoid it if possible. I hate the smell, taste, and sound of anything which smacks of totalitarianism. I hope—I do no more than hope, because I am by no means sure—that the Bill will work without compulsion being imported into it. We cannot tell how it will work until we have seen its provisions in operation, though I frankly doubt whether it will work smoothly upon a purely voluntary basis; but we must all hope, until the contrary is proved, that the necessary impulse is going to be supplied at schools where physical training forms part of the curriculum, and where right habits and healthy predilections may reasonably be expected to be formed.
  I do not know whether the President of the Board of Education has ever been able to visit the centre in South London which is called the Peckham Health Centre. He might perhaps derive some interesting experiences from that Centre. It has been my privilege to visit it on one or two occasions. There can be found,
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  perhaps, the model for the kind of centre which is to be set up under the Bill. Many activities are to be found surrounding a central swimming bath there, and they are very diversified. They are therapeutic, recreational, social and gymnastic, while the medical condition of members is cared for more particularly. Even on one occasion when I visited it, some of the members of the Peckham Health Centre had the odd experience and the mixed pleasure of hearing a debate between myself and Mr. John Strachey on the topic "Peace cannot come without Socialism." I merely make this reference in order to illustrate the diversity of interests to be found there. Primarily, the Centre concentrates upon health and physical development.
  I believe that the members of the Peckham Health Centre enter it upon a family basis, and that they make some contributions, but I also believe that those contributions are upon a very small scale. I have not been able to make clear to myself, either from the terms of the Bill or from the speech of the Minister, exactly how the Government's scheme is to be financed, but perhaps his hon. Friend will be able to explain a little more explicitly later on, when he replies to the Debate. Perhaps it is worth while for the President of the Board of Education to make some study of the finances of the Peckham Health Centre, always remembering of course—
  Mr. Stanley: I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend, but I happen to know a very great deal about the Peckham Health Centre. My wife had something to do with raising the money for it.
  Mr. Adams: Then I will not charge the right hon. Gentleman with an ignorance from which he is free. I would like to say that if we are treating Peckham Health Centre as a model, we must remember that the general practice in the Bill must be a non-contributory one, and that we cannot expect a centre which is set up in a poor locality to receive contributions from the members who join it. We have not been told to-night so far, but perhaps we shall be enlightened later, precisely what is the proposed site of the college mentioned in Clause 7. That matter is much more important than might appear at first sight. I do not think it is unfair to ask where it is likely to be situated.

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  The President told us that arrangements for this college are already far advanced. The success of our ancient educational institutions, which everybody admits, is in part due to beauty of environment. The leaders who are to instruct the rest of the community in this physical training and team recreation, have before them a great and inspiring task. I hope that the circumstances in which they are themselves trained will be no less beautiful and no less inspiring.
  7.40 p.m.
  Mr. G. A. Morrison: I am very glad that the proposals in this Measure are receiving the same generous welcome as did the preliminary statement which was discussed in this House some few months ago. The promotion of health and fitness depends upon many things, and many different agencies are at work. Nutrition is the basic element, but I will not discuss that further than to say that the operation of the Bill, when carried into law, will certainly show how fundamental it is. It depends also upon due attention to the health of the pre-school child. All who are interested must rejoice in the greatly increased interest now taken in the work of nursery schools. It depends upon housing, especially the housing of children in school. Some work still awaits the right hon. Gentleman in that connection because as recently as 31st December it was stated that 1,033 schools are still on the black list. It depends upon the safeguarding of young persons against too long hours of work, and tasks that are too severe for their age. It depends upon attention to diet, to bodily hygiene, the care of teeth and so on, and to a large extent on the adequate practice of physical exercises during school life.
  Training of the body and mind was at one time a unity. At one time in the history of the world there were found very favourable conditions; I refer to ancient Greece. The right hon. Gentleman reminded us in his speech that that system was founded upon slavery, but he took care to point out that with the increasing amount of leisure which is to be available we are coming back to some extent to that position. The training of body and mind was once a unity, but they have fallen apart. Physical culture was neglected for long periods and it has been comparatively recently restored, with very great improvement in methods. Of recent
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  years, physical exercises founded on scientific principles and upon accurate anatomical and physiological knowledge, and accurately observed and recorded practice, have had a most beneficial effect. I am strongly of opinion that physical training should be taught at all stages by well trained experts. It is a highly skilled business. I have made a point of consulting medical men on this subject at various times during the last few years and I have been impressed with the humility with which they have said that they do not understand all that is involved. I am not even sure that we do not want a new kind of expert, somebody with medical training and with special qualifications in physical training. I should like to suggest, to those whose business it is, that they encourage research and observation on the effects of physical training, not merely on bodily health but on the mind, the character and the personality, a department of knowledge in which the Americans have done and are doing remarkable work. Such work obviously requires to be done by highly skilled men and women.
  In speaking on the White Paper I suggested one or two methods of propaganda. I am glad to see that committees are to be set up which will not merely have to provide facilities for physical exercise and recreation, but will have to direct public interest to the value of such training and recreation. Section 3 gives wide powers in this respect. I believe that after even a short time the worthwhile-ness of the efforts will be demonstrated and will be the best form of propaganda. The President of the Board of Education has told us that one reason for the drive for physical training taking place just now is the success of the greatly improved system of physical education in schools, and that when young people leave school they desire to continue it. Very often they find no facilities. That is exactly what the Bill will provide. One welcomes the promise of support for organisations which are not exclusively concerned with gymnastic work. One of the happy results of this will be an increase in the number, scope and usefulness of these organisations—multiple-purpose organisations, as I may call them.
  I should like to say a word of caution on the subject of supervision. Something was said during the last Debate about the

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  advisability of this physical exercise being carried on under skilled supervision, and some hint was given that that might be possible. I think it is desirable that there should be the possibility of providing something of that kind, in order to prevent harm from overstrain due to too violent or prolonged exertion. I referred a moment ago to the example of ancient Greece, and I would point out that in the 5th century B.C. that community had officials in charge of what we should call physical training, and one set of them had the duty of allocating special exercises to individuals; also that in their schools gymnastic training occupied as much time as all the other parts put together, and it was the only part that continued beyond the school age.
  That leads me to suggest that attention might be directed to the provision of facilities, accommodation and apparatus for remedial work. That is a kind of thing that ought to be done, if it is done at all, before the young people get too old. I would also point out to the Parliamentary Secretary that gymnasia, whether for schools or for post-school work, ought to be equipped for this purpose, and the time tables of instructors should be so arranged as to permit it. I have said that I have a preference for the multiple-purpose organisations, but I should like to mention two very beneficial specialised organisations. One, which I have recently inquired about, is the "Keep Fit" movement. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) spoke about the rapid increase of that movement in his part of the country, and I can tell him that the same thing is happening in the north-east of Scotland, where there are large classes and much enthusiasm. Another is the Youth Hostels Movement, which provides, for people of all ages and classes, the means of seeing the country by travelling, mostly on foot, by the chain of hostels which is so rapidly being provided. The success of that movement has been very remarkable, allowing as it does, at very modest cost, of delightful holidays in the open air. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will remember that, in the particular Utopia to which Samuel Butler gave the name of "Erewhon," the community he described had no sympathy with illness; a man could even be tried and punished for catching a common cold.
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  I do not know that the Parliamentary Secretary would wish to live to see that state of affairs in this country, but I hope that he and his chief will see at an early date, as the result of their efforts, a rapid and marked improvement in the physical and general well-being of all classes.
  7.51 p.m.
  Lieut.-Colonel Moore: It is somewhat difficult to take part in a Debate in which the Noble Lord the Member for Peterborough (Lord Burghley), who is such a distinguished and modest ornament of the athletic world, has spoken, because his knowledge is so great and his experience so wide that the rest of us must appear very much as amateurs by comparison; but I would like to reinforce one or two remarks that he made with regard to membership of the Athletic Union. I myself happen to be president of the Scottish National Cross Country Union, and I can say from personal knowledge, having taken part in many of their competitions, that a large proportion of the membership of the National Cross Country Union comes from the so-called working classes. I hope that my hon. Friends above the Gangway will note that fact and will be glad that one of their class—though I deprecate the use of that term, as in one way or another we are all workers—had the honour to win the national championship at Brussels the other day. That success was due to a stout heart and good shoe-leather, which are about all that is necessary in cross-country running, so that it is specially suitable for those who are not particularly well furnished with worldly goods.
  I rather deprecate the appeal, moving though it was, that was made by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomeryshire (Mr. C. Davies). Naturally, we were all very touched by the picture he painted of those children in his constituency who had to walk many miles to their school, which was ill equipped when they got there, but, at the same time, this is not a Bill that deals particularly with schools, but a Bill that deals with the general well-being and good health of the whole nation, and it would be a very poor argument to suggest that, because everything in the world was not right, therefore we should not seek to put part of it right. I hope that in due course the Minister will be able to extend his wide activities to the other part of the problem

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  presented by the hon. and learned Member.
  Incidentally, I would like to welcome the humanity, vision and imagination with which this Bill has been devised. I feel that it reflects a great deal of credit on the Department, and I thank the Parliamentary Secretary and his chief for it, and also for the enthusiasm and sympathy with which the Bill was presented to the House.
  There is only one matter about which I am rather concerned, and that is the voluntary system. We all want the voluntary system tried out; we all want it to be a success, and I personally hope that it will be a success; but much will depend, as has been said already, upon the way in which it is handled, the type of propaganda that is used, and the way in which the Press put it before the people. All this will have to be very carefully done if we are to get the people seized with a natural enthusiasm to get fit and keep fit. The Press, of course, is a most potent element in this matter. but at the same time I think it is only fair, in defence of a more drastic system, a compulsory system, to try to answer the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith). He referred to the disciplined and dragooned hordes of young men and youths in the dictatorship States. I am not here to defend the type of Government that they have in Germany, or Italy, or elsewhere, but merely want to give the House my own personal experience and knowledge.
  I have gone over two or three of these so-called dragooned and disciplined labour camps in Germany, where there are an average of from 250 to 300 young men. I do not believe that anything had been done to prepare for my coming, because I happened to see marks of dirty gravy on the menu cards, and I do not imagine that they would have been there if it had been known that I was coming so I assume that what I saw was what was actually taking place every day. First of all I looked at the kitchens, and saw that the menus were good, the food was simple and plain, and not ostentatious or extravagant. I went into the day's curriculum, and found that the morning was devoted to the practice of various trades and crafts, all very valuable to these young people when they left the labour camp. I found that they
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  comprised young men from the universities, artisans, clerks, some unemployed, some preparing for the professions—a mixed crowd if ever there was one. At midday they had a meal, and following that a compulsory hour of rest. The afternoon was spent in recreation, sports and games, and in the evening there were lectures on science, history, literature or whatever it might be. Another point is that most of them had bicycles, and they were encouraged to go on picnics, under proper supervision, and explore the beauties of the countryside. I am not in any way suggesting that that is a type of plan that we should adopt in this country; I do not think that we are at all suited for, or that we need, that type of development; but I do think it will be of tremendous importance how the Board of Education handle this voluntary side of the Bill so as to make it the success that we all desire it to be.
  The Minister, in introducing the Bill, referred, very properly I think, to the difficulty of getting the children to build up their bodies and nourish their bodies by taking adequate supplies of the milk which was being provided by the local authorities and by the Board. That is an important problem, because we shall never get children fit to take physical training unless we first build up their bodies, and so the question is, how can children be got to take a sufficient quantity of milk? Some of them do not like it. If the Parliamentary Secretary will go into any of the milk bars that are now to be found in London, he will find that there are about 200 different ways of preparing milk, and not many of them are very difficult. There is milk with soda, which is a repulsive drink at any time; there is milk with various kinds of fruit juice, and, as an hon. Member near me suggests, there is possibly milk with stronger liquids mixed with it. There are many methods of making milk more palatable to children, and I suggest that, in those schools where milk is being used or offered, there might be devised, following the example of the milk bar, means of making it more palatable so that children would take it more readily. I would go further, and say that milk bars should be established by the Government in every Government factory—at Woolwich Arsenal, Chatham Dockyard, and other places of that kind; and I would even have clauses put into all Government contracts providing that where Government

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  work is being carried out, or a new factory is being built for aircraft purposes or whatever it might be, milk bars should be established, so that the workmen may at any rate have as easy access to milk as to any other form of liquid refreshment.
  I have said before in a similar Debate that I would like the Minister of Education and the Minister of Health to cooperate, so that panel doctors could prescribe milk in addition to, or instead of, medicine. I believe that would be one of the ways of enabling expectant mothers to have their constitution built up, and of giving the children a better chance of healthy bodies. These are methods which would cost money—a lot of money—but at the same time I think it would not be too heavy a premium to pay in order to ensure the health and well-being of our race in the future.
  8 p.m.
  Mr. Sexton: I agree with the hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken that in this Bill the Government are setting out on a stupendous task. Not only does it concern the Board of Education, but many other Ministries will come into the picture. Before you can have physical fitness by exercise, you must have physical fitness by nutrition. The White Paper emphasised the fact that there are two essential elements in this physical fitness campaign. One is nutrition and the other is physical training. The health side concerns the Ministry of Health very largely, but it also concerns the Ministry of Labour, because nutrition depends upon food, and food depends upon wages, and if there are no wages to be had—there are thousands of people without wages to-day—it devolves upon the Ministry of Labour, with its unemployment assistance, or the Ministry of Health, with its public assistance scales, to find the wherewithal so that these people can have that food which will enable them to start out on the physical fitness campaign. The Ministry of Health is also concerned, with its child welfare and with its clinics, with the providing of free food where it is necessary. The Board of Education comes in with its school medical inspection and school feeding. The Board of Agriculture comes in, too, with the question of milk. I have had experience of teaching in schools, and I found that
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  after a few weeks the novelty wore off, because the milk was presented in the same form as at the beginning. If the methods of the milk bars were introduced into the schools, the children would keep on taking it. The Board of Trade is also dragged in, because it has been emphasised in many speeches that the hours of labour of young persons have a great deal to do with their fitness before they are asked to undertake physical exercises. If the scheme of physical fitness is to attain full development, it means the very close co-ordination of all these Ministries.
  The Bill talks about physical exercises. In the old days it went by the forbidding name of drill. When I was first a teacher we always called it school drill, and the name was associated with the barrack-yard and the loud-mouthed, and sometimes dirty-mouthed, sergeant-major. When I first taught drill every boy was supplied with a dummy rifle, and all the drill we had was marching up and down in fours, right turn and left turn. Then we went on to another cycle of school drill and a book was issued instructing us how to teach it, and it was called a model course. We dispensed with the dummy rifles, but largely kept to the Army drill. Then we passed on to the modern idea of drill, which is associated with real recreation, aiming not at massive, but at responsive muscles. Modern methods demand more apparatus than the old methods. We have football, cricket, tennis and net ball. All present day tendencies are to link up physical evercises with games. Not only is more apparatus needed, but more space, both indoors and outdoors. We are now providing large halls and gymnasia in schools where boys and girls can exercise in perfect freedom. I can remember taking drill in a class room among the desks where no movement was possible at all. Those days are passing away. Outside we want more playing fields and swimming pools. I have vivid recollections of trying to take physical exercise in a playground like a mountain, rising one in 10, with a knobbly surface. We want all that abolished. We must provide apparatus, we must provide the halls and the gymnasia, and we must provide outdoor playing fields and swimming pools.
  When I turn to the Bill itself, I find that there are to be National Advisory Councils, one of whose functions is to

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  examine the types of physical training. That is a wise and natural function. They have to survey the field and find a way to meet the needs of development. Then there are to be Grants Committees. I hope the procedure will not be too cumbrous, so as to nullify the best endeavours of the Advisory Councils and local committees. The happy thought has been introduced of taking staffs from the Board of Education and the Ministry of Health. There will thus be co-ordination of the educational and health sides of physical training. When we come to the training of teachers, the Bill envisages a National College. Perhaps it is rather late in the day to institute a National College, but I should like to pay my tribute to the facilities that have existed in the past. Even in my day, many years ago, the training colleges provided courses in physical exercises. The Training College is not only to train teachers and leaders but to investigate the problems of the physiology of physical training. I do not see that the psychology of physical training is mentioned, but there is the psychological side as well. One is the corollary of the other. By studying these problems of physiology and psychology we shall be prevented from a repetition of the mistakes of the past, when positively harmful exercises were done by children which were really marked out for adults. If the Training College does nothing better than find out the best system of physical training, it will have played its part. The White Paper refers to an interim before the Training College is established.
  I asked a question not long ago about employing some of the certificated teachers who cannot get jobs during this interim by the initiation of intensive courses. With the true co-operation of all the social service Departments of the Government they could come to play a larger part in the promotion of the real health of the people, and real health very often means real happiness. Knowledge of the best system, not only on the physiological, but on the psychological side, will be a means of promoting the good health of the people. A previous speaker talked about the Victorian age as representing the survival of the fittest. Let us in this age fit the survivors of the present genera-lion so that they will be healthier and happier.
  8.11 p.m.
  Sir J. Withers: The hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. G. Griffiths) raised one or two very important points as to the times when various young men and women could go in for physical training. He instanced people employed in particular trades, such as boys in coal mines working in shifts. It will be very difficult to work in the times of shifts with the times of physical exercise. I commend that to the Minister as a very serious point, and one which will have to be very carefully considered in giving instructions to local authorities. This physical training cannot, I think, apply to young children who are rickety and subject to malnutrition. Having regard to the numbers quoted by the Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor), this matter also should be very carefully considered. My view is that the Government ought to institute a very careful inquiry. The matter involves some very large economic questions, but they will have to be solved. Another hon. Member said there ought not to be any compulsion, but I do not think compulsion will be needed. If there is proper propaganda, so that everyone knows of the existence of these facilities, the natural instinct of boys and girls to play will come into operation. I do not see why there should not be a happy mean between strenuous matches on one side and doing nothing on the other, but there ought to be a certain amount of propaganda so as to interest the children and others.
  The hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Pilkington), I suppose as a joke, suggested that Members for the Universities should be compelled to- take physical exercise daily. Speaking for Cambridge, as far as I can see, nearly every undergraduate takes quite enough exercise. It is not so bad as it was in my time, when the boys used to do too much rowing, and so on, but certainly nearly everyone does a certain amount, and, if he does not, he is looked upon with suspicion. The hon. Member suggested that Cambridge should act under the leadership of Oxford. Of course, we are very pleased to have been led by Oxford on a recent occasion, after leading them so often, and I hope they will adjust matters so that their undergraduates will

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  take as much exercise as ours. Having made these few remarks, I support the Bill.
  8.16 p.m.
  Mr. Westwood: I have followed this Debate from its opening with the keenest interest. It was opened by a speech from the Minister, and I think it would be true to say that, if the spirit of that speech is carried into the administrative work, this Bill, when placed upon the Statute Book, will be one of the most successful pieces of legislation ever passed by this House. I have tried to follow the arguments of some of those who have taken part in the Debate, but it has been with difficulty at times. I have listened to the arguments with reference to the teaching or giving of physical instruction in schools. Part of the Debate has been around the setting up of nursery schools, but I can find nothing in the Bill to justify our arguing about nursery schools or even the kind of physical instruction which is being given in our day schools at the present time. If I read the Bill aright, it is not a substitution for the work of the education authorities or the existing statutory bodies. It is a Bill which will set up the necessary administrative machinery for supplementing the duties that are imposed upon the existing statutory bodies.
  Speaking as one who has had to deal with administration, I wish every success to the spirit that is contained within the Bill. There are some things to which I want to draw attention and in respect of which, I think, it might have been possible to improve even this apparently very good Bill. Already the national advisory bodies have got to work. As I have been fortunate enough to have the honour of being placed upon the Scottish body, I can say that we have already got down to work. The work under Clause 2 is going to be extremely difficult as far as Scotland is concerned. That Clause, which was dealt with by the Minister in introducing the Bill, points out that local committees are to be set up, and that will be an extremely difficult job in Scotland. Our problems are different from English problems. There is the problem of the scarcity of population, particularly in the Highlands, and very large areas have to be covered, and, what is equally important, the very large number of voluntary organisations which have been doing
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  splendid work in the past will make it very difficult to set up these advisory bodies, which are to be of a workable size. Already splendid work has been done in the interests of the youth of Scotland by the many voluntary organisations, by rowing and boating clubs and by the mass of boys' clubs. It is all to the credit of the men and women who have given of their time and service at least to try to save some of the youth of Scotland. These voluntary organisations are entitled to full credit being paid to them by Members of the House taking part in the Debate. The great number of these voluntary organisations will make it very difficult to set up the local committees, who have, in turn, to advise the National Advisory Council as far as grants and the facilities to be provided for recreation and for physical instruction are concerned.
  Clause 3 undoubtedly imposes a new charge upon local authorities. I wish that it had been possible in a Bill of this kind to provide some of the additional money required to make a success of schemes of this particular type. The Minister made special play of the advantages which the additional money provided by the Government for distribution through the new formula will provide for these local authorities. May I assure the Minister, and also the Secretary of State for Scotland, who is listening to this Debate, that some of the financial advantages which some of us thought were to accrue to the local authorities in Scotland have already been more than used up because of the increased cost of public assistance. I could name several authorities who, instead of bringing about a reduction in rates, are likely, because of the additional cost of public assistance, to be faced with an increase in rates, despite the additional sums of money provided for them under the new formula. I want to emphasise that as an administrator, apart altogether from being a Member of this House, I welcome the new powers contained in the Bill. I know the difficulties which have to be faced by the local authorities because a new charge is to be imposed upon them for which no financial provision is really being made in the financial arrangements of the Bill.
  I welcome Clause 4 because it gives power to the local authorities to provide community centres which at present can only be provided by local authorities for

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  municipal housing estates. I wish that the local authorities in Scotland would take full advantage of the powers contained in the Housing Act, 1925, enabling them to develop these community centres and thus improve the facilities for physical instruction and recreation. I am proud of the fact that the authority of which I have the honour to be a member has been a pioneer in work of this kind as far as provincial towns in Scotland are concerned. We have been pioneers in dealing with the overcrowding problem. We are trying to be pioneers in regard to the provision of community centres, and I suggest that there ought to be a working arrangement as far as this Bill is concerned between the Ministry of Health and the Department of Education, so that we can work to the fullest extent the provisions of the Housing Act along with the powers contained in the new Bill in order to provide these centres, not merely under the new municipal housing schemes but also for the general community. I also welcome the provision in the Bill which makes it possible to acquire land on easier terms, or at least in. a more speedy way than at present. It is one of the good things of the Bill, and, having sat on the Committee dealing with the problem of health, I can say that we made a definite recommendation which is now being carried out under this Bill. I am wondering whether it is just the first of the recommendations which are to be accepted, and whether all the others will be as willingly accepted by the Government as apparently this one has been. I will quote from the report of the Committee on the Scottish Health Services, page 147, paragraph 447, which deals with this problem of housing and recreation. It says:
  "The housing schemes must be viewed in relation to well-conceived plans for the development of town and country, in which provision must be made for, among other things, open spaces, facilities for recreation, health and other public services."
  To make those facilities more easily acquirable by the local authorities, particularly where they have to acquire land. paragraph 451 said:
  "We realise the pressing need of land for housing, but we consider the need of land for ether environmental services may be just as great. We see no reason why the housing code, which is simpler and more expeditious and yet fully protective, should not be made applicable generally to all environmental services. The adoption of this course would carry the added advantage of one code for a great variety of services."
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  If I am reading Clause 5 of the Bill aright, that recommendation is really being given effect to. I wish it had been possible to strengthen that particular Clause. Why should the local authorities of Scotland or England, when they require land for the purpose of recreation and for enabling them to carry through to its fullest extent the advantages of the physical instruction which we can provide under this Bill, have to pay the extortionate prices for land that will be demanded from us even under the provisions of the Bill? You make the facilities easy for the acquirement of the land and you give us power to acquire, but we shall have to meet so many claims in connection with vested interest in land that we, I am afraid, shall be handicapped.
  I can visualise an area that I have marked out for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions under this Bill. I have already been instrumental in getting plans prepared for a hall which is to be used as a community centre. It is to be said to the credit of the local authority concerned, not a Labour authority but one which sometimes seeks to accept wise Labour suggestions, that they are making arrangements to provide inside that hall spray baths, so that they will he part of the facilities in connection with this scheme provided for in the Bill. The hall is quite close to a large open space, on which we cannot build because there is no guarantee as far as mineral rights are concerned but which might well be used for the purpose envisaged in the Bill. Why should not my local authority, which is willing to purchase, be able to buy that land at its agricultural value? There would be no robbery as far as the owner of the land is concerned. It would make it more easy for the local authority to give effect to the spirit of the speech of the Minister of Education to-day.
  While I welcome the powers contained in the Bill for the acquiring of land in a simpler and easier way than has been provided under the Borough Police Act and the various other powers given to local authorities in Scotland, I can see difficulties ahead of us because of the prices that will be demanded for land. I wish it had been possible to say in the Bill that whatever is the agricultural valuation placed on the land, on that price being paid, the land shall become available for the particular purposes envisaged in the Bill. By that means there would be greater possibilities of

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  success so far as the schemes are concerned.
  The main point of the Debate has been concentrated on the need for nutrition, particularly of the children in the schools. I agree that nutrition is absolutely necessary if we are to make a success as far as the purposes of the Bill are concerned, but it must be extended far beyond the school children. If I am right in my reading of the Bill, it is a supplementation of the existing powers of local authorities, which powers do not enable us to deal with the problem of nutrition as far as young persons between the ages of 14 and i8 or 14 and 25 years of age are concerned. There has been no more abused words in the English language than the words "nutrition" and "malnutrition." Perhaps I may be allowed to quote from a member of the Advisory Committee referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith). Professor Cathcart, in a speeech which was reported in the "British Medical Journal," said:
  "Again I emphasise the point that in this question of food the problem is frequently as much psychological as physiological. ' Better a dinner of herbs, where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therein'."
  There is something to be said for that, although at the same time I want to say that if everybody was properly and well fed they would go on their way happier than they are at the present time. Professor Cathcart suggested that we ought not to trouble too much, those of us who are lucky enough to get the food that we can order and pay for, as to its nutrition value. He said that would settle itself.
  "Eat all kind Nature doth bestow;
  It will amalgamate below
  If the mind says it shall be so.
  But if you once begin to doubt,
  The gastric juice will find it out."
  That is one of the most effective ways of dealing with the problem of nutrition. If you have the money to provide those good things that you desire they will settle for you whether they are good for your health or not.
  I should like further to emphasise the fact that it would be wrong to give physical instruction or even to carry through these schemes of recreation unless we are prepared fully to consider the steps to be taken by the local authorities to deal with this matter. The Secretary of State for Scotland, following upon the
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  action of the Minister of Health and the Minister for Education, must impress upon the local authorities to use the powers they have to avoid malnutrition through the underfeeding of children in schools. If the children are not properly nourished when they are in school you can go on with all your schemes of recreation and physical instruction, but you will never be able to get the full advantages of your schemes for the youth or the older people unless they have had the chance of real nourishment and feeding when they were attending school.
  I have not been able to follow some of the arguments used in trying to make this too much of a school business. If this thing is to be a success it must be entirely clear of the school atmosphere. Not too much of the rigidity of the schools must be applied either in the teaching, the forms of recreation or the physical instruction to be given. Greater freedom will require to be applied even as far as the leaders are concerned and the instruction that they are to give. I believe it will be possible by a system of intensive training—we have not the trained people to deal with this problem at the present time—to give us the leaders that we require in connection with this physical instruction and these schemes of recreation, and who will make for success as far as the Bill is concerned. The important thing is that in any special and intensified training for a type of individual, we must, in the interests of the health of our children and in the interests of our youths, not overdo the physical instruction. There is always that danger. There must be the greatest freedom allowed provided this point is always kept in mind.
  The essence of the success of the Bill is its voluntary nature, and the variety of the facilities to be provided. Its success will depend not on saying what must be done but what may be done, and the provision of facilities for these things being done. The success of the Bill would have been far greater and more speedy if all Ministers of the Crown had delivered speeches in the same spirit as the President of the Board this afternoon. If only the Home Secretary when dealing with the Factories Bill had spoken in the same spirit as the President of the Board of Education to-day; and also the Secretary for Mines, who still allows young boys to be engaged in the mines of the country. Time and again we have

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  been promised that something should be done in that matter. The Minister of Labour still allows night baking, and allows young people to be engaged on night work. If all Ministers of the Crown had only spoken with the same voice and in the same spirit as the President of the Board of Education on other measures which have been brought before the House, the success of this Bill would have been even greater. You cannot get real success unless you take this Bill as part of a great scheme of social progress which is absolutely necessary in the interests of the health of our people. The Bill will make provision for opportunities for physical training and enable us more speedily to lay bare the amount of undernourishment which exists among huge sections of our people. It will thus make it possible for a still more effective step forward to be taken to improve the health and happiness of our people.
  8.39 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education (Mr. Shakespeare): My right hon. Friend has every reason to be gratified at the reception given to the Bill by Members of all parties in the House. Most hon. Members have dealt with it in a non-controversial manner, and therefore, I find it somewhat difficult to reply. I should like to thank the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. Westwood) for his most refreshing and sensible speech. Being an Englishman I cannot answer his Scottish points, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will consider the suggestions the hon. Member has made. The Bill is a further example of a programme of measures of positive health which will be far more fruitful and far more economic than a whole series of measures designed to cure a disease after it has arisen. I have been interested while listening to the Debate in trying to sum up the various hobbies of hon. Members. I have not quite summed up the right hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith), but I should imagine from his speech his lying in a hammock in the summer and in winter being a football fan.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: What about gardening?
  Mr. Shakespeare: There is nothing in the Bill which will prevent the right hon. Gentleman doing any one of those three
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  things. In considering the question of health there is a psychological and a physiological aspect. No one can be healthy unless he has an interesting job and his mind is in the right state. On the physical side I do not believe you can have health unless you get the right nutrition and an adequate amount of physical recreation and physical training. Many hon. Members have referred to the question of nutrition, and no doubt that is a vital element in health. No one has raised it in a more refreshing way than the hon. Member who has just spoken. I agree entirely with his views. There is probably more nonsense talked about nutrition than about any single subject. That is why we have appointed this body of experts who I hope will educate the layman in the course of time. I do not want to say much about nutrition because the Government do not propose to deal with that important problem in a Bill designed to provide physical training and recreation, and it may be sufficient to say that the Government have formed the strongest advisory committee possible, and it has reported. In many respects that report shows how much more there is to do before we reach an optimum standard, but in many respects they congratulate the country on the road along which it is advancing and point with some pride to the progress already made. The Government naturally will give it all the attention which such a report deserves.
  But it is just moonshine to conceive the people who might come under this Bill, that is to say, some 14,000,000 persons between the ages of 14 and 35, as being so enfeebled by lack of nourishment that they cannot stand up, let alone take any recreation. I only suggest that if you compare these 14,000,000 people and consider the wide range and variety of their diet, the richness and cheapness of their diet and their high purchasing power, the comparison is in favour of this country compared with any other country in Europe or in the world. It is true, of course, that if one takes extra exercise or recreation, one uses up more calories and needs extra nourishment, but I think no one would seriously suggest that the necessary expenditure of money to make good the calories is beyond the reach of the ordinary boy or girl. It is now a common practice in many voluntary organisations to provide the requi-

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  site refreshment at cost price, and I am advised that by the expenditure of a penny the calories used up in two sessions of physical exercise can be made good. [An HON. MEMBER: What is the refreshment?"] Bread, cocoa, biscuits and so on.
  I would like now to deal with one or two points raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Keighley. He was questioning whether the Bill was rightly framed, and he was anxious that the extra facilities under the Bill should not go entirely to the clerical class. If his assumption that the voluntary associations in the past have favoured the clerical class is right, that is a point that needs watching. I am not sure whether the assumption is correct, but if it is, it is a justification for this Bill, for we wish to spread the net as wide as possible. When the right hon. Gentleman dealt with the question of nutrition, I think he rather confused two things—the assessment of the nutritional state and the means to be taken to overcome any deficiencies in the nutritional state. If he will read paragraph 74 of the last report, which he was reluctant to read, he will see clearly that my right hon. Friend pointed out that, although the present state of assessing nutrition is not absolutely foolproof, it is the best yet devised, and indeed the experts say that it is the best at present known. All I can do is to assure him that if research will find a better one—and I believe the League of Nations is trying to find a better one—we shall consider it with a view to adopting it. Nevertheless, the right hon. Gentleman cannot blame us, for the present one is admitted by the experts to be the best that is known.
  Mr. Lees-Smith: As a matter of fact, the whole purpose of the committee is to work out an alternative method of assessment of nutrition, and the method which the committee is working out is on entirely different lines from that which the Board of Education has adopted up to the present and which it suggests in the paragraph in question.
  Mr. Shakespeare: The right hon. Gentleman's intervention illustrates his confusion of thought on this matter. The committee is set up to improve the diet of the people; but in assessing the nutri-
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  tional state one has to adopt other methods, and the committee itself says that no better method is known than the method at present adopted by the Board of Education. That is clear in the report.
  Mr. G. Griffiths: The hon. Gentleman is magnifying it too much.
  Mr. Shakespeare: Hon. Members can read it in the report.
  Mr. Griffiths: I am reading it now.
  Mr. Shakespeare: I will deal now with the points raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland), who rather threw doubt on the committees referred to in Clause 2. I agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Blackburn (Captain Elliston), that these committees are vital to the whole scheme, for they will be able to co-ordinate all the arrangements with regard to physical education, and representatives of the local authorities will be on them. It will be possible for them to get a clear picture over large and small areas of the facilities at present available. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall also raised a point concerning Clause 3, Sub-section (3), which I think is a Committee point. The Clause is really a money clause, and is intended to enable the National Advisory Council to spend money on propaganda. I fancy the Clause is not drafted as well as it might be, but that can be dealt with in Committee.
  The Noble Lord the Member for Peterborough (Lord Burghley) made an interesting speech on the need for co-operation and propaganda, and I think his speech justified the action which the Government are taking and showed the need for the matter to be dealt with on a national scale. The hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) raised a difficult point about county councils. I am advised that county councils have not been able in the past, and will not be able under this Bill, to provide swimming baths. There is a new power given in this Bill to enable a county council to contribute as much as it likes to a swimming bath built by one of the authorities within the county. If the hon. Gentleman presses, his point in Committee, we will give it very careful attention.
  Mr. Ede: Do the remarks of the hon. Gentleman mean that a county council could contribute up to 100 per cent. of the cost of a swimming bath erected by another local authority or by a combination of local authorities?
  Mr. Shakespeare: Yes, certainly. A swimming bath is usually a local affair, and that is why a county council has not had power to build one, but it has power to contribute as much as it thinks fit.
  Mr. Kelly: Do I understand the hon. Gentleman to say that county councils have not the power to construct swimming baths? I believe that during the last two or three years the London County Council has constructed swimming baths.
  Mr. Shakespeare: It is very difficult to make any statement on local government without making a large number of reservations. What I said is true, with the exception of the London County Council.
  Mr. Ede: That is not really a county council.
  Mr. Shakespeare: My hon. Friend the Member for West Leeds (Mr. V. Adams) asked a question as to the site of the new national college that we have in mind. On that naturally we are asking for the advice of the new National Advisory Council that has been set up, and when we receive that advice we shall consider the question anew. It would be wrong for me to develop my own theories about that matter, since the President of the Board of Education is waiting for advice from the National Advisory Council. The hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. G. A. Morrison) referred to research. To my mind one of the justifications for the establishment of the national college is that for the first time in this country, or I believe in any country, we shall have facilities for research. It is amazing how little has been done in any country in research on this question. We have been going on rather happy-go-lucky methods. I am sure the national college will justify itself in that respect alone.
  A number of hon. Members have rather indicated that the girls and boys or men and women they represent are probably so tired after the day's work that they are neither fit for nor willing to partake in
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  any form of physical recreation. This is a very interesting subject and one could discuss it at some length, but I would only remark that the same thing applies to Members of Parliament. Those of us who have to come here early every morning, those who are engaged from day to day on Committee work, often feel so tired at the week-end that we are disinclined to take part in any recreation. On the other hand, those of us who are, as I think, wiser, forget that feeling and insist on some recreation or physical exercise at the week-ends and when we do so we find that the tired feeling goes. I think that boys and girls who work in factories find that the change of occupation and interest acts as a tonic, both mental and physical, however tired they may be, and the experience which we have had in connection with the "Keep Fit" movement bears out that view.
  Mr. Tinker: What we are arguing is that a shortening of the working day or the working week would help people to take advantage of the opportunities of physical training which the Bill offers.
  Mr. Shakespeare: That is possible, but I am not here as the representative of the Home Office and all my right hon. Friend said on that subject was that, taking the long view, there is a tendency for hours of work to be reduced and that that was a further justification for the Bill. But even at present, the long summer evenings which are available under the Daylight Saving Act provide such opportunities. I know that in my own constituency working boys and girls coming out of the factories, however tired they are, generally try to engage in some form of exercise such as swimming, gymnastics or the like, and I believe that if these facilities are provided in the manner proposed by the Bill, more and more boys and girls and young men and young women will make use of them.
  Mr. G. Griffiths: Will the hon. Gentleman deal with the point about the three-shift period?
  Mr. Shakespeare: That is a Home Office point and is not germane to the Bill. I wish to give one or two reasons why I think the Government have been wise in trying to satisfy the demand for these facilities. Some hon. Members seemed to suggest that we might be wasting our time in setting up this machinery and in

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  providing this strong council and these committees. There seemed to be a doubt in their minds as to whether the people themselves would be wise enough to take advantage of the facilities. Let me then, in conclusion, state certain reasons which lead me to think that the Government are wise in tackling this question as they have done. In the first place, since the Chancellor of the Exchequer raised this question last October it has received surprising publicity in both the national and the provincial Press. The newspapers have employed health experts, physical training experts and sportsmen to advise the public on various methods, and I suggest as my first argument that the national and local Press, with their acute susceptibility to what the public wants, would not do so unless there was a real underlying demand for facilities of this sort.
  The second argument which influences me is this: my right hon. Friend and I have been in touch with the leaders of practically all the voluntary associations in this country and they all make the same point. Whether it is the Y.M.C.A., the Girl Guides Association, the Boy Scouts Association, the Boys' Brigade, the Federation of Girls' Clubs, or whatever the organisation may be, they all say, "If only we had better premises, better equipment, better facilities, and, above all, better instructors and leaders, we could make a much greater success of our work." They say, "We try, within the limit of our powers, to provide recreation and physical training, but the supply of qualified instructors and leaders is so small that it is almost impossible, and if you can help us in that way you will do a lot to revivify our associations." Both the President of the Board of Education and I are convinced that the Bill will meet that demand.
  Thirdly, as I have pointed out, wherever these facilities are provided, even in the industrial areas or the Special Areas, the youth of those areas try to take advantage of them. Many Lancashire Members have spoken to-day. There is a very strong "Keep-Fit" movement in Lancashire, where I believe there are 5,000 girls alone taking advantage of the opportunities for physical training which that movement provides. Many of them are unemployed and it is remarkable how
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  regular they are in their attendance and what zest they put into this work. Perhaps that fact will encourage the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker). To take another county which is quite different, we find the same thing happening in Devon. In the last year they have organised some go classes all over that county which are providing facilities for physical training.
  Lastly, I may be allowed to give an illustration from my own constituency. We have in Norwich what is, I suppose, a unique example of a boys' club which has been provided by the police. The chief constable is chairman of the committee, which is composed of policemen who voluntarily give their leisure time to making the club a success. All the training is done by the police and the club covers every kind of activity, giving special attention to gymnastics, boxing and physical training, and there is also a band. There are some 11,000 boys enrolled as members of that club and on any night in the week you will find 600 or 700 boys taking advantage of the facilities which it offers. That is one concrete example and it is idle to argue that if similar facilities were provided in the industrial areas, similar use would not be made of them. I believe that this Bill will light such a candle as will not easily be put out. Although it is simple in conception and structure, it has the germs of great things within it. That is why it has been welcomed in all parts of the House. I, with my right hon. Friend, look forward to seeing this work proceed successfully and we know that we can rely upon the good will and cooperation of all sections of Members.
  Mr. E. J. Williams: Can the hon. Member say if a special effort is being made to provide playing fields in industrial areas, and especially in South Wales?
  Mr. Shakespeare: The Grants Committee have power to make grants to the National Playing Fields Association, and special powers are given to local authorities to acquire land.

  PHYSICAL TRAINING AND RECREATION [MONEY].
  Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 69.
  [Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]
  Resolved,
  "That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for the development of facilities for, and the encouragement of, physical training and recreation, and to facilitate the establishment of centres for social activities (hereafter in this Resolution referred to as 'the said Act') it is expedient to authorise the following payments out of moneys provided by Parliament, that is to say,—

  (i) any grants which the Board of Education or the Secretary of State for Scotland (hereafter in this Resolution referred to as 'the Board' and 'the Secretary of State' respectively) may, in accordance with recommendations made by a grants committee and with arrangements approved by the Treasury, make—

  (a) towards the expenses of a local authority or local voluntary organisation in providing, or aiding the provision of, facilities for physical training and recreation, or in respect of the training and supply of teachers and leaders;

  (b) to the funds of a national voluntary organisation having similar objects;

  (c) in exceptional circumstances, to a local voluntary organisation in aid of the maintenance of any such facilities as aforesaid;

  (ii) such sum as may represent the increase resulting from any provision of the said Act in education grants payable under any Act; and

  (iii) any payments which the Board or the Secretary of State may, with the approval of the Treasury and, as respects local committees and their sub-committees, after consultation with the appropriate grants committee, make in respect of—

  (a) administrative expenses of a National Council and its committees, of a grants committee or of a local committee and its sub-committees;

  (b) allowances to members of any such council, committee, or sub-committee;

  (c) remuneration to the chairman of a grants committee;

  (iv) any other expenses incurred for the purposes of the said Act by the Board or the Secretary of State."—(King's Recommendation signified.) [Lieut.-Colonel Colville.]

  Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

  STATUTORY SALARIES BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  9.8 p.m.
  The Solicitor-General (Sir Terence O'Connor): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
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  I is so very recently that I commended the Financial Resolution on this matter to the House that I think the House will not wish me to cover again the ground which I covered on that occasion. I then gave full details of the work which was performed by the various persons who were then included in the Resolution and are now included in the Bill, and so I propose, with the permission of the House, merely to give a short resume of what the Bill does, and I hope that the House will not think me discourteous if, beyond that, I feel that I can best serve the purposes of hon. Members by dealing with one or two points that arose in the discussion on the Committee stage of the Resolution.
  The Bill consists of five Clauses. The first Clause is designed to raise the salaries of county court judges and of magistrates to a figure of £2,000 a year. That is an effective increase of £350 a year in the case of both county court judges and of magistrates, and I should have said that in the case of the chief magistrate of London there is an increase to a figure of £2,300. The present remuneration, as I explained on the Committee stage, is made up of two elements. There is the statutory salary, and there is a bonus, which has been diminished since the peak period following the War, which is in the case of each of the offices now £150 a year. That bonus has no statutory authority behind it. It has been the subject of challenge by the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and whatever else happens I am sure the House will agree that it is no longer satisfactory, especially in the case of judicial offices of this kind, that there should be any liability to challenge in respect of a portion of the salaries of public officials.
  Besides the county court judges and chief magistrate and police magistrates in London, it provides for the fixation of the salaries of certain judicial officials in Ireland. Those are set out in the First Schedule. There is the Recorder of Londonderry, the county court judge and chairman of quarter sessions for the counties of Armagh and Fermanagh, and the county court judge and chairman of quarter sessions for the county of Down. No increase is proposed in respect of any of those offices, and I should explain to the House that those are offices for which we retain responsibility until the offices are filled by new holders. Under the Treaty agreement with Ireland we re-

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  tained responsibility for those offices and for those alone, and as they become filled by different occupants we no longer retain that responsibility. That deals with the first Sub-section of Clause 1, which is the Sub-section that provides for increases.
  Sub-section (2) of Clause 1 takes the chairman and other members of the Scottish Land Court out of the statutory arrangement under which they are at present paid, and if the House passes the Bill as it stands, they will in future be paid such amounts as may be determined by the Treasury. It is thought that greater flexibility will be obtained in respect to their remuneration than obtains at present, but there is no intention in those cases that there should be any increase. But perhaps I should be wiser, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate is on the Bench and as my position is a little difficult in opening the matter in relation to Scottish offices, if I said that should any point arise as to the Scottish offices, my right hon. and learned Friend will be ready to answer any questions that may be put.
  Mr. Maxton: What does the hon. and learned Gentleman mean by flexibility?
  The Solicitor-General: As I understand it, it is considered desirable in this case that the remuneration should be in accord with what is necessary in order to get the best available man for the office, and from time to time the Treasury will be able, in consultation with the Scottish Office, to decide what is the proper rate of remuneration, one that will ensure that the best possible occupant is obtained for the office. Of course, it does not follow that that will not mean on some future occasion a revision upwards. I am not saying that for a moment. All that I am saying is that at present, as I understand, the intention is that there should be no alteration in the rate.
  As regards Clause 2, that provides in a similar way that certain salaries which at present are fixed by Statute should be in future fixed by non-statutory methods. They are the Commissioners of Crown Lands, other than the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries—they at present, with bonus, enjoy a salary of £1,550—the Lyon King of Arms, who, at present, has a salary of £738 and some shillings, the
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  Secretary to the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, in Scotland, which is an office that has a salary at present varying from £738 to £847, and the Lyon Clerk, who has a salary of £337. The House will probably agree that there is not much of a case for retaining offices with comparatively modest remuneration of this kind subject to statutory fixation. There will be much greater flexibility if the offices can be rewarded at a current rate what is determined in consultation with the Treasury. Under Sub-Section (2) the same applies to the clerks attached to High Court judges. They at present receive a salary of £400 a year, supplemented by the non-statutory bonus, which again is open to serious criticism, bringing their total salary to £515 18s. In future the suggestion is that they should not be paid a statutorily fixed amount, but should be rewarded by such amounts as may be determined by the Lord Chancellor with the concurrence of the Treasury. The third Clause of the Bill is to provide that no existing holders of any of these offices which are taken out of the Statute, the salaries for which can be fixed by the Treasury or by the Lord Chancellor with the concurrence of the Treasury, shall suffer any loss on account of the change which is being made. Those are the substantive provisions of the Bill.
  I outlined at such considerable length in the Debate a month ago the grounds upon which the Government felt that the case for revision upwards was imperative, that it would be an impertinence if I repeated myself now. One or two points, however, were raised during that discussion which it might be convenient for me shortly to refer to. I was asked on that occasion whether, in addition to their salaries, the county court judges received any travelling expenses. They are in receipt of travelling expenses and they are of such an amount as the Lord Chancellor allows in each case as reasonable for the purpose with the approval of the Treasury. When a judge has only one court he is expected to go from his home to that court at his own expense like a civil servant or a High Court judge, and he gets no allowance. If he has more than one court, which is the usual case, one of his courts is taken as his hypothetical centre and he gets no allowance for that court, but gets a travelling allowance when he has to move from place to

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  place. The circumstances taken into account in calculating the allowance are the number of his sittings at each place on the circuit, the number of miles he has to travel to get there, and the question whether it is reasonable for him to spend a night away from his headquarters. The amounts vary considerably and there is no actual scale. It would obviously be impossible to fix a scale which would cover, for example, a judge on a London circuit who had to move from somewhere in the East End to somewhere a little out in the country, and a judge who had to travel long distances to attend his courts.
  Mr. Shinwell: Is there not a case for a scale similar to that applied to the higher civil servants?
  The Solicitor-General: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that strictly this question does not come within the Bill. I am now giving details in answer to questions which were raised on the administrative procedure which is applicable to judges. There must be a difference between a general rate applicable to civil servants and a rate which is applicable to a wholly variable arrangement such as exists, for instance, between South Wales and London or between Durham and Devon. Probably greater economy and efficiency result from a flexible arrangement of the kind which is in fact administered. The allowances are intended to cover the actual and necessary expenses of travelling from the judge's centre, and no more. As it is an allowance and not a reimbursement, a judge does not have to keep an account of his expenses or justify his claim. I was asked about pensions. These are fixed by the County Court Act, 1934, as a proportion not exceeding two-thirds of the salary. The practice has been for the bonus to be incorporated in the salary in considering what the pension was—again a matter which is possibly open to some doubt. The result of that has been that the maximum existing pension, including the bonus, is about £1,100. Under the Bill the maximum pension will be two-thirds of the salary.
  I was asked about the number of county court judges. One matter which I emphasised was that in spite of the vastly increased burden of work that fell now upon the county courts, the number
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  of judges had not increased substantially. I can now assure the House that that is the fact. The number since 1865 has varied between 60 and 55. Until the first of last month the number had remained 56. There were 55 in 1916, so that the number has remained static while the work, beyond all question, has increased out of all recognition. With regard to the police magistrates the Chief Magistrate has always enjoyed a slightly higher salary than the rest of his colleagues. He has certain extra duties. He presides at the quarterly meeting of the Metropolitan magistrates. He is the channel of communication between the Secretary of State and the whole body of magistrates. He is responsible to the Secretary of State for the general administration of the courts, and usually, except in some exceptional cases, he deals with extradition cases which have to be heard at his court at Bow Street. Among his less unpleasant duties is to hold a court once a year at Ascot during the race meeting, when he sits with other justices of the peace for Berkshire. That is not one of the duties which he regards as more onerous or as justifying the differentiation which exists between his salary and that of his colleagues. I think that he is more likely to lose something on account of that particular week.
  I was asked about the number of magistrates. There are 27, including the Chief Magistrate. As regards attendance, it is a condition of their appointment that they shall sit if required on five days a week, but as a matter of established practice they may be called on to sit for six. They have not in recent years had to sit on so many days as either of those figures, and actually sittings have averaged about three days a week a magistrate.
  Mr. Gallacher: Have they a 40-hour week?
  The Solicitor-General: I think that they would be very pleased to have a 40-hour week, as indeed would anybody who is engaged in the administration of justice.
  Mr. Shinwell: But three days a week.
  The Solicitor-General: That would involve questions of the spread-over which I am not anxious to embark on at this moment.
  Mr. E. J. Williams: Some of these three days are of four hours.
  The Solicitor-General: And some very much more. I do not think that those who have even a passing acquaintance with the work of the magistrates in London, with short holidays and work which extends far beyond the ambit of their court, will doubt that they work extremely hard and are continuously occupied in the duties of their office. The area from which the Home Secretary has to draw his magistrates is, roughly speaking, the same area as that to which the Lord Chancellor has to go for his county court judges, and from almost time immemorial the salaries have been the same, and it would render the filling of these increasingly important offices difficult if an alteration were made now in the ratio between the two. It may be interesting to the House to know how London compares with some of the provincial cities, and not least with those cities represented by hon. Gentlemen who do not share the opinions of those who sit on this side of the House. The stipendiary magistrate at Bradford receives £1,500; at Kingston-on-Hull £1,500; at Leeds £1,705; Ponty-pridd £1,500; Wolverhampton £1,600, and Swansea £1,500. I hope that I shall not offend the susceptibilities of anybody if I said that the duties of the Metropolitan magistrates are not less important than those of the provincial magistrates, the salaries of which are fixed by the local authorities.
  Mr. E. J. Williams: In addition to being fixed are they supplemented by rates from the local authorities or by the Treasury?
  The Solicitor-General: These, I think I am right in saying, are entirely a matter for the local authorities. I am extremely ill qualified to make any observations upon the Scottish Office, which occasioned some comment last time, and I only venture to do so because I see that a distinguished representative of a Scottish seat has a Motion down for the rejection of the Bill. I hope that he will address any observations on this matter to the Lord Advocate, who will be prepared much more efficiently than I can do to deal with any point he raises. The question of the Lyon King of Arms was mentioned on the last occasion. I feel, there fore, that I ought to say that that office is of great antiquity. Let us retain a sense of proportion in this matter. I would remind the Committee that the
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  salary we are considering is £738 its. a year. He was a prominent figure in the Coronation of Robert II in 1371. He is supreme in all matters of heraldry in Scotland. He is assisted by three heralds, Albany, Ross, and Rothesay, and three pursuivants. He has had his salary taken out of the statutory list and included in the administrative list. His duties include the grant of patents of arms, and various other matters which will not interest hon. Members, or, if they do, perhaps they would address their remarks to the Lord Advocate. I hope the Lyon King of Arms will not think me contemptuous of his historic position and undoubted importance if I remind the House that all the Bill does is to remove him from the statutory list.
  Mr. Maxton: Cannot you remove him farther than that?
  The Solicitor-General: He is removed from the statutory list and his salary will in future be such a sum as is determined by the Treasury. Whatever view is taken by Members opposite of this gentleman, that is probably the most appropriate way in which his functions can be adequately and suitably remunerated. I have, therefore, outlined to the House once again—I hope without undue repetition—what the Bill does. I gave in much greater detail on the Financial Resolution the case for the increases, and I hope that with that explanation we may now have a Second Reading of the Bill for which we have been anxiously waiting since November.
  9.33 P.m.
  Mr. T. Johnston: I beg to move, to leave out the word "now," and, at the end of the Question, to add the words, "upon this day six months."
  I am one of those who believe that the foundations of democracy mean that we must have justice easily procurable, speedy, cheap and impartially administered. If this Bill contributed in any way to these desirable ends, I should not be found here opposing it. Nor would I say—nor would any of my hon. Friends behind me say—that county court business mostly affecting the working classes should be handled by the duds of the legal profession. We want in the county courts and in the sheriff courts the best and not the worst members of the legal profession. When we

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  come to this Bill, which the Solicitor-General has explained for the second time with great persuasiveness and a growing facility for skating over thin ice, we come to rather different conclusions from those at which he has arrived. Clause 1 provides in effect that some 56 gentlemen shall have an increase of £350 per annum in their salaries, and an increase of somewhere about £233 per annum in their superannuation or pensions. I take it that in the view of the Government they are the most needy section of the population. They pick and choose, and since there must be priority they choose the judges in the county courts, and others to whom I shall refer later, for the earliest distribution of the largesse which the Treasury can provide.
  The Solicitor-General talked about the hard work, the long and arduous hours of toil, which the Metropolitan magistrates had to give for their salaries, but the House will observe that he did not say one word about the long and arduous hours of toil of county court judges; and, indeed, it was pointed out during the discussion of the Financial Resolution that there were numbers of county court judges who were not called upon to sit for more than three days a week. Some have to sit, possibly, for four days a week, and some for five, and it may be that on occasions some have to sit for six, but there are numbers who do not normally sit for more than three days, and we are assured by members of the legal profession that those three days mean four hours a day. So we reach a condition of affairs in which there is no needs test applied to this increase of salary, and certainly no work test, because those who are working the six days per week are getting the same increase in remuneration as those who sit normally for only three days.
  I gather that these judges in the county courts must be banisters of seven years' standing. They are nominated by the Lord Chancellor, who must be satisfied as to their state of health, though I read nothing about their competency, and we do know that in the past men have been appointed to these positions as a political preferment, for services rendered to the political party then in office. They may have addressed a few election meetings or rendered other political services to the party, and for those services they have
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  achieved the position of a county court judge. There is also a belief in the legal profession that the old school tie is a great recommendation. Further, there are no appointments for those who are below the Bar. I believe I am right in saying that in England no solicitors have been appointed county court judges, though I believe there are instances in Scotland of solicitors being appointed as sheriff substitute. The result is that in England there is a privileged section of the legal profession enjoying the right to be nominated to county court judgeships. When the Financial Resolution was under discussion we were assured upon all hands that unless an increase in salary was granted we should have great difficulty in getting the best men for these jobs. The weekly organ called "Truth" is not normally a supporter of the Members on these benches.
  Mr. Maxton: I thought it was the party organ—or slogan.
  Mr. Johnston: Slogan, yes. In its issue of 24th February it provides a column of scathing comments on some of the statements made by the Solicitor-General and by the supporters of this Measure during the discussion on the Financial Resolution. I do not say that I agree with everything that is in that article, but there are certain comments which are apparently made by someone who is au fait with the legal position in England. Referring to the Solicitor-General's statement that county court judges make less money than banisters, and that the quality of our judges may deteriorate owing to the inadequacy of the pay, he says that it is simply a misstatement of fact. The article goes on to say that nowadays the number of men in the Temple who regularly earn £1,650, after allowing for expenses and bad debts, is very small indeed, and that hundreds of men, including K.Cs., are only too anxious to get any judicial appointment. The article goes on to say that anyone who really tried to find good county court judges would have no trouble in doing so, and winds up:
  "In almost all county courts one is struck with the shortness of the judge's list, and to compare the work of a judge nowadays with what went on about 55 or more years ago, when some courts sat till eight in the evening, is simply laughable."

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  During the discussion on the Financial Resolution we were told by a legal gentleman on the benches opposite that some of the county court judges in England earned fees for the State upon an extravagant scale, that one of the courts raked in £30,000 per annum from litigants, another court raked in £10,000 and another £12,000. I see the Lord Advocate here; perhaps he will be able to tell me whether my figures on this point are wrong. I believe it is the case that in the small debt court in Scotland the average cost to a litigant for a £20 case is about 9s. 4d., but in an English court the cost amounts to 46s. In Scotland, for the ordinary proceedings in the sheriff court, for £100 cases and more, the cost to litigants is an average of 15s., but in England the ordinary proceedings in the county courts cost the average litigant £100 per case. If any changes have to be made in the legal administration of this country, and in the county courts at that, surely the first change should be to eliminate these scandalous charges upon litigants who come before the courts. Instead of that, we find the Government leaving the scandals and anomalies untouched and coming forward simply with proposals to select a class of man who is already enjoying £1,650 per annum for, as has been shown, three days work per week, and increasing these men's salaries automatically to £2,000 per annum.
  I come to Sub-section (2) which the Solicitor-General commended with one word—the beautiful word "flexibility." He was asked precisely what he meant by that word. What does flexibility really mean here? Whereas now the men covered in this Clause have their salaries fixed at present by Statute, under the control of this House and open to challenge here, it is now proposed that some indeterminate body called the Treasury shall fix the salary. If you please, they may fix the salary on an ever-ascending scale. The salaries may be fixed by the Treasury, not at £1,650 or £2,000 per annum; they may fix them at £3,000, £4,000, or anything which the Treasury chooses. The Solicitor-General was candid enough in the course of the Debate on the Financial Resolution to admit that that was possible. The Land Court judges presently draw £1,360 19s. per annum. The chairman draws £1,950 per annum. Those salaries have been
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  fixed by Statute apart altogether from any question of promotion, which has been challenged by the auditors, as the learned Solicitor-General knows. It is now proposed to ensure for the future that Parliament shall have nothing whatever to do with the fixing of those salaries, but that the salaries shall be fixed without any stated limit by the Treasury.
  Clause 2 deals with the Lord Lyon King of Arms. Again, the Treasury may fix any upward limit they like for the Lord Lyon's salary. His salary is now £738 per annum. In future it is to be anything upwards that the Treasury like. The Lord Lyon King of Arms is a very amiable and learned old gentleman with a great knowledge of ecclesiastical history. His services might be more fruitfully used in the Record Office. I see the Lord Advocate smiling at that, but I do most earnestly hope that he will agree with me that Sir Francis Grant's knowledge and services might be more fruitfully used by the State in the Record Office at Edinburgh than in bolstering up these feudal survivals and this mediaeval nonsense which the Solicitor-General could hardly expound to-night without being amused.
  There was a time in this House when all parties united to get rid of the Keeper of Green Wax at the Exchequer. Here we have a Knight of the Thistle. Being a Knight of the Thistle he is entitled to take precedence in all public ceremonials over masters in lunacy. He is Carrick Pursuivant of Arms, whatever that means. I hope to hear the Lord Advocate expounding this at some length. Will the Lord Advocate tell us what Sir Francis Grant does when he is the Rothe-say Herald? [Interruption.] I do not know whether it is a daily, a weekly or a monthly. Why should not this post be pensioned off? Why should the thing not be scrapped? Why should not this old gentleman be put where he can be of benefit to the nation? Why should we continue this post? Why should we have anybody being paid a salary, with a potential increase, away from the control of this House so that he may teach somebody how to waddle backwards out of the Presence on proper occasions?
  The Solicitor-General did not tell us what the Commissioners of Crown Lands get by way of salary. He told us to-night, although he did not tell us on the Financial Resolution, what the Registrar-

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  General of Births, Deaths and Marriages costs. I could not find it in "Whitaker's Almanack."
  The Solicitor-General: I did tell the right hon. Gentleman. It is £1,650.
  Mr. Johnston: The hon. Gentleman told us to-night.
  The Solicitor-General: Yes.
  Mr. Johnston: I said that the right hon. Gentleman did not tell us on the Financial Resolution but he told us to-night. I certainly searched in vain in "Whitaker's Almanack." This group of salaries is taken away from the control of the House, although they have been fixed by this House. Henceforth they are to be raised quietly, privately and surreptitiously by the Treasury. They may be raised to very much higher figures than they are now.
  The Solicitor-General did not tell us, either on the last occasion or to-night, what these Irish gentlemen are getting. We have never heard a word about the salary of the Recorder of Londonderry, or the gentleman in Fermanagh, or the others who are to be kept in their jobs until they die, when the Government of Northern Ireland are either to take over the posts or scrap them. I do not know what they are going to do, but we are binding ourselves here to-night to maintain these gentlemen's salaries at their present level, and we have never been told, either on the Resolution or to-night, what the level of those salaries is. The House is entitled to know. Then there are the judges' clerks. They have £515 18s. now. They started at £400, and received an increase of £115 18s. Many Members in all quarters of the House might reasonably ask why there should be a differentiation between a judge's clerk and a Member of Parliament. The Member of Parliament started at £400. The cost of living goes up, but there is no question of any bonus for him. But the judges' clerks have been scientifically raised to £515 18s., and for the future the Treasury is to fix any further rise that they may get, and there is to be no further direct and obvious control by this House.
  Lastly, it is impossible to remove from our minds the impression arising from the Government's treatment of the neediest section of the community. Many of my
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  hon. Friends here are personally acquainted, as I am, with young men who are really forbidden to get married, under the household means test that is being operated by this Government. They cannot save to furnish a house of their own, and I go further and say that this Government, in its housing legislation, prohibits local authorities from finding subsidies to provide houses for these young unmarried couples. Yet precisely the same Government that treats the poor in this fashion is asking the House to raise the salaries of 1,650 men. I repeat what I said at the beginning. I do not want to see the "duds" of the legal profession administering the law in the county courts of this country. The county court is the court frequented by the working classes; it is there that their business is administered and dealt with. I would like to see the best brains in the legal profession on the benches of the county courts. But, if there is to be priority in the raising of status, in the raising of salaries and incomes, I submit that we should give first consideration to the people who have not got two crusts at the end of the week. It is the poorest of the poor, the neediest of the needy, who should be attended to first by this House.
  I should hope that the majority of the county court judges themselves would applaud the action of the Government if they took what surplus exists in the Treasury to feed those who are hungry and suffering, and I should imagine that the majority of the judges would cheerfully wait their turn for adequate remuneration. It is true that the only strike, or threat of a strike, that we had against the cuts in the hour of the nation's alleged financial crisis, was from the High Court judges, the £5,000 men; but those of us who happen to know some sheriffs, sheriff substitutes and county court judges, believe that the legal profession is like the average of all the other professions, trades and crafts of this country, and that, if it were, properly put to them, they would agree with us that the prime necessity of legislation in this House is not to raise the £1,650 man, but the men, the women and the children who cannot get enough to eat; and it is because the Government are all wrong in their priority, are all wrong in their vision and angle of outlook, that we object to giving this Bill a Second Reading to-night.
  10.3 p.m.
  Mr. Tinker: I join with my right hon. Friend who has moved the rejection of this Bill. At the same time, I want to compliment the Solicitor-General on the explanation he has given this evening. On the last occasion I criticised him because he did not seem to have prepared his case with his usual care, but to-night he has been ready to clear up the point that was mentioned on that occasion. It makes the case of the Government, however, all the worse. First of all, he tells us how the expenses of the judges, which are a separate item, are met. We did not know that before, and we desired to find out about it. The second point is that this increase of salaries applies to the pensions also, and therefore we get a rather striking case which proves to us that this matter needs further examination before we agree to pass it.
  I would like to mention the figures as I find them, because it is rather difficult to follow the Bill. In Clause 1 we are referred to the First Schedule, and in another Clause we are referred to the Second Schedule. I have tried to find out the annual salaries that have been paid and will be paid in the future after this addition has been made, and I find that, if the Bill is carried, the £2,000 man in one case will get an increase of £230, while the Second Schedule mentions an increase from £1,800 to £2,300 in one case and from £1,500 to £2,000 in the other. But that is hardly a fair summary, because they are actually getting slightly more than the figures in the Second Schedule at the present time. It means, however, that there is an average increase of £350. That is bad enough, but we find that it is also carried on to the pensions as I have already said. A pension of two-thirds of the salary of £2,000 means a pension of £1,333, while in the case of the salary of £2,300 it will mean a pension of £1,532, so that the pension will be increased by £232 per annum. This figure may not appear very large to those who have plenty of money, but it is to people who have hardly enough to live upon and, when we come to examine a Bill of this kind, as watching the public purse, we must have in mind the needs of the people who have to find some of this money.
  I have recently had brought before me the position of a widow who had been in
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  receipt of a pension and had had notice from the Minister of Health that her pensions was to cease next week. She will be deprived of it for 10 years. I was asked whether that was possible. Her husband died before the passing of the 1926 Act and she got her pension because her children were under age. She is 45 and she will have to wait 10 years for the renewal of her pension. When we appeal to these people for their votes we say we are trying to improve their conditions and, when they see cases like this of pensions being increased by £232 and their miserable 10s., which is their all, is taken away, they want to know what we did when this was brought before us in the House of Commons. That is why on occasions like this we are anxious to bring to the notice of the House the position of people who are unable to help themselves.
  What makes me more bitter is that when we attempt to amend Acts of Parliament the Financial Secretary to the Treasury generally tells us that taxation is so high that they cannot ask for more from the people. But I never hear protests against increases of this kind. They tell us we must have the best men for the job and we have to pay them according to their market value. That appears to me a fallacy. It seems to be entirely wrong that a judge's salary should be measured by the enormous fees that can be earned by prominent counsel. A salary sufficient to give them a decent standard of life for the work they are doing ought to be good enough for judges. Case after case could be brought forward showing the difficulties of the working class compared with men in these positions. We get so many of them that we are bound to lodge our protest. Before long we shall be asked to give £37,000 to another class of people—Cabinet Ministers—and I dare say the same argument will be used, that these are the best men in the land and we have to pay for their services, but I believe there is no dearth of talent ready to fill vacant positions in the Cabinet. I hope we shall lodge an emphatic protest. I am not saying a word against the ability of judges. I have always found that they do their best for litigants, and I believe they are human and have the greatest sympathy for those who come before them. I am thinking only of the many poor people whose rights are never

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  examined by hon. Members opposite, and I feel that I should be lacking in my duty if I did not make my protest.
  10.12 p.m.
  Mr. Gallacher: As one who can never tell from time to time when I may come before one judge or another, I should not like to say anything disrespectful or to question the intelligence of the judges of the country, but if I said anything in praise of their general intelligence I am afraid I should be participating in the practice of hypocrisy. I want to oppose with all the strength I have this increase of salary. I should like first to say a word about the Lyon King-of-Arms. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stirling and Clackmannan (Mr. Johnston) mentioned him, and some of the Sassenachs appeared rather amused that such a gentleman should still exist. But there is not only one. There is another Lyon King-of-Arms, or at any rate, a claimant to the post. He happens to be a miner in Cumberland. The occupant of the office is so insecure in his position that he is afraid to challenge the new Napoleon who has come upon the scene. So we have two Lyon Kings-of-Arms in Scotland.
  To come back to the judges, I am of opinion that we should not concern ourselves with selecting the best brains in the legal profession. Why should we? There is case after case coming up in the law courts and county courts of London—human cases—of which the legal men do not have the slightest understanding. We ought to have a list of men and women who would go to the courts as they were selected to try the particular cases that are coming up. There are innumerable cases taking place from day to day, and when you read the reports you find that the legal gentlemen sitting on the bench are absolutely callous and cold-blooded. That is not what we want when dealing with people who are in difficulties and trouble, some of whom have their lives dragged out of them by the treatment they receive. Men, and sometimes women and young girls have to go into the courts and suffer this ordeal, and I have seen mothers sitting in court with their hearts breaking while their daughters have been treated in this way. We see all the legal gentlemen sitting there, big wigged and solemn, and there is never
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  anything like human feeling expressed or human aid offered to those who are suffering.
  You tell me that you want the best men that you can get, but do not forget that the best men for hon. Gentlemen opposite might be the very worst men for me. I have appeared at Bow Street before one of the leading London magistrates. I had always heard that he was such a very brilliant gentleman; a fine Conservative, in fact. I was there in that court waiting to go to a higher place, always up, and up, and up. When I have gone to prison I have gone round, and round, and round. But on this occasion I was committed and allowed bail, and the bail was fixed at £200. Then a peculiar fellow who makes a somewhat precarious living by writing plays, a fellow of the name of Shaw went bail for me. He had to go into the witness-box and take the oath and testify as to his qualifications for being bail. This intelligent magistrate to whom you pay over £1,000 a year says to Mr. G. B. Shaw, "Mr. Shaw, are you worth £200?" You may imagine the intelligence of a court that asked a question like that. Shaw cocked his head slightly aside and said, "Well, I would not say that, but I have got £200." There was laughter in the court, but no laughter in the face of that intelligent magistrate. In another case there were a number of men before one of the judges, and some of them were sent away for 12 months. The intelligent judge said to the others, "Promise to leave the Communist party, and I will let you off." These are the kind of men the raising of whose salaries we are discussing. Did hon. Members know about that? No! "Promise to leave the Communist party and you will get off." Because they did not promise to leave the Communist party, they all got six months. That happened in the court of one of the best men in the country from the point of view of the legal profession. Of what value are such men for the dispensing of justice or dealing with the multifarious cases that come before the courts?
  I should like the House to understand the importance of selecting men and women who have experience in regard to the different matters that are coming before the courts. If anybody in your neighbourhood was suffering from some terrible worry or weakness, or who had

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  committed an offence and was feeling the effects of it, would you not want to aid them and to bring someone to advise, encourage and help them, instead of sticking them into a court in the way that happens to-day? All sorts of cases are stuck into the same court, with the same atmosphere, the same inhuman atmosphere. I wonder whether hon. and right hon. Members have ever given any consideration to what places our courts are. There is no country in the world where the courts have been reduced to such an inhuman character. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about Russia?"] Hon. Members may say what they like about Russia and about America, but anyone who has been in the courts there can confirm what I say. What do the correspondents of the London newspapers say with regard to the courts in Moscow? There you will get three or four workers sitting on the bench specially selected to deal with the particular offence before the court. In the big trials there you see the prisoners coming into court smoking cigarettes. There is no solemn body of men present, heavily wigged, and no be-robed judges.
  In our courts the whole atmosphere tends to create a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. Have hon. Members ever been in the dock and tried to battle their way through all that was going on around them? I have been in the dock. The whole tendency is to crush you with solemnity. The police are there to prevent anybody from laughing. No human element is allowed. Instead of this Bill, giving rewards to legal men, I would have preferred that the Government should pay attention to the question of the human element in the courts. One of the most appalling cases about which I have ever heard took place the other day. Two babies had been starved to death. Think of the torture of the parents. There was no one there but solemn, legal men, arguing, instead of there being someone present to soothe the broken hearts and to help those poor people. Case after case of that sort could be quoted. I should like to draw attention to the growing practice that prevails when a jury returns a verdict of guilty.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is getting far beyond statutory salaries.
  Mr. Gallacher: We are talking about judges, and I am pointing out the practices that they tolerate. These judges, who are supposed to be thoroughly conversant with the law, tolerate the practice of allowing things to be said about prisoners that have no relation to the offence for which they are being tried.
  I say that there is no case for increasing the salaries of county court judges or magistrates or arty of the others mentioned in the Bill. Instead of spending money in increasing the salaries and pensions of these judges, the Government should consider the question of selecting men and women, not necessarily legal men, who are best qualified to deal with the different kinds of cases. In certain cases it will be necessary to have legal men to decide on technicalities, but in the general kind of cases which come before the courts it is not a question of the best legal men but of the best-hearted and most intelligent men and women who will understand the particular case involved. I oppose this increase. I consider it is quite unnecessary, and that a better method can be found for dealing with the people who come before the courts. I think any money should be used for the abolition of the means test and hunger and poverty in the country.
  10.27 p.m.
  Mr. Kelly: I had hoped that the Solicitor-General would have attempted to justify these increases in salary and pensions in his speech, but he made no such attempt, and so far not a word has been uttered which can justify these increases. The surprising statement was made by the Solicitor-General that the average time occupied by Metropolitan Police magistrates was three days per week, whereas when the matter was before the House on the previous occasion on the Financial Resolution the impression was given that they sat for the whole of the week, five days and in some cases on six days. I suggest that a salary of £2,000 now proposed for 26 out of the 27 Metropolitan Police magistrates for three days per week is a little more than might well be asked for. But when we come to the salary of the Chief Police Magistrate, £2,300 a year, I am wondering on what basis the Government fixed the amount. It looks as though the Metropolitan Police magistrates will receive higher salaries

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  than the chairman and deputy-chairman of quarter sessions, who will have to sit and judge on appeals against decisions given by these magistrates. I think we ought to have been informed of that when the Solicitor-General was addressing us.
  In view of the objections that have been raised on every occasion to increasing the salaries of the operatives in various Government factories and wages generally it seems strange that the Government should have such a fondness for justifying proposals for increasing the salaries of those who are far removed from the scale of wages and the standard of living of those engaged in production in our factories and workshops. I hope that we shall be told something more with regard to the Metropolitan police magistrates. With three days' work a week, with not many cases to be deals with, and not many papers to be read or decisions to be considered, I suggest that the present salary is not inadequate for the work they are called upon to do. The suggestion that there is difficulty in finding the right people for the positions is not in keeping with what we know of those who take the positions, and many of those who would be prepared to take the positions if they were offered to them
  I would like to have some explanation as to why we are called upon to find the salary of the chairman, of quarter sessions for the counties of Armagh and Fermanagh. Why are we called upon to find out of the Consolidated Fund the salary of the chairman of quarter sessions of the county of Down? In this country the chairmen of quarter sessions are paid from local funds—in the case of London they are paid out of the county rate. Why is it that in Northern Ireland they are able to call on the Consolidated Fund for the salaries of the judges to whom I have referred, as well as the salary of the Recorder of Londonderry? Recorders in this country are not paid—at least I have not heard of their being paid—out of the Consolidated Fund. Why is it that the Government are not prepared to say what salaries shall be paid to the clerks attached to the judges of the Supreme Court? In this Measure it is left to the Treasury, and in one case the Lord Chancellor, to determine the salaries that shall be paid to these clerks. Is it because the Government are afraid to state the amount of salary these people shall receive, as it was stated in the Act
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  which we are called upon to repeal this evening? That is a curious way of dealing with the salaries and wages of these people. I cannot understand why it is that the Government will not indicate in any way whatever what shall be the salaries of these people, but is going to take the matter out of the hands of Parliament, so that Parliament will not be able to interfere with regard to these salaries.
  We are asked to agree to increases in the case of certain officers such as the Lyon King of Arms and others, on the ground of the antiquity of the offices which they hold. I hope that argument is not going to make any impression upon the House. We should like to know from the Lord Advocate why we are asked at this time to give increases to these officers and particularly to Scottish officers such as the Secretary to the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Scotland. Is their work increasing or is there more importance attaching to it, or is it considered that the present salaries are inadequate? [HON. MEMBERS: "There is no increase,"] Then why are we being asked to repeal that portion of the original Act in which the figure is mentioned? Is it so that there shall be no figure stated in an Act of Parliament? What is the justification for such a proposal at the present time?
  This Measure is similar to others which have already been brought before us whereby pensions are being found for people engaged in the kind of work which is mentioned here, while pensions are being refused to people whose wages are inadequate for a reasonable standard of life while they are working. I hope that people outside the House will note the anxiety of the Government to provide for people who are already fairly well-paid, while refusing pensions and adequate wages, and adequate benefits to those who really need them, to those who are suffering from distress. One hears of such cases as that of a whole district in the County of Durham, Wilton Park, where the people are begging to-day for cast-off clothing to enable them to withstand the rigours of the weather. While people in various parts of the country are suffering in that way, we are asked to agree to increases such as those proposed in the Bill. I hope we shall divide against it, and I wish I could think that we would be successful in the Division Lobby.
  10.38 p.m.
  The Lord Advocate (Mr. T. M. Cooper): I wish to address myself to the Scottish portion of the Bill, and I propose to follow the example of my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General by confining myself strictly to my own side of the Border. The House will observe that the provisions relating to the Scottish officials mentioned in this Bill are really consequential upon the main provision of the Bill which is to be found in Clause 1 (1). If the House resolves to make the increases in salary provided for by Clause 1 and the First Schedule to the Bill, then two consequences follow. A certain relationship which has to be borne between the remuneration paid to various classes of judicial or semi-judicial officials in the United Kingdom may be—I do not say will be—thrown out of gear to some slight extent. Accordingly it is thought appropriate and I think I may say it is appropriate, that advantage should be taken of the opportunity provided in this Bill to remove those few statutory maxima which still stand on the Statute Book in relation to the salaries paid to certain Scottish officials. There are only a few. The great bulk of them are paid salaries fixed by the Treasury from time to time. For instance the counterpart of the county court judge, the sheriff substitute, in Scotland is not subject to a statutory salary at all. He has a salary which, as the House knows from questions asked and answered in this House, is revised from time to time and is at present in process of revision. It is for that limited purpose that the reference is introduced in this Bill to the chairman and other members of the Land Court, the officials of the Lyon Court, and the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths, and Marriages.
  With reference to what was said by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Kelly), I should like to emphasise that there is no question, so far as this Bill is concerned, in regard to any of these Scottish officials of altering their salaries at all, but merely of deleting from existing Statutes, many of them of old date, the words "not exceeding the sum of …" The House will find, in the Small Landholders Act, 1911, for instance, that the salary of the chairman and members of the Land Court is declared to be such sum as may be determined,
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  not exceeding the sum of, in the case of the chairman, £2,000, and, in the case of the other members, £1,200; and in the old Act of 1867, which dealt with the Lyon King of Arms, there is a similar provision that his salary shall not exceed £600.
  Lieut.-Commander Agnew: Does he, in addition to his salary, receive the fees charged for granting coats-of-arms?
  The Lord Advocate: No, Sir. I shall deal in a word with the Lyon King of Arms in a moment, but the point is that the sole purpose of the Bill, so far as Scotland is concerned, is to deal with an obsolete and inappropriate maximum limitation which is derived in certain cases from old Statutes and which is now the exception and not the rule.
  Mr. Bevan: I gather that it is not proposed to alter the existing scale of salaries, but if the maximum is removed, what guarantee have we that the salaries will not be altered?
  The Lord Advocate: The hon. Member takes me up wrongly. What I said was that there was nothing in the Bill to affect the salaries of any of these persons. All that the Bill does is to remove a maximum and, therefore, to render it possible for the present maximum to be exceeded.
  Mr. Bevan: Exactly.
  The Lord Advocate: But when one carries the argument to the further stage to which it was carried by the right hon. Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston), when he indicated a fear that the first action which the Treasury would take would be to pile Pelion on Ossa and Ossa and Olympus, in the shape of additions of salaries to these officials, I can only say that his experience of the Treasury must be very different from mine.
  Lieut.-Colonel C. Kerr: I rather gathered from what was said by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-Genera/ that it was not the intention to raise the salaries of the Scottish officers of the law. I want to be quite certain that I am wrong in that, because I feel very strongly that if there is going to be this rise in salaries of the English officers of the law, it should apply also to the officers of the law in Scotland.
  The Lord Advocate: I gather that my hon. and gallant Friend refers to the sheriff-substitutes in particular. Their

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  salaries are at the moment under revision, and that revision will take place whether this Bill is carried or not. As regards the other officials who are referred to in the Bill, I wish to make it clear that if the statutory maxima are removed, as the Bill proposes, it will be open to the Treasury to increase the salaries. Whether they will do so or not, I cannot say, but I am confident, speaking from experience, that the increase will not be of the lavish type which the right hon. Gentleman appeared to apprehend.
  With regard to the Lyon Court, the position is that up to 1867, when the Statute to which I referred a moment ago was passed, the Lyon King of Arms got the fees, but the effect of the 1867 Statute was that the Treasury took the fees, and it takes them to this day. In lieu of fees the Lyon King gets a salary, which was fixed in 1867 at a maximum of £600. These fees, which amount to a considerable sum, continue to be drawn to this day. Obviously, this Bill is not concerned with either the abolition or the perpetuation of the Court of the Lyon King of Arms, and I should be out of order if I pursued to any extent the argument which was adumbrated by certain hon. Gentlemen opposite as to the nature and functions of that office. I would like to say, however, that while I appreciate and sympathise with the feeling expressed by the right hon. Gentleman and certain other speakers as to the place which heraldry, precedent and genealogy play in modern life, there is no getting past the fact that the Lyon King of Arms and the court over which he presides play a very important part in the history and traditions of Scotland, and mean a great deal to many people. In the minds of a large number of perfectly reasonable persons value does attach to coats of arms, heraldic emblems and things of that sort with which the Lyon King is concerned.
  The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) introduced a definite side issue in reference to a claimant to the position of Lyon King of Arms. I am aware that the claimant exists, and the very fact that a member of the coal mining industry thinks it worth while to take such pains to make public the assertion of his right to that position suggests that it occupies a larger place in the mind of Scotland than some hon. Members seem to think. In all seriousness I think that
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  the position of the Lyon King and of his court is of importance in that he is definitely an officer of Scotland dating from pre-union times and discharging an important part of the duties which are discharged in this country by the College of Heralds, and to some extent by the Garter King. I leave the matter there with the further explanation that the sole purpose of this Bill in his case, and in the case of the Lyon Clerk, is to delete the old-fashioned 1867 maximum limit.
  Mr. Johnston: Will the Lord Advocate address his mind to the suggestion that I made that we might use Sir Francis Grant's great knowledge of ecclesiastical history in Scotland to better advantage in the Records Office?
  The Lord Advocate: I am not aware that there is anything to prevent the Lyon King's special knowledge being utilised for that purpose. So far as I know, he is not a full-time officer, and I believe that he is at this moment engaged to some extent in records research of the type to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. Again, I can only say that that is a topic not strictly germane to the purpose of this Bill.
  10.50 p.m.
  Mr. Batey: The Lord Advocate has dealt with the questions which affect Scotland under this Bill. The Solicitor-General, in moving the Bill, did so in a short speech. Not another Member of the Government has said a word in favour of the Bill, and as far as one can see in looking at the Front Bench opposite at the moment all has been said which is going to be said on this Bill. Four speeches have been delivered already on this side of the House, and it is not fair to treat the Opposition like that. If the Government believe in the Bill more Members on the Government Front Bench ought to have attended the House for the purpose of defending the Bill.
  Mr. Bevan: Where is the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
  Mr. Batey: I wonder what is the reason why Members on the other side of the House are so silent. Their silence means that they will vote for this additional £35,000 coming out of public funds. They are going to vote without the least word of comment or justification for increasing the salaries paid to these men from £1,650 to £2,000. They are going to vote for

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  increasing the pensions given. When the Money Resolution was before the House we condemned it because we said that it was class government. Here the Government are prepared to increase the salaries of men when no one can say that they have not sufficient salary at the moment. No one can argue that £1,650 does not give to a man a reasonable standard of life. We say that it does. The selfsame men who are going to vote for this increase to-night are responsible for the means test which takes the last shilling or sixpence out of the pockets of the unemployed. When the Money Resolution was before the House we objected to it because we believed that attention ought first to be given to the unemployed who come under the means test. We believe that they have the first claim, and that the Government should attend to them first. If the Government were prepared to see justice done to these poor people a lot of the ground would be taken from under our feet in our criticism of this Bill. But so long as the Government apply the means test, to take the last sixpence or shilling from the unemployed, we consider that we are entitled on every occasion to oppose the legislation of the Government and to insist that the poor shall be attended to first.
  The only argument that has ever been used in favour of the means test in this country is that the money comes out of public funds. The money under this Bill comes out of public funds. If the means test has to be applied to the unemployed because their money comes out of public funds we should be justified in asking that it should be applied to everyone who receives money from public funds. Like my colleagues, I have not a word to say against either the county court judges or Metropolitan magistrates as men, but I believe that this House, before increasing the salaries of well paid men, ought to give consideration to the poor of this country and to those who come under the means test, and ought to remove the means test.
  10.56 p.m.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: My hon. Friends and I would have been neglecting our duty had we not taken up the attitude we have towards this Bill. We have done so because we believe that what the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill)
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  said in 1909 is as true to-day as it was then. Speaking on 30th January, 1909, he said:
  "The Tory party is the party of the rich against the poor, of the classes against the masses, of the happy and the strong against the left out and the shut out millions of the weak and poor people of this country."
  Whenever any question of this kind arises we take the liberty of pointing out the difference between the treatment this House accords to the rich and relatively well-placed people and the people for whom we on these benches speak. I understand that when this Bill is passed these judges will receive a salary of £2,000 a year. The increase which it is proposed to give is £350 a year, which is twice as much as the average miner receives when on piecework, and twice as much as the average skilled engineer receives after giving the maximum output that is possible as the result of the application of his human energy to his daily toil. The judges are already receiving £40 a week. When they retire they receive a pension of £1,000 a year, which it is proposed to increase to £1,300 a year.
  I want those Members particularly who take an interest in ex-service men to contrast those conditions with the treatment which ex-service men get. We are putting questions to the Prime Minister to-morrow regarding the treatment of ex-service men, and I hope that those hon. Members who support this pension increase of £300 a year will support us tomorrow when we are demanding that the Prime Minister shall set up an inquiry into the treatment of ex-service men by the Ministry of Pensions during the past 10 years. Those of us on this side of the House who have taken a particular interest in this question have received piles of correspondence, and I am convinced that if the Prime Minister knew about the suffering and the feeling which exists among ex-service men, particularly those who suffered in the last war, he would be ready to agree to the suggestion we make. I hope that hon. Members who support this Bill will support us to-morrow when we ask that a Select Committee be appointed to go into the complaints about the treatment of ex-service men. Because of these anomalies among poor folk and of the way widows are treated, we are taking this attitude. During the

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  severe depression from 1930 to 1933, many men were unable to obtain employment in an insured occupation, and did not get sufficient stamps on their cards to enable them to qualify and maintain their pension rights. Consequently hundreds of widows now find themselves denied their widows' pensions. We say that it is most unfair of the Government to propose increases of this character for people who are relatively well placed while they mete: out that treatment to the other people.
  11.1 p.m.
  Mr. A. Bevan: I suppose that the Government will say that the proposals are put forward because increases in salaries to county court judges and Metropolitan magistrates will best serve the ends of justice. They will not suggest for a moment that the proposal has any other justification than that the present remuneration is inadequate, does not attract the best type of man, and it is necessary to give these people an increase in salary in order that the judiciary might be properly filled. As I listened to the Debate on the last occasion, that, as far as I could gather, was the main statement made by the Government. There are other parts of the Bill which remove anomalies that exist at the present time. It would be presumptuous of me to pretend to any knowledge of the history of British jurisprudence, but I rather gather from such cursory reading as I have been able to do that the central feature of British justice is that a person who listens to the evidence and passes sentence should be of the same status as the person before the court. That is the basis of the British jury system.
  As a matter of fact, the development of judges and magistrates has always been regarded by students of the history of jurisprudence as a rather unfortunate instance of the development of local administration. It is far more desirable, I gather, if a man has to be tried, that he should be tried by his peers. He should be tried by persons of the same social status, the same experience, generally speaking, and the same attitude of mind. The increase in the size of the population, the perplexities of modern life, and particularly the development of Statute law, are the only reason that we have judges at all. I think it is largely true—I am not suggesting that this is an accurate description of the development of
  314
  British jurisprudence—that it lies at the root of our system of dispensing justice that the man who listens to the evidence and passes sentence shall be able, because of his own status, to enter into the circumstances of the person who is before the court.
  There has been considerable modification of that principle. I have heard it said both in and outside the House that there is no class bias of any sort in British courts, and that our magistrates and judges can be relied upon to weigh evidence in an objective and dispassionate fashion, and to dispense justice in accordance with the facts that are disclosed to the court. I have been present in many courts, and I must admit that superficially that would appear to be so. The laws of evidence have been laid down with great circumstantiality, and the persons who dispense justice are trained in their observance; and generally it is possible to find, in a decision of the court, some justification in the evidence that has been advanced before it. But one has to go a little deeper in order to find the class prejudice that actually exists in a modern court.
  It would not be so evil if the proposals before the House referred to the higher reaches of the juridical hierarchy, because in those courts the judges have usually to concern themselves with points of law. But in the magistrates' courts and the county courts, as a general rule, the magistrates and judges have to make decisions upon facts, and into a large proportion of their decisions law never enters at all. It is just those judges and magistrates with whom this Bill is concerned. A very large proportion of the people who come before these courts are people belonging to the working classes, many of them earning not more than £4 or £5 a week. If the requirements of justice are to be preserved in those cases, and if we are to keep our system of jurisprudence in close accord with its pristine principles, one would have thought that the persons who dispense justice in these courts would be persons drawn from the same social status as those before the court. But that is not so. At the present time they have an income of £1,650 a year, and the proposal before the House is that that shall be increased by £350. I submit that, no matter how dispassionate, no matter how judicial may be the intelligence of such a

  315
  magistrate, if he lives at the standard of life represented by an expenditure of £1,600 a year, or £2,000 a year under this Bill, it is impossible for him to enter sympathetically or imaginatively into the circumstances of the person before the court, and, whether you like it or not, it is the fact that in the magistrates' courts and the county courts class-biased justice is being dispensed.
  The proposal now before the House merely consolidates the class bias of the justice that is being administered in these courts. One of the reasons for the Bill is that hon. Members are rather uneasy that the £1,650 a year does not in fact preserve the class nature of the justice administered, and, if an addition of £350 is not sufficient, they will come forward with a proposal to increase it. This sort of legislation, and the kind of argument that has been used in support of it, destroys the professions of hon. Members opposite that you have a classless justice in British courts. You, in fact, surround your magistrates with a social atmosphere and a set of circumstances which insulate them from the circumstances of those who are brought before them, and the kind of sentences that they pass reflect that entirely unsympathetic condition of affairs. Hon. Members opposite do not regard the atmosphere of our courts as frightening because they rarely come before them. The kind of crimes of which they are guilty are not yet illegal. The only reason why they are exempt is that they are themselves legislators. I know of acts of which hon. Members are guilty for which I would send them to jail to-morrow. [Interruption.] Read the City news any day. Read the attempts that are made to protect the people against shameless profiteering. Read about share-pushing. The atmosphere of the magistrates' courts in London is entirely unsympathetic to the poor persons who go there for the redress of grievances or who are charged with crimes.
  There is one difficulty that I find in dealing with this Bill. The judiciary is exempt from criticism in this House. I am not quite sure whether that applies to the judiciary as a whole or to any particular member of the judiciary or to any act of his. As I understand the Rules of the House, it is possible for an hon. Mem-
  316
  ber to indict the judiciary as a whole provided he does not instance any particular matter in which a particular judge or magistrate has been guilty. Not only do I oppose this Bill because I believe that it preserves a class system of justice, but I do not believe for a moment that the individuals concerned are so highly skilled that they deserve these high salaries. This is a conspiracy of the lawyers. There are two professions which practise an enormous deception upon the public mind—doctors and lawyers. They both wrap themselves up in a dead language. It is a part of the bunkum of modern society that there is a special skill possessed by lawyers which entitles them to huge salaries in carrying on their craft. I sat in a court the other day, and a man was brought up for having left his car in a public highway seven times in the previous two years. He was fined £1 and costs. Immediately after he had finished, another person came before the court charged with leaving his car beyond the statutory time in a public parking place. He was fined for a first offence £2 I2s. and costs.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is not in order in criticising the judiciary, and at this moment he is going beyond the point of Order in finding fault with a particular verdict given in a particular court.
  Mr. Bevan: My contention is that we are being asked to pay extravagant sums for incompetence. I do not intend and indeed I would be offending against the Rules of the House if I did, to indicate the magistrate, the offence, or the court, but I am giving the example of an abstract magistrate. But it can be verified if I am challenged. I am giving an example of an abstract court and an abstract offence in order to show that I, as a Member of Parliament, am being asked at the present time to agree to pay £2,000 a year for gross stupidity, incompetence and bias of that sort, and I say that it is an excessive demand.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is going too far.
  Mr. Bevan: I have made my point, and I do not wish to pursue it. The House of Commons is being asked to pay £2,000 a year, for a set of men of that kind but I say that I could find miners, agricultural workers and many artisans with a more judicial mind than such

  317
  magistrates. That is true of a good many magistrates' courts in London. Hon. Members like to say that they have no quarrel with magistrates' courts, but newspapers every day produce ample evidence that the magistrates who dispense justice in Great Britain in many instances actually abuse the exemption they have from criticism in this House.
  County court judges come under the Bill. Hon. Friends on this side of the House have considerable experience of the administration of justice by county court judges. In administering workmen's compensation in particular, these judges often have to decide not questions of law but questions of fact; and many of them protect themselves from appeal against their decisions to the High Court by finding on questions of fact and not on questions of law. We often find ourselves helpless in appealing against decisions because of that. Many examples of such cases have been brought to me. A judge is paid £2,000 a year. He has to decide as to whether the kind of work that is offered to a workman on the surface at a colliery is the sort of work that that
  workman can do. That is an obligation imposed upon him by the legislation passed by this House. The judge has not seen the pit, he has not seen the job, he has not seen the man except for a few minutes in court, and he has no knowledge of the circumstances of the case before the court, yet those poor people have to accept the decision of the judge. A great deal of British justice is sham and pretence. That state of things can be found in the county court, the registrar's court, and the magistrate's court. British jurisprudence has long ago departed from its central principle. It is no longer justice dispensed by the peers of the people brought before the court, but justice dispensed by persons who are put in a higher class position. It is to preserve that class bias and that class prejudice that we are asked to-night to grant increases of salaries.
  Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 143; Noes, 82.

  Division No. 129.]

  AYES.

  [11.22 p.m.

  Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke

  Foot, D. M.

  Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.

  Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.

  Furness, S. N.

  Magnay, T.

  Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)

  George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)

  Maitland, A.

  Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.

  George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)

  Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.

  Allen, Lt.-Col. Sir W. J. (Armagh)

  Grant-Ferris, R.

  Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

  Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.)

  Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)

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

  Aske, Sir R. W.

  Gridley, Sir A. B.

  Markham, S. F.

  Atholl, Duchess of

  Guest, Maj. Hon. O. (C'mb'rw'll, N.W.)

  Mason, Lt.-Col. Hon. G. K. M.

  Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet)

  Gunston, Capt. D. W.

  Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

  Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

  Guy, J. C. M.

  Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

  Birchall, Sir J. D.

  Hannah, I. C.

  Moore, Lieut.-Col. T. C. R.

  Boulton, W. W.

  Hannon, Sir P. J. H.

  Morgan, R. H.

  Bracken, B.

  Harris, Sir P. A.

  Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)

  Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Newbury)

  Harvey, T. E. (Eng. Univ's.)

  Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)

  Bull, B. B.

  Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

  Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.

  Campbell, Sir E. T.

  Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan

  Nicholson, G. (Farnham)

  Carver, Major W. H.

  Herbert, A. P. (Oxford U.)

  Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

  Castlereagh, Viscount

  Holdsworth, H.

  O'Connor, Sir Terence J.

  Clarke, Lt.-Col. R. S. (E. Grinstead)

  Holmes, J. S.

  Orr-Ewing, I. L.

  Cobb, Captain E. C. (Preston)

  Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

  Penny, Sir G.

  Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J.

  Hopkinson, A.

  Porritt, R. W.

  Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)

  Horsbrugh, Florence

  Procter, Major H. A.

  Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.

  Hudson, R. S. (Southport)

  Radford, E. A.

  Crooke, J. S.

  Hunter, T.

  Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.

  Cookshank, Capt. H. F. C

  Hurd, Sir P. A.

  Ramsbotham, H.

  Cross, R. H.

  Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)

  Ramsden, Sir E.

  Cruddas, Col. B.

  Keeling, E. H.

  Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

  Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)

  Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)

  Reid, Sir D. D. (Down)

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  Lamb, Sir J. Q.

  Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

  Denville, Alfred

  Latham, Sir P.

  Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

  Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.

  Law, Sir A. J. (High Peak)

  Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)

  Dower, Capt. A. V. G.

  Leckie, J. A.

  Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

  Duckworth, Arthur (Shrewsbury)

  Leech, Dr. J. W.

  Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)

  Dugdale, Major T. L.

  Leighton, Major B. E. P.

  Rothschild, J. A. do

  Duggan, H. J.

  Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.

  Rowlands, G.

  Duncan, J. A. L.

  Lloyd, G. W.

  Salmon, Sir I.

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

  Salt, E. W.

  Ellis, Sir G.

  Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)

  Scott, Lord William

  Emrys-Evans, P. V.

  McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.

  Shuts, Colonel Sir J. J.

  Erskine-Hill, A. G.

  McKie, J. H.

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.

  Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)

  Maclay, Hon. J. P.

  Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's U. B'lf'st)

  Smith, L. W. (Hallam)

  Strickland, Captain W. F.

  Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)

  Somerset, T.

  Thomson, Sir J. D. W.

  Womersley, Sir W. J.

  Somervell. Sir D. B. (Crewe)

  Walker-Smith, Sir J.

  Wragg, H.

  Southby, Commander A. R. J.

  Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)

  Young, A. S. L. (Partick)

  Spens. W. P.

  Waterhouse, Captain C.

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'l'd)

  Watt, G. S. H.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.

  White, H. Graham

  Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert

  Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)

  Wickham, Lt.-Col, E. T. R.

  Ward and Sir Henry Morris-Jones.

  NOES.

  Adams, D. (Consett)

  Green, W. H. (Deptford)

  Parkinson, J. A.

  Adams, O. M. (Poplar, S.)

  Grenfell, D. R.

  Potts, J.

  Adamton, W. M.

  Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

  Pritt, D. N.

  Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)

  Groves, T. E.

  Quibell, D. J. K.

  Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

  Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

  Ridley, G.

  Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

  Hardie, G. D.

  Riley, B.

  Barnes, A. J.

  Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

  Ritson, J.

  Barr, J.

  Jagger, J.

  Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)

  Batey, J.

  Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.

  Rowson, G.

  Bevan, A.

  Jones, A. C. (Shipley)

  Sexton. T. M.

  Broad, F. A.

  Kelly, W. T.

  Silverman, S. S.

  Bromfield, W.

  Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.

  Simpson, F. B.

  Brown, C. (Mansfield)

  Kirby, B. V.

  Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

  Burke, W. A.

  Lathan, G.

  Smith, E. (Stoke)

  Cape, T.

  Lawson, J, J.

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Cooks, F. S.

  Leach, W.

  Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)

  Daggar, G.

  Leonard, W.

  Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

  Dalton, H.

  Lunn, W.

  Tinker, J. J,

  Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)

  McEntee, V. La T.

  Viant, S. P.

  Dobbie, W.

  McGhee, H. G.

  Walkden, A. G.

  Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

  McGovern, J.

  Walkins, F. C.

  Ede, J. C.

  Maclean, N.

  Watson, W. McL.

  Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

  MacNeill, Weir, L.

  Westwood, J.

  Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.

  Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)

  Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

  Gallacher, W.

  Noel-Baker, P. J.

  Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

  Gardner, B. W.

  Oliver, G. H.

  Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

  Gibbins, J.

  Paling, W.

  Gibson, R. (Greenock)

  Parker, J.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Mr. Mathers and Mr. Whiteley.

  Bill read a Second time.

  Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Captain Margesson.]
  The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
  It being Half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.