HC Deb 24 June 1937 vol 325 cc1515-30

11.10 p.m.

Mr. Elliot

I beg to move: That the Amendments to the Scottish Milk Marketing Scheme, 1933, which were presented to this House on the eighteenth day of June, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, be approved. The purpose of the proposals now laid before the House is, first, to establish on a reasonable basis the position of the producer-retailers in the milk industry in the area of the Scottish Milk Marketing Scheme in future; secondly, to enable the Board to offer terms for settlement out of court of cases arising during the 2½ years' period between the setting up of the scheme and the decision of the Court of Session in one sense and the reversion of that decision by the House of Lords; and, finally, to maintain intact the position of any who do not wish to take advantage of this offer of settlement so that those cases may come before the courts in the usual way. For the convenience of this House I have prefaced these Amendments with a memorandum of my own of some length, which I hope will shorten the discussion, and I have also printed not merely the amendments but the clauses of the scheme as they will read if amended as I hope they will be.

The position as I see it is this: The whole question of producer-retailers under the scheme hinges upon the proposition that a levy of round about one penny per gallon is not an unreasonable contribution to make towards an organised market. I think this position has generally been accepted both by those who accept and those who criticise the scheme. What the- latter complain of is that the levy has run to levels far exceeding one penny or even 1½d. per gallon. Under these Amendments the levy on the producer-retailers for the future will be at the fixed rate of 1½d. per gallon and cannot exceed that amount. Where levies in the past have exceeded 1½d. per gallon these Amendments will enable the Board to make payments retrospectively, bringing down the back payments to 1½d. and in fact rather under 1½d. in respect of a certain period of the time. The advantage to these producer-retailers is that the Board has no power to do this at present save in consequence of decisions of the Courts in each case.

That, I think, expresses as shortly and clearly as I can the case for the Amendments. There is an Amendment to this proposal on the Paper of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten), giving certain reasons why in his opinion these Amendments ought not to be accepted. I think the underlying contention that the House of Lords, in some way, vindicated the proposition that the producer-retailer should never, in any circumstances, be required to contribute to the pool, is in my opinion an error. I am advised that the judgment was not concerned with any such question but merely with the strictly legal question: Do the terms of the scheme, as drafted, enable the authorities in question, namely the Board, to make such charges? It was decided by the Court of Session, the highest authority we have in Scotland, that the scheme did enable the Board to make these levies, and for two years that decision went unchallenged. It was interpreted by the highest court in the land in a different sense, but all the highest court in the land said was "The terms of your scheme do not enable you to make these charges. If you wish to make them you must have another scheme with different terms." Those terms have now been drawn up and of course the House of Lords has no concern with policy but merely with the interpretation of the law, which is, properly, laid down by Parliament.

Mr. Stephen

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us why the Scottish Department has now altered its mind, as his predecessor decided that there should not be these Amendments?

Mr. Elliot

I think the hon. Member is misinformed. My predecessor, I am certain, never said that he was not in favour of the amendments to the scheme. He said he would not be in favour of amendments to the law. These are the amendments to the scheme which after a great deal of consideration it was decided to submit to the House. I think that they carry out the object which was intended by the promoters of the scheme, and was so argued by them, that is to say, that there should be a certain contribution from all the producers towards the expenses of an organised market. I think the amendments meet the contention of the producer-retailers that under the previous terms of the scheme they were being called upon to pay too large a contribution towards the expenses of maintaining an organised market. Although there is a reasonable prospect of avoiding litigation by enabling the parties concerned to make a composition, the right is still maintained, if the parties consider themselves aggrieved, and if they consider that the composition which they are offered is unreasonable, to have recourse to the courts. As to the future of the proposals, I think that if the promoters had been able at any time to give a guarantee that in no circumstances would a levy on any particular category of producers exceed 1½d. they would have had no difficulty in getting their proposals accepted by that category.

11.18 p.m.

Mr. Macquisten

I rise to move, in line 3, to leave out "be approved," and to add in respect that they will again pretend to authorise the Board to levy upon the producer-retailer and to distribute part of the earnings of the producer-retailer to others engaged in milk production contrary to the decision of the House of Lords in the Ferrier case, be disapproved.

Mr. Speaker

I was going to call the hon. and learned Member, but I do not propose to call his Amendment.

11.19 p.m.

Mr. A. V. Alexander

In that case, I think it as well if I spoke now. The Secretary of State has explained in short and lucid terms what is a very difficult document to follow. While one admits, however, that some of the Amendments had to be made, I hope he does not think that everyone in the trade is satisfied with the type of Amendments which the right hon. Gentleman is laying before the House. I am by no means thinking of that particular section of which the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) was thinking when he put his Amendment on the Paper. The position that the Secretary of State put when he answered the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) just now struck me as a little peculiar, because we are now being asked to approve actual Amendments to a Statutory Scheme requiring the approval of this House. The Secretary of State's remarks did not seem to give us firm ground for believing that there will be an actual settlement without litigation. He made no firm promise of that kind. Therefore, it is for us to examine all the more the actual Amendments. Apparently, what has happened is that the producer-retailers, being dissatisfied with the amount of the levy which was placed upon them to provide that they paid their proper share of the losses incurred in the pool in respect of manufactured milk, proceeded to take legal action. They won their case on the original law as it stood when the scheme was set up, and thereby got their contribution to the pool reduced from about 3d. per gallon, which the promoters of the scheme thought to be a just contribution of the producer-retailers to the losses on the pool, to ¼d. per gallon. Now we are asked to approve of an amended scheme which will allow them in future to be charged not more than 1½d.

The retrospective nature of the Amendment is also a matter for consideration. I calculate that the original amount which would have been due as retrospective compensation would certainly not have been less than £125,000, and if I have read the document carefully it seems that the further judgment will mean a further compensation of about £11,000. So the promoters of the scheme, under the Act of 1931, will fall to bear a responsibility for the pool as a whole for compensation to the extent of £136,000. But by the reduction of future payments from 3d. to 1½d. a gallon it follows, as the night follows the day, that the larger section of the producers in Scotland, that is, the producer-wholesalers, having a lesser contribution put into the pool by the producer-retailers, will have to take whatever steps they can to obtain a better return for their milk. From that it follows, again as the night follows the day, that the producer-wholesalers and the producer-retailers will ask for higher prices. Therefore, the real effect of the amended scheme will be that a higher contribution will be sought from the consumers of milk. I think that is so. If it is not so, perhaps the Secretary of State will explain why he does not agree with me. If he looks at the subject broad and long he will see the line along which I have proceeded to my deduction We start with the fact that the pool now has to pay £136,000 compensation for the past, by reason of the decision of the Courts, and the second fact is that the amount which it can expect from the producer-retailer in future. will not be 3d. per gallon, but 1½d. Therefore again it follows, as the night follows the day that either the producer—wholesalers must get a larger contract price for the milk to be sold to the liquid consumer or else he must be worse off economically. Therefore I say that in the long run the consuming public will have to pay more for their milk.

In view of the reports we have had on the need for a greater consumption of liquid milk to combat the effects of malnutrition I think we are entitled to a wider explanation from the Secretary of State. I am sure that he would have been only too glad to give it if we had been debating this question at a more normal hour. We are all the more entitled to it in view of the attitude of the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire. While I feel that the Secretary of State could not, in view of the result of that unfortunate litigation, avoid bringing before Parliament an amendment to the scheme, if there is no promise that this Amendment will secure a settlement, surely we ought to have from him an assurance that under the amended scheme the real purpose, which is the effective marketing of milk, will be secured. If there are not sufficient powers under the Act of 1931 to avoid our getting a decision such as that which was given in the courts, then it is incumbent on the Government to deal with the matter from that angle.

11.25 p.m.

Mr. Macquisten

I put down an Amendment on which I hoped to speak, but I can cover the ground quite well without it. The Secretary of State for Scotland has made a statement with regard to the House of Lords decision; I am afraid I cannot agree with him. I first heard of this matter when a farmer told me what he had been levied, at the rate of 5d. per gallon, and asked me what I could do for him. He believed, as everybody believed, that the levy should not exceed ½d. per gallon. All sorts of devices were adopted to get producers to vote for a Scheme. For instance there was a selling agency. It was a company formed to sell milk; their shares were utterly valueless on the market. It was put about that it was to be taken over and one of the first things that the Milk Marketing Board did was to take over the concern at 58s. per share. They got the votes of all these shareholders. With regard to the last scheme, they were under the delusion, and apparently the Secretary of State, in his Memorandum, still is, that the price should be even and that everybody should be paid practically the same price, and charge a high price to the consumer. There are farmers in Kirkcudbright and Wigtown who have always made cheese, and their rents are practically nominal because they were far from the main centres; yet they claim the same price—and are getting it—as the man who has a little farm beside a town, gets his milk out and carries it himself, and having no freight nor oncost does well on his small turnover. That is absurd.

The Secretary of State for Scotland says that all producers who benefit from a stable milk market should be: required to pay certain monthly contributions to the Board in respect of these sales. But these little people have their own little stable market, and can keep it without any help from a Milk Board. The Minister for Agriculture said that, without the Milk Marketing Board, there would be chaos, but there is organised chaos now for the producer who retails his own milk. The whole of these marketing schemes are an old Transatlantic story. They originated in Canada in 1896. A number of sharp witted men went round and spellbound the farmers with speeches, just as happened in Scotland. They promised monopoly, high prices and easy times. How did their schemes work out? There were the so-called milk-czars, and fruit and maize kings and all kinds of such results to be obtained. Those who originated the first scheme were prosecuted for a criminal conspiracy and fined 200,000 dollars, and all the other schemes were set aside by the Canadian Courts as unconstitutional. As the result of the Milk Marketing Board, milk is 2s. a gallon, whereas it should be 1s. in most country places. In the scheme as it originally was, nobody dreamed that they were going to levy people who would get no benefit from the Milk Marketing Board and who possibly had a few cows on a small farm near a town, with nobody coming in nor likely to come in to compete with them.

The Secretary of State told me some time ago that distant farmers had found a way to get liquid sales by providing clean milk and driving it a long way in motor-lorries. Such milk would never compete with the local men. Anyone who knows what fresh milk is will never buy "pasteurised" milk. It has no taste, and very little nourishment; it is simply "half-boiled milk." The word "pasteurised" is used to conceal the fact that it has been damaged; it is not the same milk; if calves are fed on it, they die. Personally I do not see why it should not be boiled outright; everyone can boil their own milk. The promoters of the scheme undoubtedly intended that all classes of producers should share the burden of the manufacturing surplus but they carefully hid that intention, both in the Act of 1931 and in the scheme based on it. Lord MacMillan in the Ferrier case said if it was their intention they could hardly have expressed themselves "in a less straightforward manner." It is said that the position has not been disputed in England, but it has never been challenged in the Courts here. I have no doubt, however, that, if it were, the same decision would be given by the House of Lords.

There is nothing in the Marketing Act that gives authority to take the money of one producer and give it to another. Some of my farming constituents asked me if I was not ashamed of myself for opposing this proposal, saying that under it they were getting is. where they used to get only 3½d.; but I pointed out to them that they were getting it from the man who sold direct to his customers, and that if they would cross the Clyde from Kintyre to Dunoon where the Dunoon farmer sold direct to his customers and went to his house and helped themselves to his money, they would be convicted of theft; and that, although the Milk Board was legally authorized to do the stealing for them, it made no difference in the moral position except that they were now receivers after the fact, who are worse than thieves. "Thou shalt not steal" is the Lord's Eighth Commandment which cannot be altered morally even by an Act of Parliament, which the 1931 Act has failed to do. You cannot alter the fundamental laws of righteousness by Act of Parliament. If any Measure did authorize taking the money of A and giving it to B, it would be authorizing theft, and not even the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) would consent to its passing. This is robbing the poor man for the benefit of the rich man—the reverse of Robin Hood, who robbed the rich for the benefit of the poor. It is the little man with six or a dozen cows that has been and will be still affected, and there is power to fine him hundreds of pounds without legal trial. The Milk Board are their own judge, and put the money into their own pool. These Amendments will not meet the situation, but will only lead to more litigation; the Board has no more power to make this levy than they had to make the last one; but they will have exterminated over 1,000 decent little people who are now producing milk. There is no more respectable, decent and creditable citzen than the small farmer who milks his own cows and sells the milk in the village.

But I will leave the Milk Board to stew in their own juice. They will have another action served on them, and I hope they will end in the shame and humiliation that such a body of people deserve. There has never been such an outrage on the rural community. None of these boards will ever come to success; they will only end in a crash. This idea has been tried out in Canada, and has failed time and again; and it will fail here. The framers of them call it "Farming the Farmers" and all get fat jobs out of hard-working men. I am sorry to think that a party so intelligent as ours should again approve of these wretched, wicked schemes being again put before the House.

11.35 p.m.

Mr. Maxton

I rise to oppose the Motion, though from an entirely different angle. I believe in the organisation of the milk-producing industry. I believe in the organisation of the agricultural industry in general. My objection is not that there is too much organisation, but too little. The hon. and learned Gentleman believes in organisation in a whole lot of different affairs in life. He believes in the organisation of industry in limited liability companies.

Mr. Macquisten

This is disorganization, not organisation.

Mr. Maxton

I am coming to that part of the subject. The hon. and learned Gentleman is against organisation altogether.

Mr. Macquisten

I am against this wretched thing.

Mr. Maxton

I am against this wretched thing also, but not in order to revert to the position of anarchistic milk production.

Mr. Macquisten

While many men would have been ruined, they would at least have died in battle. They would not have been assassinated, as the little man has been under the scheme.

Mr. Maxton

Assassination and dying in battle are preferable to slow starvation, which was the lot of many people who were trying to make a living by milk production. I want pure milk coming into Bridgeton regularly every morning, delivered at the doors at a price that Bridgeton folk can pay. I also want the labourer in Renfrewshire to have a wage that enables him to live decently, and between those two there is a problem to be met. My objection to this scheme is that it does not meet it. It is an attempt to get some sort of State-controlled private enterprise, but with a minimum of State control, indeed with the State taken entirely out of it once the State has conferred monopoly powers. The State confers monopoly powers and says, "Do as you like. Exploit your dairymaids and byre men. Pay them any wages you like. Exploit your customers. We have nothing to do with it because we are so tender about the freedom and the rights of the milk producer." There is no other body of industry that gets that. If shipbuilders on the Clyde are building ships for the State, we lay down fair wages clauses, we exercise rights of inspection and all the rest of it, but farmers are to be left to operate the industry in any way they please, provided they get some sort of loose organisation through this Board.

I am going to oppose schemes and amendments to schemes of this description until the State is definitely in as a direct and responsible part of the organisation, so that I can ask here why the milk being delivered in Bridgeton is costing ½d. a pint more than it did last week, or why the farm servant is getting only 20s. when he ought to be getting 35s. If these people are to have guaranteed market monopoly rights conferred upon them, I want, as a Member of the House, to have some say in their day-to-day operations with reference to the workers and to the consumers. In any case it is sheer waste. We have built up at the Scottish Office over a long period of years a competent agricultural department of experts of various kinds who know agriculture from A to Z, who could play a tremendous part in organising our industry and teaching the farmers how to produce pure milk in an economical way. They are shut out altogether. The organisation of the industry is left in the hands of a lot of people put up in various ways through this Scheme, but competence to take a general view of Scottish agriculture and of the needs of the Scottish community as a whole is not one of the qualifications necessary for a person to sit on the Milk Marketing Board. Therefore, I am opposing the Amendments to the Scheme put forward to-night.

11.41 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher

I wish to associate myself with the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) in the remarks he made with regard to the control of the cost of milk and the application of the Fair Wages Clause, and at the same time I also want to associate myself with the hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten), because I have myself come into contact with small producers and retailers, who are simply being fleeced by the Milk Marketing Board. They will get no advantage whatever from the operations of the Milk Marketing Board, but they will have to pay all the time. On the other hand, I have also come indirectly into contact with some of the big firms, who are making quite a kail out of the Scheme. I oppose the whole character of the Scheme, Amendments included. I suggest that, if the milk supply is to be organised, we must have a far simpler and better scheme than the present Scheme. We ought to have a municipal milk supply organised through the machinery of the Co-operative movement, with the development of co-operative farms and every kind of encouragement given to small producer-retailers wherever they may be carrying out operations. It would be quite possible to develop very extensive and important co-operative farms without trying to take advantage of the small producer-retailer, but rather to encourage him wherever he happens to be carrying on business. It would be quite easy to associate not only the co-operative farms, but the small producer-retailer with any general scheme for distribution that might be carried out by any municipal or county council. It is folly for any Member of this House to give any support to a complicated scheme of this kind, which is of no advantage to the small people, and which in no circumstances whatever can be of the slightest advantage to the mass of the consumers. That is the important thing.

We have heard, in the statement of the Secretary of State for Scotland, a reference to the case which came before the Court. The Judges in that Court said that the Scheme did not allow for the small fellow, who works from early in the morning till late at night and is distributing his own milk. He is being fleeced in order that a share of the pool may be given to those who are carrying on manufacturing processes. So we have to make amend- ments to allow those who are carrying on these manufacturing processes to get a share of the proceeds from the small fellow. I do not know how far the question of manufacture really goes, and whether those who supply milk for making umbrella handles, as was mentioned here to-night, are to get a whack out of the pool. The small producer-retailer, who has to go his rounds selling his milk, has to pay 1½d. per gallon in order to provide more profits for those who are utilising the milk for such purposes as have been referred to here on many occasions.

Mr. Macquisten

The small dairyman pays double for his land.

Mr. Gallacher

There is not the slightest doubt that all of it could be consumed if proper steps were taken to ensure that those in need of milk could get it. Suppose the Glasgow City Council became responsible for the municipal milk supply. They would not set up new municipal machinery but would use the existing machinery—the machinery of the Cooperative Societies. Everybody would get their supply of milk, but some would not be able to pay for it. Everybody would get their ordinary supply of milk before any milk could be used for manufacture.

Mr. Speaker

How does the hon. Member relate this line of argument to the question before the House?

Mr. Gallacher

I am trying to show that even with these Amendments this is a rotten scheme, and will not serve the purpose for which the Milk Marketing Scheme was originally introduced. I was trying to show how that purpose could be served. However, I will not pursue the subject further. The proposals now made will set up a monopoly of big producers and manufacturers and the small fellow and the general consumers will be left at their mercy. A scheme of that kind is no use. The question is so important for the people of Scotland that the Secretary of State should organise a conference, to be held in Edinburgh, of Members of Parliament and representatives of the milk industry in order that the whole question of milk production and distribution could be discussed and we could arrive at a just scheme which would ensure that all those concerned in milk production would get a fair deal and the consumers would get full supplies of the milk necessary for health.

11.49 p.m.

Mr. Westwood

The issue is very simple. There is a scheme in operation which was passed in 1933 dealing with the question of the marketing of milk and my chief directed the whole of his remarks towards the amendment of that scheme. The issue is, either the scheme which is in operation or the amendments. It is not the merits of the scheme but the merits of the amendments.

Mr. Maxton

It is the merits of the original Scheme as amended.

Mr. Macquisten

This is to try to get the Milk Board out of the folly and mess they got into by their original Scheme.

Mr. Westwood

I am not going into the merits of the original Scheme. I am dealing with the facts. The only issue before the House is the question of the Amend ments to the original Scheme. Amendments made necessary because of the Ferrier case. I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) that a co-operative or nationalized scheme would be much better, but that is not the issue at the moment.

Mr. Maxton

Oh, yes. It is very good of the hon. Member to outline for the benefit of the House what we are discussing. The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) and myself discussed what we thought was worth discussing on this Motion. Is it not worth while suggesting to the Secretary of State that he should reconsider the scheme?

Mr. Westwood

I think that if the hon. Member for Bridgeton will wait till I finish he will see the line I am going to take, and will not disagree with it if only he will wait. Doubt has been created in our minds as to the wisdom of the Amendments. The Secretary of State has told the House that he can give no guarantee that there will not in the furture be further litigation even if these Amendments are accepted. Then would it not be wise for the Secretary of State to take back the whole of the scheme, which would give him time to think out the necessary Amendments, avoid litigation and at the same time bring in the necessary Amendments to the Scheme? That would enable us to get better control over the interests of the consumer. I am not going to plead for the little man; I believe in co-operation. At present we have a scheme under which the workers are not getting enough, and at the other end of the scale the consumer is paying too much. In these circumstances it would be wise for the Secretary of State to withdraw the Motion which he has made when he himself has admitted that he can give no guarantee that even with these Amendments there will not be future litigation. In view of that statement, I am afraid that we are bound to go to a Division on the question at issue.

11.54 p.m.

Mr. Elliot

It might be for the convenience of the House if I replied to one point made by the right hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) and the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk (Mr. Westwood). What I was indicating to the House was that there was no attempt being made here by a decision of the House to take away the right of access to the Courts from the citizens. I thought that the House attached great importance to that principle, and I was anxious to make it clear, not with regard to future legislation but in the course of the past cases arising out of contrary decisions of the Law Courts, that it would still be open to any citizen to raise an action in the Courts if he were dissatisfied with the settlement offered out of Court by the Milk Board.

Mr. Alexander

I shall have to revise my figure with regard to compensation.

Mr. Elliot

I would point out the small nature of the figure involved. If everybody accepted the scheme it would only amount to one-seventh of one penny per gallon for the period of 1938. But the right hon. Gentleman has in mind more particularly the question of litigation, and I hoped that on that point I had made myself clear and that it would not be necessary for hon. Members opposite to divide against the Motion. That is the main point that has been raised. The hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) will not expect me to go into the merits or demerits of the milk marketing scheme, especially as it is clearly impossible to reconcile the views of those who are opposed to it, and those who support it. The merit of the Amendments is that they deal with a particular difficulty which has arisen, because of two conflicting decisions in the Law Courts, in a reasonable way, and do not try to stop the ordinary citizen from having recourse to the courts of the land —a right which I am sure the House values—if he thinks he has any cause of complaint.

Captain W. T. Shaw

May I ask whether these Amendments were sub

Resolved, That the Amendments to the Scottish Milk Marketing Scheme, 1933, which were presented to this House on the eighteenth day of June, nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, be approved.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

mitted to the East Scottish milk producers, and were accepted by them?

Mr. Elliot

They have been the subject of a public inquiry, at which all producers had an opportunity of being represented. I cannot say that they have been unanimously accepted by the producers, that would be going too far, but they represent the feeling among the main body of producers in Scotland.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 75; Noes, 32.

Division No. 238.] AYES. [11.59 p.m.
Anstruther-Gray, W. J. Grant-Ferris, R. Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)
Baldwin-Webb, Col. J. Grimston, R. V. Reed, A. C. (Exeter)
Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M. Guest, Lieut.-Colonel H. (Drake) Reid, W. Allan (Derby)
Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h) Guy, J. C. M. Remer, J. R.
Bower, Comdr. R. T. Hannah, I. C. Ropner, Colonel L.
Burghley, Lord Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P. Rowlands, G.
Campbell, Sir E. T. Herbert, A. P. (Oxford U.) Salmon, Sir I.
Castlereagh, Viscount Higgs, W. F. Sanderson, Sir F. B.
Channon, H. Horsbrugh, Florence Scott, Lord William
Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon D. J. Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.) Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)
Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.) Lamb, Sir J. Q. Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's U. B'lf'st)
Croft, Brig.-Gen. Sir H. Page Lyons, A. M. Southby, Commander A. R. J.
Crooke, J. S. MacDonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross) Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)
Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C. MacDonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness) Strickland, Captain W. F.
De Chair, S. S. Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J. Titchfield, Marquess of
Dugdale, Captain T. L. Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth) Wakefield, W. W.
Eastwood, J. F. Moore, Lieut.-Col. Sir T. C. R. Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)
Eckersley, P. T. Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester) Waterhouse, Captain C.
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E. Muirhead, Lt.-Col A. J. Wedderburn, H. J. S.
Emmott, C. E. G. C. Munro, P. Whiteley, Major J. P. (Buckingham)
Erskine-Hill, A. G. Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H. Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
Everard, W. L. Nicolson, Hon. H. G. Womersley, Sir W. J.
Fleming, E. L. Peters, Dr. S. J. Wood, Hon. C. I. C.
Fyfe, D. P. M. Procter, Major H. A.
Gibson, Sir C. G. (Pudsey and Otley) Ramsay, Captain A. H. M. TELLERS FOR THE AYES—
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir J. Ramsbotham, H. Mr James Stuart and Captain
Arthur Hope.
NOES.
Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.) Kelly, W. T. Smith, E. (Stoke)
Bellenger, F. J. Kirby, B. V. Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)
Dalton, H. Logan, D. G. Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill) Macquisten, F. A. Tinker, J. J.
Ede, J. C. Maxton, J. Watson, W. McL.
Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty) Milner, Major J. Westwood, J.
Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H. Paling, W. Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)
Gallacher, W. Price, M. P. Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)
Garro Jones, G. M. Pritt, D. N.
Henderson, T. (Tradeston) Ritson, J. TELLERS FOR THE NOES—
Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath) Seely, Sir H. M. Mr. John and Mr. Mathers
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly) Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock upon Thursday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Seven Minutes after Twelve o'Clock.