Commons Sitting of 23 May 1938

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Blackpool Improvement Bill,
Order for Consideration of Lords Amendments read.
Motion made, and Question, "That the Lords Amendments be now considered," put, and agreed to.
Lords Amendments considered accordingly.
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Dennis Herbert): The Amendments consist only of Clauses of a protective character and Amendments of a drafting nature.
Lords Amendments agreed to.
Redcar Corporation Bill (King's Consent signified),
Bill read the Third time, and passed.
London County Council (Tunnel and Improvements) Bill,
Newcastle and Gateshead Waterworks Bill,
Ossett Corporation Bill,
West Surrey Water Bill [Lords],
As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  INDIA.

    LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY, DELHI (UNIONJACK).
    Sir Nairne Stewart Sandemanasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he has received any information as to the pulling down of the Union Jack over the Legislative Assembly at Delhi on 11th April by certain members of the Legislative Assembly; and whether he is
    822
    aware that another member referred to the Union Jack, in remarks made in the Assembly, as an emblem of slavery?
    The Under-Secretary of State for India (Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead): I have received a report to the effect that on 13th April the flag above the Assembly sector of the Council House at Delhi was found lowered through the breaking of a string which appeared accidental. On 13th April there appeared in the Press the statement of an Assembly member claiming that he had deliberately lowered the flag as the emblem of British Imperialism placed there without the assent of the President of the Assembly. As regards the last part of the question, the answer is in the affirmative.
    Sir N. Stewart Sandeman: What is it proposed to do about it?
    Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead: I think any action may be left to the Government of India. I understand that the matter attracted very little attention, and the member responsible received no support from responsible Congress circles.

    GOVERNMENT SERVANTS (BILASPUR INQUIRY).
    Sir N. Stewart Sandemanasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he has any information as to why certain Government officials in the Central Provinces refused to accept the services of counsel retained by the Ministry on their behalf, and the reason of their appeal to the Governor to protect their interests?
    Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead: I presume the reference is to the Bilaspur Inquiry. I have ascertained that the counsel selected by the Deputy-Commissioner to represent the case of the Government servants before the committee were not approved by the Provincial Government on the ground that they were concerned in the matter under inquiry. The Government servants protested against the cancellation of the appointments made by the Deputy-Commissioner. Owing to other engagements of Ministers, and also to some difference of opinion among them, the final selection of counsel was not made until the 19th. The Governor is satisfied that the counsel now appointed are perfectly competent to protect the interests of the Government servants.
    Sir N. Stewart Sandeman: Has not the district magistrate the right to appoint counsel?
    Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead: Perhaps the hon. Member will put that question down.

    TRADE UNIONS.
    Mr. Dayasked the Under-Secretary of State for India the latest information he has showing the number of trade unions there are in India registered under the Indian Trade Union Act?
    Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead: The number of trade unions (including Federations) borne on the Registers on 3oth September, 1937, was 378.
    Mr. Day: How many members have these trade unions?
    Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead: As regards the strength of membership, the latest figure for 31st October, 1936, is, I understand, 268,000. But I would call the hon. Member's attention to the fact that the question of trade union membership is a matter for the Provinces.
    Mr. Day: Can the hon. and gallant Member say whether complaints have been received of difficulties being put in the way of people joining the unions?

    CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS (PROHIBITION).
    Mr. Dayasked the Under-Secretary of State for India the number of cinematograph films that have been prohibited from exhibition in British India for the 12 months ended on the last convenient date?
    Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead: The information is not available in this country and, since the prohibition of cinematograph films is a matter within the discretion of the Provincial Governments in India, my Noble Friend does not feel justified in calling for a report from India. It will be appreciated that the position has now changed since the period for which my predecessor supplied the information in response to the hon. Member's inquiry.
    Mr. Day: Has there been any alteration in the censorship?
    Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead: That is a matter for the Provincial legislature.

  CZECHOSLOVAKIA.

    PRIME MINISTER' S STATEMENT.
    Mr. Attlee (by Private Notice)asked the Prime Minister, whether he has any statement to make in regard to the present position in Czechoslovakia?
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Chamberlain): I propose first to give a very brief summary of events of the past few days that have tended to show that the situation in regard to the German minority in Czechoslovakia might be entering on a dangerous phase and then to indicate the action taken by His Majesty's Government.
    On 19th May rumours began to gain currency of German troop movements in the direction of the Czechoslovak frontier. The German Government informed His Majesty's Ambassador on the following day that there was no foundation for these rumours, and they gave a similar assurance to the Czechoslovak Government.
    On 20th May a number of serious incidents occurred in Czechoslovakia.
    On the morning of 21st May the Czechoslovak Government intimated that they were calling up one class for training and for the purpose of maintaining order in the frontier areas. On the same day, an unfortunate incident took place in which two Sudeten Germans lost their lives in an incident near the frontier, the full facts of which are not yet entirely clear. The Czechoslovak Minister for Foreign Affairs informed the German Minister of this incident and told him that disciplinary measures would be taken against those responsible.
    On the same day—21st May—His Majesty's Ambassador in Berlin received further assurances from the German Government that stories of German troop movements were completely unfounded.
    The Czechoslovak Minister for Foreign Affairs informed His Majesty's Minister in Prague on 21st May that a formal invitation had been sent to Herr Henlein to negotiate on the Nationality Statute, which had been approved on the 19th by the Czechoslovak Government. But on that same day-21st May—it was announced in the Sudeten Press that the Political Committeea of the Sudeten German Party had decided to inform the Prime Minister that the party were not in a position to

    825
    discuss the Nationality Statute so long as peace and order in the Sudeten districts, and, above all, the constitutional rights of freedom of opinion, of the Press and of assembly, were not guaranteed. I now learn, however, that it has been arranged for Herr Henlein to see the Czechoslovak Prime Minister either tonight or to-morrow morning.
    In face of this situation, the principal concern of His Majesty's Government has been to use all their influence, wherever it could be effective, on the side of restraint in word and deed, while keeping open the way to peaceful negotiation of a satisfactory settlement.
    With that object, they have represented to the Czechoslovak Government the need of taking every precaution for avoidance of incidents and of making every possible effort to reach a comprehensive and lasting settlement by negotiation with the representatives of the Sudeten Party. In this, His Majesty's Government have enjoyed the full co-operation of the French Government.
    The Czechoslovak Government have responded to this representation with an assurance that they appreciate the interest which His Majesty's Government have manifested in this question and are fully resolved to seek an early and complete solution.
    His Majesty's Government have represented to the German Government the urgent importance of reaching a settlement if European peace is to be preserved, and have expressed their earnest desire that the German Government would co-operate with them in facilitating agreement. His Majesty's Government have at the same time informed the German Government of the advice tendered in Prague and of the assurances received from the Czechoslovak Government.
    The German Minister for Foreign Affairs stated that he welcomed the efforts being made by His Majesty's Government and that the German Government fully shared their desire to see negotiations succeed.
    At the moment the situation appears to have somewhat eased, and I understand that the elections passed off quietly yesterday without untoward incident.
    Mr. Attlee: It would be inadvisable to press the Prime Minister for any fuller
    826
    statement at the present time, in view of the tension there is in the world to-day, but I hope I may be able to express the opinion that these efforts to bring about a settlement may succeed, without any deprivation of the just rights of the Czechoslovak people.
    Mr. Arthur Hendersonasked the Prime Minister the terms of the written reply by the Czechoslovakian Government to the representations made by the British Minister in Prague on behalf of His Majesty's Government?
    The Prime Minister: I am not able to give the terms of the reply, which was of a confidential character. I may, however, say that the Czechoslovak Government welcomed the interest shown by the British and French Governments in the question at issue, and gave assurances of their intention to endeavour to reach a just and equitable settlement.
    Commander Locker-Lampson: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will congratulate these gallant people on their calm and courage during the weekend?
    Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the special interest displayed by the German Government in the problem of the Sudeten German minority, His Majesty's Government has urged on the German Government, through the medium of the British Ambassador in Berlin, the desirability of doing everything in their power to further an agreed settlement of the problem?
    The Prime Minister: Yes Sir.

    BRAZIL.
    Mr. Noel-Bakerasked the Prime Minister whether he can make a statement concerning the recent attempted revolution in Brazil; and, in particular, whether any damage was done to British property?
    The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Butler): From the information which we have received it appears that the movement, which was quickly crushed, was carried out by civilian members of the Integralist Party supported by a few naval ratings with similar sympathies. The army took no part in it. The Ministry of Marine was attacked by the rebels, who also occupied

    827
    three wireless stations from which false reports were broadcast. The President was exposed to some personal danger when an unsuccessful attempt was made on the Palace. The residence of the Chief of Staff and the arsenals were also attacked without success. Little material damage was done, and His Majesty's Ambassador has not heard of any damage to British property.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Has the Under-Secretary received any evidence of the activities of foreign agents?
    Mr. Butler: No, Sir.

    POLAND (UKRAINIAN MINORITY).
    Mr. Noel-Bakerasked the Prime Minister whether he can make a statement concerning the claim recently put forward by the Ukrainian minority in Poland for autonomy in Poland within the Polish State?
    Mr. Butler: I have seen reports in thy; Press regarding the claim to which the hon. Member refers, but I have no statement to make on the subject.

    SPAIN.
    Mr. Banfieldasked the Prime Minister whether he can make any statement on the results of His Majesty's Government's initiative with regard to an, exchange of prisoners between the two sides in the civil war in Spain?
    Mr. Butler: I have nothing to add to the statement which I made on this subject on 16th May in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Chapman).
    Mr. G. Straussasked the Prime Minister whether any undertaking has been given by Signor Mussolini during the negotiations leading up to the AngloItalian pact or afterwards that no more Italian troops or war materials would be sent to the insurgent authorities in Spain?
    Mr. Butler: As the Prime Minister stated on 24th March, the Italian Government were informed that, if these negotiations were to succeed, it was essential that in the meantime the situation in Spain should not be materially altered by the sending of fresh reinforcements from
    828
    Italy. On this point I have nothing to add to the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the course of the Debate which took place on 19th May.
    Mr. Strauss: In view of the fact that a large quantity of war material and men have gone from Italy to Spain since that date in March, are the Italian Government free under present conditions to send more men and war material?
    Mr. Butler: As far as I am aware, there has been no material alteration in Spain due to Italian reinforcements since the talks started.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Has not the hon. Member seen the repeated reports in the "Times" that men and munitions are going from Italy into Spain?
    Mr. G. Straussasked the Prime Minister whether the ratification of the Anglo-Italian Agreement is conditional on no more Italian troops or war material being sent to the insurgent authorities in Spain?
    Mr. Butler: I would refer the hon. Member to the speech which the Prime Minister made in the House on 2nd May, in the course of which he stated that full effect could not be given to this agreement until we could regard the Spanish question as settled. I have nothing to add to that statement.
    Mr. Straussasked the Prime Minister whether a reply has been received from the Spanish insurgent authorities to the protest against the recent deliberate air attacks on British shipping?
    Mr. Noel-Bakerasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what action His Majesty's Government propose to take to prevent the repetition of the violations of accepted international law involved in the aerial bombardment of Barcelona, Valencia, and other ports situated at a distance from the battle front, in which there were British ships engaged on lawful errands?
    Mr. Butler: His Majesty's Government have not yet received a reply to the protest which the British Agent at Burgos was recently instructed to make to the Burgos authorities regarding 'deliberate attacks on British shipping. Sir Robert Hodgson has, however, been instructed to take the matter up further with the

    829
    Burgos authorities, pointing out that in addition to the attacks which His Majesty's Government had definite evidence to show were deliberately aimed against British ships, there have been a number of recent raids in which British ships have been seriously damaged and life has been lost, and also cases where bombs have been dropped in the close vicinity of British ships lying in harbour. After considering these incidents collectively, His Majesty's Government have been forced to conclude that either deliberate attacks on British ships are being made, or else the bombs are being dropped haphazard in such a manner as to cause indiscriminate damage to ships in the port. They, therefore, consider that they have ample ground for insisting that these incidents shall cease and that at the least proper care shall be exercised by the bombing aircraft not only in selecting objectives, but also in dropping their bombs on those objectives in such a manner as not to cause indiscriminate damage to British lives and property. In the meantime, His Majesty's Government are considering in conjunction with British shipowners whether any other steps can be taken to avoid damage to British shipping in Spanish Government ports.
    Mr. Strauss: Is the Minister aware that only yesterday a British ship, the "Penthames," going into Valencia was bombed, quite obviously deliberately, and as it is quite clear that the insurgent authorities take no notice of British protests, what further action do the Government contemplate to protect the lives of British seamen?
    Mr. Butler: I took that case into consideration in the answer which I have given, and as regards the latter part of the Supplementary Question, we are representing this matter in the most energetic fashion to the Burgos authorities.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Would the hon. Gentleman consider arming these ships with anti-aircraft guns?
    Miss Wilkinson: Will the hon. Gentleman consider asking the Salamanca authorities whether they will add prayers for British shipping to their prayers for the British Cabinet?
    Major Macnamaraasked the Prime Minister whether any reports have been
    830
    received by the Non-Intervention Committee that German war material has recently arrived in governmental Spain; and can he give any information as to the sources of recent supplies of war material to both sides?
    Mr. Butler: I understand that the Non-Intervention Committee have not received any such reports. As regards the second part of the question, my hon. and gallant Friend will appreciate that, as I have previously stated, it is not possible to obtain reliable information of this kind while the scheme for the observation of the Spanish frontiers is not in full operation.
    Mr. Thorne: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that the Germans do not mind where they sell the material as long as they get the money?
    Mr. Wedgwood Bennasked the Prime Minister whether any recent representations have been made to the French Government on the subject of the passage of arms to Spain?
    Mr. Butler: In our discussions with the French Government we have consistently emphasised our desire to make progress with the British Plan now before the Non-Intervention Committee, which provides among other things for the reimposition of control on the Spanish frontiers.
    Miss Wilkinsonasked the Prime Minister whether he has received from the Italian Government any indication as to the number of their troops in Spain?
    Mr. Butler: I have received no such indication from the Italian Government, but I have seen a recent article in an Italian newspaper which stated that the number of Italian volunteers fighting on the side of General Franco at the beginning Of the Aragon offensive on 9th March was about 39,000, and that these forces had been considerably reduced since, owing to heavy losses.
    Miss Wilkinson: Would it not be helpful in the forthcoming negotiations if His Majesty's Government had some indication of what is the ratio—how many Italian troops to one Republican soldier does General Franco consider necessary for a victory?
    Mr. Thurtle: Does the hon. Gentleman regard a statement of that kind in an Italian newspaper as necessarily authentic and reliable?
    Mr. Butler: I can only give my source without making any comments on it.
    Miss Rathbone: Is it not the case that there were many Italian troops other than those fighting in the Tortosa valley, and that the Italian estimate affected only those fighting in Tortosa, and not the many who are elsewhere?
    Miss Wilkinsonasked the Prime Minister why, in view of the statement at Geneva of Senor del Vayo that there were only 6,000 foreign volunteers on the side of the Spanish Government and the Italian official estimate of 39,000 Italian troops at Tortosa, the British representative at Geneva refused the request of Senor del Vayo for an inquiry to establish figures?
    Mr. Butler: The resolution of Senor del Vayo against which the British representative at Geneva voted contained no mention of any inquiry into the numbers of foreign combatants in Spain. In the view of His Majesty's Government this is a question for the Non-Intervention Committee which, as the hon. Lady is aware, proposes to send Commissioners to both sides in Spain for the purpose of estimating the numbers of foreign combatants.
    Miss Wilkinson: On a point of Order? May I point out that in my question I did not make any statement about the resolution? I asked about the refusal of the request. That request was made verbally in the course of Senor del Vayo's speech.
    Mr. Butler: I am aware of that, but the British representative, in voting against the resolution, was not voting against an inquiry.

    CHINA AND JAPAN.
    Captain Shawasked the Prime Minister whether the Government have made, or will make, representations to the Japanese Government with a view to securing payment of the interest due on the 5 per cent. bonds of the Chinese Imperial Railways, Shanghai—Nanking line, as the railway upon which these bonds are secured is at present in the possession of the Japanese?
    Mr. Moreinģasked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn
    832
    to the failure by the Shanghai—Nanking Railway Company to pay the interest due to the British bondholders on 1st June; whether this is due to the continued occupation of the railway by the Japanese army, who are still refusing to permit the British engineers of the Shanghai—Nanking Railway Company to inspect the line and are still collecting fares along the railway; and whether he will protest in the strongest terms to the Japanese Government against this injury to British rights in direct violation of the Japanese Government's repeated and spontaneous promises that British interests in China would be respected?
    Mr. Butler: The strongest representations have been made to the Japanese Government in Tokyo and to the Japanese authorities in Shanghai regarding the losses that will be suffered by British bondholders as a result of the Japanese military occupation of the Shanghai—Nanking and other railways, and the Japanese Government have been asked to make the necessary financial arrangements for the continued service of the railway loans. Repeated requests have also been made that the British engineers should be allowed to inspect the line of the Shanghai—Nanking railway.
    Mr. A. V. Alexander: What has been the answer of the Japanese Government?
    Mr. Butler: I regret that we have not yet received a satisfactory answer.
    Mr. Moreinģasked the Prime Minister by whom the recent appointment of a Superintendent of Customs in Shanghai was made; whether His Majesty's Government have recognised the provisional administration in Nanking under the control of the Japanese Government; and whether they are prepared to recognise appointments in the Chinese Customs service made by that administration?
    Mr. Butler: The recent appointment of Superintendent of Customs was made by the Provisional Administration in Nanking: His Majesty's Government have not recognised that administration, and cannot control the appointments made by it.
    Mr. Moreinģ: Does the Under-Secretary suggest that we are acquiescing in appointments made by an administration which is only a puppet administration set up under the auspices of Japan, and who

    833
    will control services of the greatest importance to British trade? Are we going to recognise appointments made by an administration which we do not recognise?
    Mr. Butler: His Majesty's Government have made it clear that in the recent Customs agreement they have not acquiesced in any interference with the Customs services and its present international personnel.
    Mr. Charltonasked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that certain Chinese cotton mills with British interests and obligations to British concerns are being taken over by the Japanese; what steps he proposes to take to safeguard British interests; and what he is doing with regard to the taking over of the factories themselves?
    Mr. Butler: I have no information that such mills have actually been taken over by the Japanese, but the policy of His Majesty's Government in cases of this nature is to give all the protection that may be possible to any genuine British interest involved.
    Mr. Chorlton: Will the hon. Member make further inquiries into the matter of these mills? Is he not aware that machinery is being removed from them to Japan?
    Mr. Butler: Perhaps the hon. Member will put before me any information at his disposal.
    Mr. Lees-Smith: Is the hon. Member aware that information about this matter is coming to hon. Members in all parts of the House?
    Mr. Butler: I shall be glad of any information which comes to the right hon. Gentleman.

    INTERNATIONAL LOANS.
    Sir John Mellorasked the Prime Minister whether the Committee on International Loans, which met at Geneva on 6th December, 1937, has made any recommendations with regard to future contracts for international loans issued by States which are members of the League of nations?
    Mr. Butler: No, Sir. The committee has not yet made its report.

    FRANCE AND ITALY.
    Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Prime Minister what report has been received from His Majesty's Ambassador in Rome with regard to French-Italian relations following Signor Mussolini's recent speech at Genoa?
    The Prime Minister: I am not prepared to disclose reports from His Majesty's Ambassadors concerning the relations between other Governments.

    REFUGEES.
    Miss Rathboneasked the Prime Minister what progress has been made in carrying out the proposal of the United States for an international conference on the question of political refugees; and whether the place and time of meeting has yet been settled?
    Mr. Butler: I would refer the hon. Lady to the replies given on 17th May to the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander) and on 18th May to the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell). since those replies were given His Majesty's Government have informed the United States Government of their readiness to take part in the meeting of the inter-governmental committee at Evian on 6th July.
    Miss Rathboneasked the Prime Minister whether he will appoint a committee representing the Government Departments concerned, local authorities, trade unions, and professional organisations, universities, and the principal organisations concerned with the care of refugees, for the purpose of formulating a national policy for dealing with the problem of the conditions of admission and employment of political refugees; and whether he will consider asking for a grant of public money to be used in the solution of this problem?
    The Prime Minister: The general policy to be adopted by the Government in dealing with refugees, with particular reference to refugees from Austria, was stated in the House on 22nd March. since that date a Co-ordinating Committee for Refugees has been set up by the voluntary organisations concerned to co-ordinate the measures of assistance for refugees who have come to this country from Germany or Austria or who may wish to emigrate

    835
    from these countries. The closest contact is being maintained by the Home Office with the Co-ordinating Committee, and, within the limits laid down by the Government, sympathetic consideration will be given to any detailed proposals which the committee may wish to submit when it has had an opportunity of making a comprehensive review of the situation. It is the view of the Government that the formulation of constructive proposals should be left, in the first instance at any rate, to the Co-ordinating Committee, and in these circumstances I do not consider that at the present stage any useful purpose would be served by the appointment of another committee on the lines suggested.
    Miss Rathbone: Is it not a fact that this Co-ordinating Committee of voluntary organisations is held up by two things—the difficulty of getting permits to take work in this country, and the lack of any Government assistance in the matter of funds; and is it not time to have a scientific and co-ordinating policy to deal with the whole subject?
    The Prime Minister: If the hon. Lady's statement of the position is correct, it would not be solved by the appointment of another committee.
    Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte: Why should we give away public money on these refugees from other countries?
    Colonel Wedģwood: Which Member of the Government should be asked questions on the work of this Co-ordinating Committee? Is it the Home Office, and, if so, is it the Secretary of State or the Under-Secretary of State?
    The Prime Minister: I think I shall have to ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to give notice of that question.
    Miss Rathbone: Is it not a fact that the Co-ordinating Committee is a purely voluntary body and that the Government are taking no direct responsibility in the matter?
    The Prime Minister: I have said it is a voluntary committee.
    Mr. De la Bère: Should not our own unemployed come before these refugees?
    Miss Rathboneasked the Prime Minister whether he will consider convening a conference of representatives of
    836
    the Dominions for the purpose of forrnulating an Imperial policy for the treatment of the problem of the conditions of admission and employment of political refugees?
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The admission of refugees from any particular country and their subsequent employment are matters for each of His Majesty's Governments to decide in the light of the conditions obtaining in their respective countries at the time. An opportunity for discussing some aspects of the problem will be afforded by the Inter-Governmental Meeting at Evian in July, to which His Majesty's Governments in the Dominions have, I understand, been invited to send representatives, and at which His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom will, as the hon. Lady has already been informed in reply to a previous question to-day, also be represented.
    Miss Rathbone: But seeing that the British Empire is both the richest unit and that possessing the largest open spaces, is it not about time that it took the initiative by having an Imperial policy oh a really large scale?

    GERMANY AND ITALY (CONVERSATIONS).
    Miss Wilkinsonasked the Prime Minister whether, as an account of the talks between the British and French Premiers and Foreign Secretaries in London was sent to the Italian Government, the Italian Government has as yet sent the British Government an account of the talks between the German Reichs Chancellor and the Italian Premier?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. The Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs was good enough to give His Majesty's Ambassador information regarding the conversations between Signor Mussolini and Herr Hitler.

  AGRICULTURE.

    MILK.
    Briģadier-General Clifton Brownasked the Minister of Agriculture whether a new Milk Bill is to be brought in before August or whether the provisions of the present Milk (Amendment) Act, 1937, are to be continued for a further period?
    The Minister of Aģriculture (Mr. W. S. Morrison): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Parker) on Friday last.
    Briģadier-General Brown: Will my right hon. Friend answer the second part of the question?
    Mr. Morrison: I will make a statement on the matter as soon as possible.
    Briģadier-General Brownasked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the Milk Board's Report that the operation of the Milk Acts, 1934–37, for the year has resulted in a liability for repayment of £26,320 for milk used in manufacture, he will separate the two accounts so that the producer of liquid milk does not in future have to pay for the deficiencies of manufactured milk products?
    Mr. Morrison: As stated in the White Paper on Milk Policy of last July, the Government intend to release the Milk Board from any liability accruing after 3oth September, 1937, for the repayment of advances under the Milk Acts, 1934 to 1937. My hon. and gallant Friend will appreciate that this is independent of any question of amending the pooling provision of the Milk Marketing Scheme, which would be a matter for consideration, in the first instance, by the Milk Marketing Board and registered producers.
    Mr. Thorne: Will the right hon. Gentle man inform me who decides upon the price of milk, whether it should go up or down?
    Mr. Morrison: As far as my Department is concerned, the price of milk received by the producers is arranged by negotiations between them and a body known as the Central Milk Distributors' Council.
    Mr. Macquistenasked the Minister of Agriculture whether his attention has been drawn to certain experiments made by a body called the Hannah Institute, assisted by contributions from the cooperative societies and a large milk combine, by which the said institute are alleged to have satisfied themselves that over 60 per cent. of calves fed on fresh milk soon contracted bovine tuberculosis; and what steps does he propose to take in view of these experiments?
    Mr. Morrison: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) on 1st November last.
    Mr. Macquisten: If these experiments are in order, is it then, part of the policy of the Hannah Institute that no cow should be allowed to nurse its own calf; and how is it, if these experiments are right, that we have any cattle at all, seeing that cows and calves have been fed on raw milk for untold generations; who supplied the milk in these experiments, and who supplied the obliging calves?
    Mr. Morrison: My hon. and learned Friend will not expect me to be responsible for experiments conducted by a scientific body, but, as I said in the reply to which I have referred him, this is only one experiment. Many others are being carried out. It would not be safe to go by experiments of a narrow range, and we are trying to review the whole subject in the light of other experiments as well as this one.
    Major Procterasked the Minister of Agriculture what organisations he has consulted in drawing up the terms of the new Milk Bill which is shortly to be presented to Parliament; and for what reason he has not consulted the National Federation of Milk Producer Retailers, whose interests are likely to be seriously affected?
    Mr. Morrison: Informal and confidential consultations are taking place with representatives of the national organisations of local authorities, producers and distributors. Among these organisations are the National Farmers' Union and the Milk Marketing Board, both of which bodies include among their members or constituents large numbers of producer-retailers. I propose also to arrange for similar consultations with the organisation referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend.

    BACON.
    Mr. Morganasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has any statistics showing the total amount of bacon cured in England during 1936 and 1937, respectively, from English and Irish pigs; and how much of this bacon was either tank-cured or dry-salted?
    Mr. W. S. Morrison: I regret that some of the particulars asked for by my hon. Friend are not available. I have, however, obtained from the Bacon Marketing

    Production of bacon by registered curers* in Great Britain.

    Year.

    Origin of Pigs.

    Wiltshire style bacon from Great Britain
    supplies,†

    Great Britain.

    Northern Ireland.

    Eire.

    Total.

    Tank-cured.

    Dry-cured.

    Total.

    Cwts.

    Cwts.

    Cwts.

    Cwts.

    Cwts.

    Cwts.

    Cwts.

    1936

    …

    …

    2,323,369

    49,581

    20,804

    2,393,754

    940,057

    552,278

    1,492,335

    1937

    …

    …

    1,944,388

    124,141

    15,348

    2,084,077

    758,130

    436,987

    1,195,11,7

    * Figures relating to production by unregistered
    curers are not available.

    † Figures of total production segregated into tank-cured
    and dry-cured bacon are not available. These figures relate only to that part of the total production which is cured in the Wiltshire style from Great Britain pigs.
    Corresponding figures for Irish supplies are not available.

    MUTTON AND LAMB (IMPORTS).
    Mr. Lambertasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that the imports of mutton and lamb have increased during the first four months of this year as compared with the previous two years; and whether any and, if so, what decisions have been reached as a result of his consultations with the representatives of New Zealand and Australia?
    Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyteasked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is now in a position to make a statement with regard to the consultations which are taking place with the Governments of Australia and New Zealand regarding the imports of mutton and lamb into this country?
    Mr. W. S. Morrison: Imports of frozen lamb in the first four months of this year have been somewhat less than in the corresponding period of 1937, and although there has been some increase in overseas supplies of mutton, the excess has largely consisted of the lower grade of ewe mutton. Stocks of mutton and lamb in cold storage in Great Britain are substantially below the levels of a year ago. Consultations with representatives of the Governments of the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand are still proceeding.
    Mr. Lambert: Does my right hon. Friend accept the position that the home producer should have the first call in the home market?
    Board certain figures relating to the production of bacon in Great Britain which, with my hon. Friend's permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following are the figures:
    Mr. Morrison: Yes, Sir.
    Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the prices of mutton and lamb in parts of the country are causing serious concern to the farmers, and will he consider buying up large quantities of mutton and lamb, and placing them in cold storage for use in an emergency, in order to relieve the market?
    Mr. Morrison: I am aware of the trouble caused in the sheep industry at the present time due to the prevailing low prices, but the second part of my hon. and gallant Friend's question raises another matter altogether.
    Mr. Georģe Griffiths: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that the agricultural worker gets a better wage, so that he can buy British lamb and mutton?

    ARTIFICIAL DRYING.
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the Minister of Agriculture what steps the Government are taking to encourage the artificial drying of crops, such as hay, by farmers, in view of the greater feeding value obtained by this method?
    Mr. W. S. Morrison: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Guest) on 2nd November last.
    Mr. De la Bère: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many small farmers

    841
    are unable to purchase this artificial drying apparatus, which is so essential to them, by reason of the fact that the necessary finance is not forthcoming from the Government?
    Mr. Morrison: My hon. Friend asked me what steps the Government were taking to encourage the artificial drying of crops, and if he will read the answer to which I have referred him, he will find a complete reply to his question there.

    FEEDING STUFFS.
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the Minister of Agriculture what steps the Government are taking to encourage the feeding of livestock on the heavy yielding varieties of potatoes; and whether they will consider freeing from the control of the Potato Marketing Board an approved acreage throughout the country for this purpose?
    Mr. W. S. Morrison: The growing of potatoes solely for feeding to livestock would be uneconomic to producers, and no steps are therefore being taken in the direction indicated in the first part of the question. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative.
    Mr. De la Bère: Is my right hon. Friend not aware that practically all the feeding stuffs used in this country have to be imported; and what steps does he intend to take to make us self-supporting in this respect?
    Mr. Morrison: That is not so. About 26 per cent. or 30 per cent. are imported, but my hon. Friend seems to forget that one of the main feeding stuffs for cattle is grass.

    CHEESE.
    Mr. Rostron Duckworthasked the Minister of Agriculture to what extent the production of British cheese has increased or decreased since the inception of the milk marketing scheme; and whether, in view of the large quantity of cheese which is still imported into this country, special attention can be given to this matter in the near future?
    Mr. W. S. Morrison: As the reply to the first part of the question is in the form of a table, with my hon. Friend's permission I will circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT. With regard to the second part of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the statement of
    842
    the Government's proposals affecting the milk industry contained in the White Paper of July last, as amplified by the reply I gave to a question put on 7th December, 1937, by my hon. and gallant Friend, the Member for Maldon (Sir E. Ruggles-Brise).
    Following is the table:
    Quantities of milk disposed of under the English Milk Marketing Scheme for manufacture into cheese in factories and on farms.

    Period.

    Factory cheese.

    Farm cheese.

    '000 gallons.

    '000 gallons.

    Oct., 1933—Mar., 1934 (6 months).

    19,181

    *

    Apr., 1934—Sept., 1934 (6 months).

    42,455

    18,846

    Total 1933–34

    61,636

    *

    Oct., 1934—Mar., 1935 (6 months).

    34,469

    2,473

    Apr., 1935—Sept., 1935 (6 months).

    58,162

    11,532

    Total 1934–35

    92,630

    14,005

    Oct., 1935—Mar., 1936 (6 months).

    33,194

    3,650

    Apr., 1936—Sept., 1936 (6 months).

    56,604

    14,066

    Total 1935–36

    89,798

    17,716

    Oct., 1936—Mar., 1937 (6 months).

    22,590

    4,208

    Apr., 1937—Sept., 1937 (6 months).

    36,740

    15,415

    Total 1936–37

    59,330

    19,623

    Oct., 1937—Mar., 1938 (6 months).

    13,568

    5,759

    *No figures available.

    MUSK RAT.
    Sir Gifford Foxasked the Minister of Agriculture the total cost of exterminating the musk rat and the maximum number of people employed, and how many years it took to exterminate it?
    Mr. W. S. Morrison: The net cost to my Department of exterminating the musk rat in England and Wales was £16,265. The maximum number of trappers employed on the work at any one time was 40, and the operations extended over approximately three years.

    MYOPOTAMI COYPU.
    Sir G. Foxasked the Minister of Agriculture what is the approximate number of myopotami coypu at present maintained in fur farms in the British Isles; whether the farms in question are licensed or controlled in any way; whether any standards of fencing are laid down; whether the farms are inspected by his Department; and whether, in the public interest, any penal action can be taken against those farmers who allow their myopotami coypu to escape?
    Mr. W. S. Morrison: I regret that the information asked for in the first part of my hon. Friend's question is not available. The farms in question are not subject to licence or control and no standards of fencing are laid down. Voluntary arrangements are, however, in operation under which farms on which these animals are known to be kept are periodically inspected by officers of my Department. I am not aware of any penal action that could be taken against breeders who allowed these animals to escape.
    Sir G. Fox: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this animal grows to the size of a small spaniel and that no cat will tackle it; that recently one was shot on the Thames near Henley by a keeper; and what steps do the Department intend to take to reduce the number of these pests still at large?
    Mr. Morrison: As I have informed my hon. Friend in a recent answer, we have had this animal closely watched for some years. The information at our disposal does not lead us to suppose that it would be appropriate to take the same action against it as we took against the musk rat, because it does not breed so fast and, as far as is known, does not do anything like the same damage. Experience in foreign countries where this animal has also escaped shows that it has not been a serious menace, but we are watching the situation and should it be necessary to take any measures we shall do so.
    Mr. Macquisten: Has the Minister seen any account of the experiments in Aberdeen which showed that rats fed on pasteurised milk left no posterity; and could he not feed these animals on pasteurised milk?

  POST OFFICE.

    RACECOURSES (TELEGRAPHIC FACILITIES).
    Mr. Dayasked the Postmaster-General the number of temporary telegraph offices opened by his Department on the various racecourses for the purpose of dealing with ordinary telegraph business and / or Press telegrams in the course of the racing season; and the approximate number of telegrams forwarded from these offices for the 12 months ended to the last convenient date?
    The Assistant Postmaster-General (Sir Walter Womersley): The number of temporary telegraph offices opened on racecourses during the year ended 31st March, 1938, was 300, from which 179,000 ordinary telegrams and 52,000 pages of Press matter were forwarded.
    Mr. Day: Do ordinary telegrams show a great decrease for the last 12 months?
    Sir W. Womersley: A slight decrease.

    SOUTH AFRICAN MAILS.
    Captain Pluggeasked the Postmaster-General, whether he is aware that British mails to South Africa are carried in Italian ships; whether he will state the amount paid to the owners of these ships in the last 12 months for the carriage of mails; and whether he will consider confining the carriage of South African mails from this country to British ships?
    Sir W. Womersley: Italian ships are not used for the conveyance of mails from this country for South Africa; the second and third parts of the question do not, therefore, arise?

    EMPIRE AIR MAIL.
    Mr. Rostron Duckworthasked the Postmaster-General whether he can provide any statistics showing the extent to which the volume of Empire mail despatched by air has increased since the inauguration of the Empire air-mail scheme?
    Sir W. Womersley: Mails are at present being despatched by air from the United Kingdom by services provided under the Empire Air Mail Scheme at the rate of about 730 tons a year, as compared with a rate of about 160 tons a year immediately before the inauguration of the scheme.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    GOVERNMENT POLICY.
    Mr. Robert Gibsonasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the trade figures for the month of April, he will now announce the Government's plans for meeting a slump?
    The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. and learned Member to the answer which I gave on this subect on 14th December last. I do not consider that the situation has changed sufficiently since that date to warrant my adding anything to the statement I then made.
    Mr. Gibson: Are the plans which were mentioned by the Prime Minister then and on previous occasions, going back to 28th July last, still under consideration by the officers of the Departments?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, plans are constantly under consideration.

    COTTON INDUSTRY.
    Mr. Remerasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the proposals for a Cotton Enabling Bill are estimated to require over 3,4300,000 a year for redundancy quotas, etc.; and whether he will make it clear to the promoters of these proposals that such a charge on the Exchequer is an impossibility and, as the export trade cannot bear this additional burden, the proposals will not be accepted by the Government as the basis for legislation?
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Cross): My right hon. Friend has not received any estimate of the cost of operating the various schemes for which provision is made in these proposals.

    BELGIUM.
    Sir Reģinald Clarryasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that there is a substantial increase in the imports from Belgium during the first quarter of this year, accompanied by a fall in the exports of British goods to Belgium; and whether he proposes to take any steps in the matter?
    Mr. R. S. Hudson (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The position of the trade referred to is constantly under review, but I do
    846
    not regard the increased adverse balance of visible trade in one quarter of the year as a sufficient reason in itself for any special action.

    RUSSIA
    Sir R. Clarryasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the increase in imports from Russia, and the decrease in exports of British goods to Russia, in the year 1937, he is prepared to give the necessary notice to terminate the Trade Agreement made with that country in 1934?
    Mr. R. S. Hudson: I am unable to add to the statement which was made earlier this year that the whole question of the commercial relations between the two countries is under review. In this connection my right hon. Friend is receiving on 26th May a deputation from industrial and commercial organisations interested in the trade between this country and the Soviet Union.
    Mr. Henderson Stewart: Will my right hon. Friend hear in mind, in these negotiations with Russia, the necessity, as we see it, of increasing the export of British herring to Russia?

    OPEL CARS (IMPORTS).
    Mr. Remerasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the recent reduction of the importation of Opel cars is due to the fact that there is no more room at Southampton to store them; and, in view of the heavy importation during the first three months of this year and the probability that there will be further large importations as soon as storage space is available, will he take prompt steps to deal with this grave injury to the British motor car industry?
    Mr. Cross: I am informed by General Motors, Limited, that the large imports in the early months of the year were made to take advantage of favourable freight arrangements at that time, and that it is not proposed to replace sales made in the near future by further importations.
    Mr. Remer: Has my hon. Friend seen photographs of the motor cars at Southampton Docks, in garages, where thousands are being kept for many days, and will he, in view of the large number of people who have been put out of work in British motor car factories, look into the question again?
    Mr. Cross: I cannot accept the last part of my hon. Friend's suggestion, because my information is that the sales of these cars are smaller than they were last year.
    Mr. Remer: Will my hon. Friend make further inquiries, when he will find out that these cars are being sold and that British workers are being put out of work, that thousands of people are being turned out of work in one factory alone?
    Mr. G. Strauss: Will the Minister inquire from General Motors whether in fact it was the intention of this Company to import 10,000 Opel cars into this country this year?
    Mr. Cross: That is not in accordance with my information.

    EX-SERVICEMEN.
    Mr. Tinkerasked the Prime Minister whether he will grant a day to discuss the White Paper, Cmd. 5738, dealing with the condition of ex-service men?
    The Prime Minister: I am afraid that in the present state of public business I cannot afford a special opportunity for the discussion of this White Paper.
    Mr. Tinker: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many hon. Members on both sides who have read this White Paper feel that it raises points which can be answered only in debate; and will he not reconsider giving an opportunity for discussing this very important matter?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Member knows that if an opportunity could be found, we would desire to have a Debate.
    Mr. Tinker: I will take advantage of that offer, and I give notice that I will call attention to this matter on the the first available opportunity.

  JAMAICA.

    SUGAR INDUSTRY.
    Captain Arthur Evansasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that Jamaica has already this year produced 20,000 tons more sugar than she is permitted to export under the International Sugar Agreement and that this surplus production amounts to approximately 25 per cent. of
    848
    her present export quota; and what steps he proposes to take to deal with the decreased employment which will be caused by these circumstances next year?
    The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Malcolm MacDonald): I am informed by the Governor of Jamaica that, after the quota of 86,000 tons allotted to the Colony has been exported, there will be a surplus of 21,000 tons of sugar during the current sugar year. As has already been stated in this House in reply to questions by other hon. Members, the Governor of Jamaica is taking all possible steps to deal with the problem of unemployment, and he will no doubt take into account the position which may arise next year in consequence of the existence of this surplus.
    Captain Evans: In view of the fact that these economic conditions in the West Indies generally are assuming such a grave political aspect, will my right hon. Friend consider the advisability of appointing a Royal Commission with wide terms of reference to investigate the present situation, with a view to making recommendations for the future economic prosperity of the Colonies?
    Mr. MacDonald: I can only say that I am giving the economic situation in the West Indies my very careful consideration.
    Mr. Gallacher: Will not the Minister seriously consider the necessity of having independent trade unions, so that they could reduce hours of labour and get holidays with pay to meet unemployment?
    Mr. MacDonald: There is nothing in the Islands to prevent the establishment of trade unions.
    Mr. Gallacher: Does that mean that there is nothing to prevent the establishment of independent, free, trade unions?

    DISTURBANCES (COMPENSATION).
    Mr. David Adamsasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, what arrangements will be made for compensation on account of the victims who were killed as the result of the Jamaica riots?
    Mr. MacDonald: The question whether any such compensation should be paid will no doubt be considered by the Governor on receipt of the report of the special Commission of investigation.
    Mr. Adams: Is it not a fact, that according to the Press of the Island, many of the victims were innocent persons just in the street at the time, and, therefore, surely the relatives are entitled to compensation?
    Mr. MacDonald: It is not customary in such cases for compensation to be paid to the relatives, but if there are any special features of these cases, as I say, the matter will no doubt receive consideration when the report of the commission of inquiry has been received.
    Mr. Adams: When may we expect to have the report of this commission of inquiry?
    Mr. MacDonald: I could not promise any date, but the inquiry is being conducted will all possible speed.

    TRINIDAD.
    Mr. Palingasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has considered the petition presented on behalf of certain East Indians in Trinidad who form the Coronation Omnibus Association; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?
    Mr. M. MacDonald: I have not yet received the petition referred to. When it is received from the Acting Governor, it will be given full consideration.

    ROYAL NAVY (MARRIAGE ALLOWANCE).
    Vice-Admiral Taylorasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the statement in the White Paper on marriage allowance that the rates agreed upon were designed to secure parity of remuneration in all three Services, he is aware that the married naval officer in a shore appointment is much worse off financially than the married officer of the same rank and age serving in the Army or Air Force?
    The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Colonel Llewellin): Taking into account the different systems of promotion in the three Services and the differences in average age when the various ranks are attained, I am satisfied that the emoluments paid to naval officers compare not unfavourably with those paid to officers in the other two Services.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: Is my hon. and gallant Friend not aware that the officers in the Army and the Air Force receive allowances on marriage irrespective of where they serve and at all times, whereas in the case of the naval officer, if he is appointed to a shore appointment where there are no official quarters, he gets neither marriage allowance nor children's allowance, and he is worse off, therefore, than the officer in the Army or the Air Force; and may I ask whether he will get out —
    Hon. Members: Speech!
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: On a point of Order. I was stopped from asking this question, Mr. Speaker, because of the noise that was going on. May I ask this very reasonable question?
    Mr. Speaker: Perhaps if the hon. and gallant Member would ask a shorter question, he could manage it.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: I will make it quite short and ask whether my hon. and gallant Friend will get out a table of the total remuneration paid to the married officer of the same rank and age in the Army, Navy, and Air Force?
    Colonel Llewellin: If my hon. and gallant Friend will discuss it with me afterwards, I think I have some figures that I can show him.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: I shall be delighted to see them. I also have some figures.
    Mr. De la Bère: Is not the whole matter most unsatisfactory?

    UNEMPLOYMENT (ASSISTANCE).
    Mr. Gallacherasked the Minister of Labour whether the supplementary unemployment allowance, which has just been suspended, was intended in the first instance as a winter allowance or an allowance to meet the general increase in the cost of living; and if the former, why it was not applied to all applicants alike instead of as a discretionary measure?
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Lennox-Boyd): As was stated my my right hon. Friend in reply to the hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. S. O. Davies) on 12th May, these

    851
    supplementary allowances were granted on account of the concurrence of the increase in the cost of living with the existence of winter conditions. Under the present Regulations neither of these circumstances would have been legally sufficient by itself.
    Mr. Gallacher: Did not the Minister make it clear that it was legally permissible for the Board to make an allowance in the event of circumstances arising, such as a high increase in the cost of living, but that there was no legal sanction for the winter allowance? Is not that the position?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The matter was discussed very fully during the seven-hour Debate last week, and I do not think it possible to give any further information by way of question and answer.
    Mr. Gallacher: But is it legal in present circumstances to make a winter allowance? Is it not the case that the legal power is to make the allowance if the cost of living rises beyond a particular point?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: As was said during the Debate, the legal power arises from the existence of two circumstances together, but would not arise were one only to exist.
    Mr. Gallacherasked the Minister of Labour whether claimants for unemployment assistance are entitled to be accompanied by a friend when interviewing area officers about their case?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: There are no definite rules governing this matter, which is within the discretion of the Board's officers, but I am informed that in ordinary circumstances an applicant is free to be accompanied by a personal friend if he so desires.
    Mr. Gallacher: In view of the fact that some of the officers can seriously intimidate and take advantage of claimants, would not the Minister make it a condition that any application has a right to take a representative along with him? If the Minister is not satisfied, I will bring one or two cases to him.
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: In practice no difficulty arises in this matter, and every attempt is made by the Board's officers to make these interviews as informal and
    852
    easy as possible for the unemployed person to state his case.
    Mr. James Griffiths: Will the Minister state that it is desirable that an applicant should take a friend with him, that that friend should be received by the area officer, and that this practice is desirable in the interests of good administration?
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: It is certainly generally desirable that if an applicant wishes to take a personal friend he should be in a position to do so.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE.

    MARRIAGE ALLOWANCE.
    Vice-Admiral Taylorasked the Secretary of State for Air what is the lowest age at which a squadron-leader has received allowances at marriage rates; and do the regulations permit these allowances to be paid below the age of 30?
    The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Captain Harold Balfour): The youngest squadron-leader at present in receipt of allowances at married rates is 28 years of age. These allowances are not payable to an officer under the age of 30 unless he has attained the rank of squadron-leader. I regret that it would not be practicable without an undue expenditure of labour to ascertain how many previous cases there have been, if any, of married officers who have attained the rank of squadron-leader while still under 30.
    Vice-Admiral Taylor: Am I to understand that the married officer in the Air Force has a greater privilege than the married officers in the Army and Navy in that he receives marriage allowance below the age at which the Naval officer and the Army officer receives it?
    Captain Balfour: It is not for me to compare the advantages of the respective Services.
    Mr. G. Griffiths: Is the payment of this allowance at 30 years of age going to help the population?

    CONSTRUCTION (SHIPBUILDING FIRMS).
    Mr. David Adamsasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware that German shipyards, despite the fact that they are working at higher pressure than shipyards

    853
    in Great Britain, are also making substantial quantities of aeroplane parts; and whether he is prepared to consider the possibility of aeroplane parts being manufactured in British shipyards?
    Captain Balfour: As regards the first part of the question, I understand that some aircraft factories in Germany are operated by shipbuilding firms, but I have no information which supports the belief that the machinery and equipment of shipyards are being used for the manufacture of aeroplane parts for which purpose they would in general be quite unsuitable. As regards the second part of the question, the hon. Member will probably be aware that some measures have been taken and are already in operation to associate shipbuilding firms with some of the large aircraft manufacturers engaged in the air expansion programme.
    Mr. Adams: If I send the Minister some information on the lines of my question, will he be prepared to look at it?
    Captain Balfour: I shall be very glad to do so, but such information as I have is that the linking up between aircraft manufacturers and shipyards in Germany is an administrative rather than a manufacturing one.

    IMPERIAL AIRWAYS, LIMITED (PILOTS, BALLOT).
    Mr. Leslieasked the Secretary of State for Air whether he will make available for Members of this House a copy of the ballot paper on which the pilots employed by Imperial Airways, Limited, are to express their wishes with regard to the constitution of their Whitley Council?
    Captain Balfour: Yes, Sir, I will arrange for two copies of the ballot paper referred to and letter covering it to be placed in the Library of the House.

    PATENT MEDICINES.
    Mr. David Adamsasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that, in 1937, a Select Committee of this House estimated that the amount spent each year in the United Kingdom on patent medicines was between £20,000,000 and £28,000,000, as against an annual expenditure upon drugs under the National Health Insurance scheme of only £2,500,000; and whether, in view of this
    854
    persistence of unskilled and often dangerous self-treatment, he will consider changes in the law whereby drugs sold under a proprietary name shall at least be regulated as stringently as ordinary foods and drugs are under the Food and Drugs Act, 1875?
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Bernays): I am not sure exactly what change in the law the hon. Member has in mind, but I would refer him to Clause 6 of the Food and Drugs Bill now before Parliament which not only strengthens the present law regarding labels issued with drugs, but also applies to advertisements containing false descriptions of drugs or misleading statements as to their nature, substance or quality.
    Mr. Gallacher: In view of the fact that many ignorant people are poisoning not only themselves, but their children and destroying their health, will special measures be taken to stop this sale of patent medicines?
    Mr. Bernays: We are taking steps to deal with it, as the hon. Member will see if he will look at the new Food and Drugs Bill.
    Mr. Adams: Will that Bill remedy some of the disabilities I have indicated?
    Mr. Bernays: I shall be glad if, after the hon. Gentleman has looked at the Bill, he will be good enough to have a word with me if it does not meet the point he has raised.

    PHYSICAL TRAINING (TEACHERS).
    Sir Ernest Graham-Littleasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education (1) for what reason teachers of physical education who have undergone a three-years training at a physical training college and have obtained the diploma of the London University in the theory and practice of physical education are not paid on a scale comparable with the graduate salaries paid to graduates of a university;
    (2) whether, in view of the new importance which is being attached to physical training and fitness, he will arrange for the revision of the present system under which the salaries paid to teachers of physical education who have taken a

    855
    three years' full-time course and hold the highest qualification obtainable in this country, are substantially lower than the graduate salaries paid to teachers of academic subjects;
    (3) whether his attention has been called to the grievance of the Assistant Mistresses' Association with regard to the non-graduate scale of salaries which is still paid to teachers of physical training in this country; and whether, in view of the desirability of attracting an adequate number of suitable candidates for the position of teachers of physical training and of the recent decision of the National Fitness Council to grant, the sum of £200,000 to the universities in this connection, he will arrange for this matter to be reconsidered at the earliest opportunity?
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education (Mr. Kenneth Lindsay): My Noble Friend is aware of the salary scales paid to teachers of physical education though his attention has not been called to the matter specifically as a grievance of the Association referred to. The salary scales of teachers are regulated by the Burnham Committees consisting of the employing authorities and the teachers acting through members appointed by their respective associations. Any question of modifying them in respect of teachers of physical education is a matter, in the first instance, for the appropriate Burnham Committees. The Burnham Secondary and Technical Committees gave full consideration to this question last year but, since it is not their practice to publish reasons for their decisions, I am not in a position to specify the grounds on which they were unable to accept a three years' course of training at a physical training college, together with the diploma of the London University in physical training, as entitling a teacher to be paid on the graduate scale.
    Sir Arnold Wilson: Is my hon. Friend aware that the country is asking not for more university professors, but for more usable playgrounds?
    Mr. Lindsay: My hon. Friend will be glad to know that they are coming along fast.
    Mr. Macquisten: Is my hon. Friend aware that teachers of physical training
    856
    use up more bodily energy and require more food and should, therefore, be better paid?

    TERRITORIAL ARMY.
    Captain A. Evansasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will state, in round figures, the number of men still required to bring the Territorial Army up to the desired strength; what are the minimum and maximum ages of the recruits required for first-line fighting units; and the standard minimum rates of pay and allowances applicable on mobilisation?
    The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Sir Victor Warrender): On 1st May the number of other ranks required to bring the Territorial Army up to establishment was approximately 25,800. The age limits for enlistment are 18 to 38, except in the case of coast defence and anti-aircraft units, which may enlist men up to 50 years of age, provided they maintain at least 50 per cent. of their establishment under 38. The Territorial soldier at present, when entitled to pay and allowances, for example when in camp, receives pay at the same standard rates as the Regular soldier, and allowances which are in certain respects more generous. For instance, the Territorial soldier gets family allowance from age 21. It will be for the Government of the day to announce the allowances payable on embodiment.
    Captain Evans: Will my hon. and gallant Friend represent to the civil and police authorities the desirability of bearing these facts in mind when they broadcast for volunteers of military age and fitness?
    Sir V. Warrender: I am aware of the point put by my hon. and gallant Friend.

  TRANSPORT.

    ROAD SAFETY (CHILDREN).
    Mr. Viantasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is now in a position to make a statement on the recommendations arising from the conference convened by the Education Committee of the Middlesex County Council, on 13th April, 1938, as to road safety amongst school children, copies of

    857
    which were forwarded to him by the secretary of the Middlesex Education Committee?
    Mr. R. C. Morrisonasked the Home Secretary whether he has considered the copy sent to him of a resolution passed at a recent conference of children's safety committees, convened by the Education Committee, Middlesex County Council, urging the provision of adult patrols, working under the supervision of the police authorities, for the protection of school children at dangerous points on the highways; and whether this proposal is receiving consideration?
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): This resolution was brought to my right hon. Friend's notice in a letter dated firth May in which the Middlesex Education Committee asked that they might send a deputation to the Home Office to put forward their case in support of the proposal made in the resolution. My right hon. Friend is arranging for this deputation to be received, and he will consider the proposal in due course in the light of the representations made by the deputation.

    RAILWAY COACHES (CONSTRUCTION).
    Mr. Remerasked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the fact that most experts are of the opinion that railway coaches of wooden character are safer, and that if the coaches on the District Railway had been wooden coaches instead of all-steel coaches the casualties would have been negligible, he will set up a departmental committee to inquire into this and other problems in connection with safety on railways?
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Captain Austin Hudson): My right hon. Friend is not in a position to draw any deductions from the recent accident on the District Railway until he has received the Inspecting Officer's report.
    Mr. Remer: In view of the importance of this matter, will my hon. and gallant Friend take notice of some of the evidence which was given at the inquiry on Friday into the Charing Cross railway accident, which decisively states that wooden coaches are safer than steel?

    ATTEMPTED MURDER (PRISONER'S MENTAL CONDITION).
    Sir J. Mellorasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been drawn to the evidence given at the trial of Bernard Anthony O'Sullivan, who pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to murder a boy aged nine; whether he has investigated the allegation of the medical officer of Brixton Prison that, while at Broadmoor, O'Sullivan had declared that he thought it right to murder young children; whether he is satisfied that O'Sullivan's record and condition justified his release in 1935; and whether he will take more effective steps to prevent the release of dangerous criminals and lunatics?
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been drawn to the case of Bernard O'Sullivan, who was sentenced to 10 years' penal servitude at the Old Bailey for attempting to murder, and who had previously received five sentences, including one for attempted murder; whether he will make inquiries as to the reason for his discharge from a mental hospital; and whether, in view of this man's record of mental instability, he will speedily have him transferred to Broadmoor or some other suitable mental hospital?
    Mr. Lloyd: In March, 1923, O'Sullivan was convicted of wounding with intent to murder and was sentenced to 10 years' penal servitude. While serving this sentence he showed no signs of mental abnormality and, having earned by good conduct and industry full remission marks, he was released in the ordinary course on licence in October, 1930. In April, 1932, he pleaded guilty at Manchester Assizes to a charge of larceny and was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, with the result that he became liable to serve in addition the remanet of his penal servitude sentence. At this time, he was found to be insane and he was transferred from prison first to Rain-hill Mental Hospital, and subsequently to Broadmoor, where he remained until 18th January, 1935, on which date his sentence expired. On the expiration of his sentence the powers and responsibilities of the Home Secretary with respect to his custody came to an end, but as he was still insane he became liable to detention under the ordinary provisions of the

    859
    Lunacy law. Accordingly he was removed to Banstead Mental Hospital as a rate-aided patient. The question whether, and if so when, the patient should be discharged thereupon became one for the visiting committee of that hospital. Persons like O'Sullivan who are sentenced to some specified term of imprisonment or penal servitude are in a different position from persons who, when charged with a criminal offence, are found insane by the Court and ordered to be detained during His Majesty's pleasure. When a person is ordered to be detained during His Majesty's pleasure, the responsibility of deciding whether such a patient has sufficiently recovered to be released without undue risk rests on the Home Secretary. The decision in such a case is frequently a matter of great difficulty and, as is known to those hon. Members who from time to time make representations to the Home Office about the release of such patients, great care is taken to make all necessary inquiries and to weigh the various considerations which arise.
    O'Sullivan is at present under careful observation in prison and if, as a result of that observation, he is certified to be insane, immediate steps will be taken for his removal to Broadmoor.
    Mr. Sorensen: Will not the hon. Gentleman take steps to short-circuit the treatment pathologically of cases of this description?
    Mr. Lloyd: That is a question to which I should not like to give an answer offhand.
    Mr. Sorensen: Is there any indication of when it is likely that this man will be transferred to a mental hospital?
    Mr. Lloyd: No, Sir; I have said that the case is under careful consideration.

    WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION.
    Mr. Whiteleyasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware of the growing dissatisfaction as to rates of compensation paid to those injured or killed in industry; whether he is prepared to find time for the introduction and passage of a new Workmen's Compensation Bill giving a more adequate compensation, and
    860
    thus obviate their reliance on charitable funds raised by the public for this purpose?
    Mr. Lloyd: My right hon. Friend regrets that he cannot at present add anything to his previous statements on this subject.
    Mr. Whiteley: Will the hon. Member convey to his right hon. Friend the fact that there is a growing feeling in the public mind that compensation rates are not sufficient to meet the needs of widows, dependants, and those who are injured, and will he reconsider the whole position and agree to an increase in order that the dependants of these people may live in decency?
    Sir A. Wilson: Will the hon. Gentleman also bear in mind that three out of four of those in receipt of weekly payments under workmen's compensation are at present dependent upon the Poor Law for additional help?
    Mr. T. Smith: Is the Minister aware that the view is widely held that the fact that injured workmen in receipt of compensation have to seek assistance from the Poor Law is a positive scandal and that the delay in dealing with this situation does not reflect credit upon the Home Office?

    CORRESPONDENCE COLLEGES (ADVERTISEMENTS).
    Mr. Gallacherasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware of the growing practice on the part of correspondence colleges and similar institutions of advertising in newspapers in terms suggesting that they have the disposal of lucrative employment in Government service, particularly the Metropolitan Police Force and the Post Office; and will he take steps to end the publication of these misleading advertisements?
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Captain, Euan Wallace): I have no reason to think that there is any misunderstanding as to the fact that correspondence colleges and institutions of the kind referred to in the question have no rights or privileges of any kind in connection with appointments to the Government Service. But if the hon. Member can give me particulars of any definitely misleading advertisement, I shall be glad to look into the matter.
    Mr. Gallacher: Is the Minister not aware that advertisements appear containing such statements as "Many Government posts vacant," with particulars of appointments, and that this gives the impression that the heads of these concerns have some control in the matter? I will give the right hon. and gallant Gentleman copies of one or two of the advertisements, so that he may see them for himself?

    HOSPITAL FUNDS (GOVERNMENT EMPLOYES' CONTRIBUTIONS).
    Mr. R. Gibsonasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury when arrangements recently decided on for the system of collections for hospital fund purposes from industrial and non-industrial workers directly employed by the Government at home, by arrangement with these workers by way of deduction from their pay, are likely to be completed; and whether he can give an assurance that the contemplated central machinery will not involve a diminution of the funds collected from the workers for hospital purposes?
    Captain Wallace: It is hoped to bring this scheme into operation as from 1st July next. Contributions will be deducted free of charge by Government Departments from the pay of their employés and transmitted to a committee of the British Hospitals Contributory Schemes Association for distribution to the appropriate hospital funds. The amount transmitted
    to any individual hospital fund will be the net amount after deduction of the expenses incidental to this distribution. It is estimated that after the first two or three years the expenses will not exceed 5 per cent. of the total receipts.
    Mr. Gibson: Will that distribution be determined by the employés at the works where the collections are made?
    Captain Wallace: That is a different question, and perhaps the hon. and learned Member will be good enough to put it down?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. Attlee: May I ask the Prime Minister what business he proposes to take in the event of the Motion to suspend the 11 o'clock Rule being carried?
The Prime Minister: We desire to obtain the remaining stages of the Housing (Rural Workers) Amendment Bill, the Lords Amendment to the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Bill, the Committee and Third Reading of the Air Navigation (Financial Provisions) Bill, and the Report of the Herring Industry Money Resolution.
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, 257; Noes, 109.

Division No. 214.]

AYES.

[3.51 p.m.

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

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

Caiman, N. C. D.

Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.

Bull, B. B.

Conant, Captain R. J. E.

Allen, Col. J. Sandeman (B'knhead)

Bullock, Capt. M.

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

Amery, Rt. Hon. L. C. M. S.

Burghley, Lord

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

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

Burgin, Rt. Hon. E. L.

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

Anderson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (So'h Univ't)

Burton, Col. H. W.

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

Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

Butcher, H. W.

Courthope, Col. Rt. Hon. Sir G. L.

Assheton, R.

Butler, R. A.

Cranborne, Viscount

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

Caine, G. R. Hall-

Croft, Brig.-Gen. Sir H. Page

Baillie, Sir A. W. M.

Campbell, Sir E. T.

Crooke, Sir J. S.

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

Cartland, J. R. H.

Cross, R. H.

Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M.

Cary, R. A.

Crossley, A. C.

Barrie, Sir C. C.

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

Culverwell, C. T.

Baxter, A. Beverley

Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)

Davidson, Viscountess

Beauchamp, Sir B. C.

Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)

Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)

Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)

Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)

Davison, Sir W. H.

Bennett, Sir E. N.

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

Dawson, Sir P.

Bernays, R. H.

Channon, H.

De Chair, S. S

Birchall, Sir J. D.

Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)

De la Bère, R.

Bird, Sir R. B.

Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)

Denman, Hon. R. D.

Blair, Sir R.

Chorlton, A. E. L.

Denville, Alfred

Boothby, R. J. G.

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.

Doland, G. F.

Bower, Comdr. R. T.

Clarke, Frank (Dartford)

Dower, Major A. V. G.

Brats, Sir W.

Clarry, Sir Reginald

Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)

Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

Cobb, Captain E. C. (Preston)

Duggan, H. J.

Broadbridge, Sir G. T.

Colfox, Major W. P.

Duncan, J. A. L.

Dunglass, Lord

Lennox-Boyd, A. T. L.

Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.

Edmondson, Major Sir J.

Levy, T.

Russell, Sir Alexander

Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

Lewis, O

Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)

Ellis, Sir a.

Liddall, W. S.

Salmon, Sir I.

Elliston, Capt. G. S.

Lindsay, K. M.

Salt, E. W.

Emmott, C. E. G. C.

Lipson, D. L.

Salter, Sir J. Arthur (Oxford U.)

Emrys-Evans, P. V.

Little, Sir E. Graham-

Samuel, M. R. A.

Entwistle, Sir C. F.

Llewellin, Colonel J. J.

Sandeman, Sir N. S.

Erskine-Hill, A. G.

Lloyd, G. W.

Sanderson, Sir F. B.

Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)

Locker-Lampson, Comdr. O. S.

Sandys, E. D,

Findlay, Sir E.

Loftus, P. C.

Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir P.

Fleming, E. L.

Lyons, A. M.

Scott, Lord William

Fox, Sir G. W. G.

Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)

Fremantle, Sir F, E.

McCorquodale, M.S.

Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A

Fyfe, D. P. M.

Macdonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)

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

Gluckstein, L. H.

Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)

Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.

Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.

McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.

Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)

Goldie, N. B.

McKie, J. H.

Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)

Macmillan, H. (Stockton-on-Tees)

Spears, Brigadier-General E L.

Grant-Ferris, R.

Macnamara, Major J. R. J.

Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)

Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.

Macquisten, F. A.

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

Gridlay, Sir A. B.

Magnay, T.

Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)

Grimston, R. V.

Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.

Stewart, William J. (Belfast, S.)

Guest, Hon. I. (Brecon and Radnor)

Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.

Guinness, T. L. E. B.

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

Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)

Gunston, Capt. Sir D. W.

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

Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)

Hannah, I. C.

Maxwell, Hon. S. A.

Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h)

Harmon, Sir P. J. H.

Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

Harvey, Sir G.

Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)

Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

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

Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)

Tasker, Sir R. I.

Haslam, H. C. (Horncastle)

Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)

Tate, Mavis C.

Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)

Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

Hely-Hutchinson, M. R.

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

Thomas, J. P. L.

Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.

Moreing, A. C.

Thomson, Sir J. D. W.

Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-

Morgan, R. H.

Touche, G. C.

Hapworth, J.

Morris-Jones, Sir Henry

Tree, A. R. L. F.

Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)

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

Wakefield, W. W.

Hoare, Rt. Hon. Sir S.

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

Wallace, Capt. Rt. Hon. Euan

Holdsworth, H.

Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.

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

Holmes, J. S.

Nicholson, G. (Farnham)

Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)

Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

Wardlaw-Milne, Sir J. S.

Hopkinson, A.

O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh

Warrender, Sir V.

Horsbrugh, Florence

Palmer, G. E. H.

Watt, Major G. S. Harvie

Howitt, Dr. A. B.

Patrick, C. M.

Wedderburn, H. J. S.

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

Peake, O.

Wells, S. R.

Hudson, Rt. Hon. R. S. (Southport)

Peters, Dr. S. J.

Whiteley, Major J. P. (Buckingham)

Hulbert, N. J.

Petherick, M.

Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)

Hume, Sir G. H.

Pickthorn, K. W. M.

Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.

Hunter, T.

Pilkington, R.

Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl

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

Plugge, Capt. L. F.

Wise, A. R.

James, Wing-Commander A. W. H.

Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

Withers, Sir J. J.

Jarvis, Sir J. J.

Pownall, Lt.-Col. Sir Assheton

Wolmtr, Rt. Hon. Viscount

Joel, D. J. B.

Procter, Major H. A.

Womersley, Sir W. J.

Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)

Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.

Wood, Hon. C. I. C.

Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)

Raimbotham, H.

Wragg, H.

Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

Rathbone, Eleanor (English Univ's.)

Wright, Wing-Commander J. A. C.

Kimball, L.

Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

Young, A. S. L. (Partick)

Lamb, Sir J. Q.

Rawson, Sir Cooper

Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.

Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

Laeeh, Sir J. W.

Remer, J. R.

Mr. Munro and Captain

Leighton, Major B. E. P.

Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

Dugdale.

NOES.

Acland, R. T. D. (Barnstaple)

Daggar, G.

Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

Adams, D. (Consett)

Dalton, H.

Harris, Sir P. A.

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

Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

Hayday, A.

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

Day, H.

Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

Ammon, C. G.

Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)

Hills, A. (Pontefract)

Banfield, J. W.

Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwallty)

Hopkin, D.

Barnes, A. J.

Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)

Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.

Barr, J.

Gallacher, W.

Kelly, W. T.

Batey, J,

Gardner, B. W.

Kirby, B. V.

Bellinger, F. J.

Garro Jones, G. M.

Kirkwood, D.

Benn, Rt. Hon. W. W.

George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)

Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.

Benson, G.

Gibson, R. (Greenock)

Leach, W.

Brown, C. (Mansfield)

Green, W. H. (Deptford)

Lee, F.

Chater, D.

Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.

Leonard, W.

Cluse. W. S.

Grenfell, D. R.

Leslie, J. R.

Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.

Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)

Logan, D. G.

Cocks, F. S.

Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

Lunn, W.

Cove, W. G.

Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

Macdonald, G. (Ince)

Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford

Guest, Dr. L. H. (Islington, N.)

McEntee, V. La T.

864

865

McGhee, H. G.

Rothschild, J. A. de

Thorne, W.

Marshall, F.

Seely, Sir H. M.

Thurtle, E.

Maxton, J.

Sexton. T. M.

Tinker, J. J.

Montague, F.

Shinwell, E.

Tomlinson, G.

Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Hackney, S.)

Silkin, L.

Viant, S. P.

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

Silverman, S. S.

Walker, J.

Muff, G.

Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)

Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. J. C.

Noel-Baker, P. J.

Smith, Ben (Rotherhlthe)

Whiteley, W. (Blaydon)

Oliver, G. H.

Smith, E. (Stoke)

Wilkinson, Ellen

Paling, W.

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

Williams, D. (Swansea, E.)

Parker, J.

Smith, T. (Normanton)

Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

Pearson, A.

Sorensen, R. W.

Williams, T. (Don Valley)

Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.

Stephen, C.

Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)

Richards, R. (Wrexham)

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

Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

Ritson, J.

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

Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)

Summerskill, Edith

Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)

Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

Mr. Groves and Mr. Adamson.

Resolution agreed to.

STANDING ORDERS.
Resolution reported from the Select Committee;
"That, in the case of the Stanmore Unused Burial Ground [Lords], Petition for Bill, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with: That the parties
be permitted to proceed with their Bill."

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Surrey County Council to purchase lands compulsorily; to confirm an agreement between the said County Council and the Carshalton Urban District Council; to empower the said Urban District Council to use lands for cemetery purposes; to empower the said County Council to borrow money; and for other purposes." [Surrey County Council Bill [Lords].
Also a Bill, intituled, "An Act to change the name of the Sheffield Gas Company; and for other purposes." [Sheffield Gas Bill [Lords.]
And also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to enlarge the powers of the Mayor Aldermen and Citizens of the City of Chichester in regard to Chichester Harbour; to confer further powers upon the said Mayor Aldermen and Citizens with reference to their electricity and water undertakings; to make further and better provision for the health local government finance and improvement of the City; and for other purposes." [Chichester Corporation Bill [Lords.]
SURREY COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords].
SHEFFIELD GAS BILL [Lords].
CHICHESTER CORPORATION BILL [Lords].
Read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  HOUSING (RURAL WORKERS) AMENDMENT BILL.
  As amended, considered.
  NEW CLAUSE.—(Amendment as to power of local authorities to make grants or loans.)
  Sub-section (2) of Section two of the principal Act shall have effect as if at the end thereof the following paragraph were added:—
  (d) Unless the local authority are satisfied that the works proposed cannot be executed without such assistance.—[Mr. T. Johnston.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  4.2 p.m.
  Mr. T. Johnston: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
  This new Clause raises a point of considerable substance which was not discussed during the Committee stage. I can explain precisely what lies behind it. Under the principal Act the local authority is forbidden to give assistance on certain specific grounds. One of these grounds is that the works to be undertaken must not exceed £50 in value, and another ground is that the works to be undertaken must not be less than £50 in value. There are also other inhibitions. The Act says, however, that the local authority may in any case refuse to give assistance under the Act for any ground which seems to them sufficient; that is to say, the local authority has the power to refuse to give assistance on any ground that it considers to be sufficient. We are informed that specific instructions are given to the local authority to take cognisance of the need of the applicant, and that the Act does not provide an inhibition specific and clear to prevent the local authority from providing public funds to persons who are in need of them.
  Various opinions are held in the House as to the general value of the original Act. There are some hon. Members who believe that it is a thoroughly pernicious Measure, in so far as it provides funds to private persons from the public purse, to enable them to develop and enlarge their properties. There are other hon. Members who say that, as things are and with the difficulties that we find in many
  874
  rural areas, it may be necessary to permit individuals here and there to get additions made to the value of their private property from public funds, provided that the workers in the rural areas receive some substantial sanitary improvements in their dwellings, and inasumch as in many rural areas, where there are shepherds' cottages and the like, it is impossible, as things are, for local authorities to provide new cottages at public expense, we are faced with the difficulty that we must either wink at or accept in some form the provision of public funds for the development of private property.
  We struggled during the Committee stage to improve the Bill and to make it less obnoxious, to make it approximate more nearly to what might be a measure that would be introduced in an economic democracy. I see the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George) in her place. During the Committee stage of the Bill she drew attention to the fact that when she was a member of the Advisory Committee on Housing she took the strongest objection to the provision of funds for proprietors who were in no need. I gave instances of the administration of the Act in Scotland, showing that some of the wealthiest citizens in Scotland had not scrupled to come forward and drain the local resources of very considerable sums of money. I gave one illustration referring to the late Sir John Ellerman, who was, I think, the wealthiest man in Scotland and who when he died left somewhere in the neighbourhood of £40,000,000. Before he died his estate manager had gone to the county council of Aberdeen and induced it under the Act to renovate and reconstruct some 16 cottages on the Ellerman property. In my view that was a very grave public scandal.
  Sir John Wardlaw-Milne: Was it a question of inducement or had he a right?
  Mr. Johnston: That is the point we are discussing. I began by explaining that a local authority was compelled under Section 2 of the principal Act to refuse grants in certain circumstances, but that under Sub-section (3) of that Section it could in any case refuse to give assistance on any grounds that seemed good to them, but they were not compelled, or as they thought not permitted, to consider the needs of the applicant; and what we are

  875
  trying to do by this new Clause is to give the local authority power, or to make it imperative on the local authority, to consider the means of an applicant before giving out public money. I have given the illustration of the Ellerman Estate. I am sure that no hon. Member defends that instance. There are other instances. There is the illustration of the county of Berwick, where two years ago the situation had developed to such an extent that 7d. in the £ of local rating in that county was ascribed to costs under the Act, while only id. in the £ was ascribed to costs arising out of all other Housing Acts for the provision of new dwellings. There, again, I am certain that hon. Members in all parts of the House would agree that the situation called for very serious examination.
  Captain McEwen: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the conditions in the county, and what followed as a result of the improvements?
  Mr. Johnston: Yes, I know. I went out of my way to say that there were several points of view held on this side of the House as to the relative advantages that may accrue in some districts to the poor, arising from the Act. I personally know in my own constituency poor people who have gained sanitary advantages arising from the Act.
  Captain McEwen: Advantages which they would not have had but for the Act.
  Mr. Johnston: I am going to try to argue that they would have had them. If the County Council of Berwick instead of handing out money to Usher's, the brewers, and to persons like a lady whose name I gave on the Second Reading of the Bill, a lady who applied for reconstruction of her property in Berwickshire, and then at the end of two years died and left L30o,000—if instead of spending money in Berwickshire in reconstructing properties of private persons who were in no need of subventions from the public purse, they had devoted their funds to taking over these properties that the proprietor could not maintain in decent sanitary conditions, I would have had no objection whatever to reconstructing the properties, for they would then be in public ownership. What I do object to is handing over public money
  876
  to persons who do not need it, to enable them to do what they are under every moral obligation to do themselves now. I think that it is an outrage and a scandal —I put it as high as that—that the Ellerman trustees, with £40,000,000, should go to the public funds and get their cottages reconstructed at the public expense and add to the value of the Ellerman Estate thereby.
  In one respect, though not in others, I welcome in this Debate the right hon. Gentleman who is the new Minister of Health. He at any rate has an adventurous mind and he has had considerable experience of the operation of the Act. He knows the burden that it has been to him. He knows that a Commission by a majority of Conservative Members declared that there has been a grave waste of public money in the operation of this Act in Scotland. I have here another Bill which has been introduced with the right hon. Gentleman's name on the back of it. I ventured to refer to it on Second Reading. It is the Herring Industry Bill. I want to refer to Clause 4 of that Bill, which provides that the Ministers may, with the approval of the Treasury, make arrangements for the payment during a particular period of grants to herring fishermen for the purpose of assisting in the provision of new motor boats
  "which could not be provided without such assistance."
  In other words, the Government, in their own Measure, say that they are not going to give grants of public money to wealthy fishing companies, if such there be, or to corporations, which do not require them, and they say by inference that it would be a waste of public money to hand over such funds to persons who do not require them. This afternoon we are asking the right hon. Gentleman and the Government, even at this eleventh hour of the present Measure, to accept the point of view that we are putting forward. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor has already accepted some of our Amendments, and to that extent the Bill has been made a more workable one, and one which will be less resented in the local areas of this country. But, unless the Clause we are now moving is accepted, there will still continue to exist in the rural areas of England, Scotland and Wales this rankling sore that wealthy persons, many of them high dignitaries in

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  the county councils, or with their factors and agents on those county councils, should be squeezing the public purse for money to develop their property when they do not need it.
  Is the proposal that the local authorities shall be satisfied that the works proposed cannot be executed without the assistance which the local authorities are asked to give unreasonable? The local authority has to provide one-third of the cost, which the ratepayers have to pay. The national Treasury has to provide one-third, which the taxpayer has to pay. Is it unreasonable that the local authority, before it has to put its hand into the public purse to provide one-third of the cost of renovating and reconstructing these properties, shall at least be satisfied that there is no other way in which the property can be restored out of the private resources of the owners. I believe I am right in saying that the burghs in Scotland—I cannot speak for England—may adopt the Act; that it is at their own option; and that, if they decline specifically to adopt the Act, no grants will be given for rural workers' houses within their areas. If that be so, we are asking, not that the county council shall have power to adopt or not to adopt the Act, but that, when they are operating the Act, they shall be able to refuse grants to people like Sir John Ellerman, Ushers, and others of whom I could give any number of instances. since the Second Reading, I and many of my hon. Friends have been flooded with instances, sent to us by correspondents in all parts of the country, of the grave waste of public money that has gone on. If the right hon. Gentleman and the Government can see their way to accept this Clause, I sincerely believe it will make for the smoother working of the Measure, and it will certainly obviate a large number of grave public scandals.
  4.21 p.m.
  Captain McEwen: The right hon. Gentleman has brought out a point of some interest, and has supported it by mentioning, as he did in Committee, the Ellerman case. But that, of course, was a completely exceptional case.
  Mr. Macquisten: I think the right hon. Gentleman mentioned the Ellerman trustees. Are not trustees in a fiduciary position, and is it not their duty, no matter how big the estate is, to get all
  878
  the money they can? They may have been bound to apply.
  Captain McEwen: The right hon. Gentleman has also mentioned two cases from my own constituency, and, as he appears to be very well informed about the situation in Berwickshire—I think I have some idea of how he has obtained his information—I would like to say a word on that point. If he intends to give the impression, which his remarks certainly have given, that the conditions are exceptional in Berwickshire, or that there are more rich people who have been obtaining grants in Berwickshire than anywhere else, I can assure him that he is entirely wrong. Moreover, it is not enough to mention two cases and base a whole statement upon them. The right hon. Gentleman said that he and his friends have been receiving recently numbers of letters from all over the country; but have they investigated the truth of them? It is easy enough for anyone to point to a family who may, perhaps, live nn a large house, but the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the mere fact of living in a large house is often better evidence of poverty than of riches.
  Mr. Johnston: I would draw the hon. and gallant Gentleman's attention to the fact, though I suppose he is as well aware of it as I am, that I am speaking of the minutes of the public health committee of the county council of Berwickshire, which were adopted unanimously by the committee. So far as I am aware, there is not a solitary supporter of the Labour party on that committee, and they are unanimous on this matter.
  Captain McEwen: I was referring at that moment to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that he and his friends had received a number of letters from all over the country. I would like to know whether those letters have been substantiated. As I say, it is easy enough to write such letters, but the truth is not always to be found in them. Again, it is not sufficient merely to say that certain people are brewers, for example—I am not even certain that that is true in the particular case the right hon. Gentleman mentioned—and point to that as evidence of riches. I quite see the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making, but how does he propose, under the Clause he has

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  moved, that the local authorities should ascertain the means of the persons concerned?
  Mr. Johnston: I have lifted the exact words from the Herring Industry Bill. How is it going to be ascertained there?
  Captain McEwen: It does not give the means of ascertaining it at all. Apparently it is merely to be left to the local authority to say that they think that So-and-so is well off, and that is sufficient ground for refusing a grant. Is the object of this Measure to provide improved housing in the rural areas, or is it to discriminate in some way between proprietors who are supposed to possess money and others who are supposed not to possess money? I take it that the object is to improve housing conditions, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to extend his investigations, not only into the county of Berwick, but into other counties in the south of Scotland, and find out what has been done already. If he does that, I am sure he will not find, among those who are enjoying the benefits that have already arisen from the Act, any complaints on the score he has mentioned.
  4.27 p.m.
  Mr. T. Smith: It is quite commonplace in this country for people to say that there is a law for the rich and a law for the poor, and the attitude of the hon. and gallant Member for Berwick and Haddington (Captain McEwen) towards this proposed new Clause shows that his mind works in two or three different ways. Here he wants to defend the giving of public money to a person for the purpose of improving rural houses, even when that person is in a position to improve those houses without any assistance from outside sources.
  Captain McEwen: No; I would not say that. I would say that, if a person is immensely rich, it is obviously right and fit that he should do the thing himself, without taking any grant of money.
  Mr. Smith: If that is what the hon. and gallant Member means, I think he has been talking to the House without any purpose.
  Captain McEwen: The Clause would put it on the local authorities to ascertain.
  Mr. Smith: I leave it to the House to judge, when they look at the OFFICIAL REPORT in the morning. If the hon. and gallant Member did not, in opposing this Clause, defend the giving of public money to people who do not need it for the purpose of improving rural housing, I do not understand what he said. He asked how the local authorities are to ascertain whether the applicant needs assistance or not. Has he had any experience of local authorities? If he has, he does not appear to have learned much, because, in the 10 years' experience that I had in the great city of Sheffield, the members of that authority, whatever their political opinions were, certainly inquired a good deal before they gave an applicant any money. I will tell the House why. It was a Poor Law authority.
  Mr. Lipson: The hon. Member suggests that it should depend upon the financial position of the applicant, but the Clause does not say that. It says:
  "Unless the local authority are satisfied that the works cannot be executed without such assistance."
  If the landlord were to say, "Unless you give me money I am not prepared to do the work," would not that be an answer to the point?
  Mr. Smith: The hon. Member is merely quibbling. The point raised by the hon. and gallant Member opposite was as to how the local authorities were to ascertain whether the work can be done with or without this assistance. The point I am making is that local authorities generally take particular care, before they hand out public money to an applicant, to satisfy themselves that the applicant needs it. I was about to illustrate that point by saying that a local authority on which I spent 10 years, and which included members of all political parties, used to investigate the matter so thoroughly before they gave a few shillings a week that they had a case paper containing about 30 questions.
  Sir Francis Fremantle: Was that a rural authority?
  Mr. Smith: It was even more progressive than a rural authority. If the hon. Gentleman cares to contrast the administration of some of the big boroughs with that of rural authorities, he will find that these come out far worse. We on this side of the House support the proposed

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  new Clause on a broad general principle, namely, that we believe it is wrong to grant money for the purpose of improving rural housing when the owner of the property is in a position to do the improvement himself, and I think I am entitled to make this contrast. It appears to be the policy of the Government that the only people in the country who can get money without a means test are those who are well off. In an Act passed in the last Parliament, it was laid down that, before the unemployed man who was not paying contributions to unemployment insurance could get anything, he had to prove his need. The means test has done more damage in this country than many people appreciate. If you are going to say to the poorest of of the community, "You cannot have any assistance from public funds unless you prove your need, unless there is a most thorough inquiry as to how you stand," and if you are going to apply that to the very poorest—the old age pensioner and the unfortunate man who is out of work—if that is to be the Government's policy, it is nothing but a scandal that we should give to landowners—rich people—money from public funds to improve their property when they ought to do it themselves.
  Captain McEwen: Does the hon. Member suppose that nobody has improved his property without assistance?
  Mr. Smith: What is the use of saying things like that? If everybody had improved his property in rural areas, there would have been no need for this Bill. We had a Minister of Health a few years ago who was frank enough to say that if a man sold bad fish he got no compensation, but was prosecuted; and that a man who let his property get into bad repair also was not entitled to compensation. It would be fairer to all concerned if the Government stopped handing out public money to people who do not need it, and accepted the principle of this Clause.
  4.32 p.m.
  Sir John Wardlaw-Milne: The hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. T. Smith) will perhaps forgive me if I do not follow him on the subject of the means test. The right hon. Gentleman who moved the Clause did so in a most attractive way: in an extremely plausible way—I say that in a complimentary sense. At first
  882
  sight, a proposal that public money should not be spent on assisting those who can afford to do without it, or whose duty it is to carry out reconditioning without assistance, is attractive to all of us; but, leaving aside the very important question raised by my hon. Friends as to how a local authority is to decide who is and who is not entitled to some form of subvention, look at the matter this way. The proposal is that we should refuse to give any assistance to an owner of property if he is in a position to deal with the property without assistance.
  That means that you are making a complete differentiation between one class of property owner and another. You are saying to one class, "Because we think you have money you are not to get any support from a Bill which is of general application and applies to all of this kind of property; merely because we think you have a certain amount of capital or income and do not require this assistance." In that way, you are merely increasing taxation on these people. I have no interest whatever in supporting people who have a large amount of property and do not do their duty—quite the contrary; I should be delighted to see them being compelled to do their duty—but I do not see how the House of Commons can pass a Clause of this kind, which would be, in effect, merely imposing another tax on wealth. If you are going to do that, surely the proper place to do it is in the Finance Bill by extra Income Tax, Supertax, or whatever method the House of Commons may decide. But it is clearly impossible, in a Measure of this kind, to differentiate between one class of property owner and another. I do not think the House should be willing to adopt any proposal of that kind.
  Further, there are the practical difficulties which have been mentioned. There is the difficulty as to how it is to be ascertained whether landowner A has more money than landowner B. The hon. Gentleman who preceded me said that he had a great deal of experience in municipal administration. I am sure he has; but some of us also have had similar experience, and I have never heard of a case in which members of a local administration were asked to decide, without any evidence, whether a certain person, resident in their district, for example, had

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  over £500 a year or over £1,000 a year: whether he was wealthy or not. They may have a shrewd idea about the wealth of particular individuals, but that is different from having anything on which to base a decision of this kind. Who is to be considered wealthy and who is to be considered poor: at what point are you going to say, "This gentleman has so much money, he is not entitled to assistance"? Is he to be allowed to bring evidence to show that he is in need of such assistance?
  However much I sympathise with the objects of this Clause—and to some extent I do sympathise with them—the principle contained in it is something quite different from anything which has appeared in any Measure which has been passed by the House of Commons. The Herring Industry Bill has been mentioned; what has been said to-day may make the Government reconsider what is in that Bill. But if it were decided to initiate a new principle of the kind suggested this afternoon, reconsideration would show that it is practically impossible unless you are going to indicate quite clearly at what point persons receiving assistance are entitled to it, and at what point they are above the line at which assistance should be given. The principle of the new Clause is wrong, I think, and its application impracticable in the form proposed.
  4.38 p.m.
  Mr. Stephen: I have listened to the Debate with the greatest interest and amusement. My hon. Friends in this part of the House, as is known, have played a fairly prominent part in the fight against the means test in connection with the treatment of the unemployed. Certainly, it cannot be questioned that we have opposed the principle of the means test in that direction. But the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne) has accepted that principle in its application to the unemployed without any question. Yet when it is a question of wealthy landowners getting public grants for the reconditioning of their property, he takes an entirely different view, and waxes indignant against such a principle. It then appears to be something absolutely unthinkable, although it is the very principle that he
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  and his colleagues have applied with regard to poor people. I hope the country will take note of the fact, which is made very plain, that the policy of the Government is: doles for the rich and the means test for the poor.
  One of the considerations that should arise is as to whether the cost of administration of such a proposal would make it useless, or even harmful. In this case I do not see any difficulty of that kind. With regard to unemployment assistance, the cost of administration is probably greater than the saving that is effected by applying the means test, but in this case the very reverse is probable. There is no difficulty about it. If anybody ever gave away a case it was the hon. and gallant Member for Berwick and Haddington (Captain McEwen). He said, Members had been getting letters from all over the country and what had they been doing to test the evidence submitted? The right hon. Gentleman gave an instance to the hon. and gallant Member of a person, in the county of the hon. and gallant Member himself, who got this dole in order to put his property in order, and two years afterwards died, leaving 300,000. If a person who was drawing unemployment assistance had died and left 300,000, they would have taken every penny out of the estate.
  Captain McEwen: Nobody is defending anything of that sort. What I said was that the right hon. Gentleman was making a case against the particular county which I represent, based on that particular instance.
  Mr. Johnston: That is not so. I gave the sum total of what had occurred in Berwickshire, and referred to the minutes of the public health committee. It is true I gave one specific name. I could give others, but I do not want to go into the names: it is the principle that is wrong, and it is a principle that the hon. and gallant Gentleman's own friends on the public health committee in Berwick have unanimously denounced.
  Captain McEwen: The statement that the right hon. Gentleman made was based on one instance only.
  Hon. Members: No.
  Mr. Stephen: The hon. and gallant Member may not be aware of what he is defending, but he is defending it. It is

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  precisely to prevent that sort of thing that this Clause is being moved. If the hon. and gallant Member is not prepared to support this Clause or to put something else in its place, he is defending that principle of which we complain. It is no good the hon. and gallant Member shaking his head. Either you support this or put something else in its place, or you are supporting this kind of robbery of the public by the rich under the Bill —you are assisting in the robbery: you are an accessory before and after the fact. The hon. and gallant Member cannot get away from it. I intervene simply to point out how cruel and horrible it is that the people who have been responsible for all the injustice and hardship imposed on the poor by the means test are now allowing the robbery of the country in this way, and are so indignant at this proposal to prevent the 300,00o-pounders getting away with this money out of the public funds.
  4.45 p.m.
  Sir F. Fremantle: It is very fortunate that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) is not a member of the Sudeten Deutsch at the present moment, as he would be liable to obscure the issue. The one thing we want to avoid is the bringing of hot prejudice into these considerations. That was the point of the right hon. Gentleman's argument. He definitely said that he did not want to introduce names because he wanted to deal with the principle, and, therefore, like my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne) I want to bring the House back to the question of principle. It is from that point of view that we want to discuss this matter, and I am afraid that it has not been so discussed hitherto. The bringing in of the instance of the man with this enormous fortune and repeating it again and again was doing the opposite of what the hon. Gentleman wanted us to do. It confused the issue. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will consider the principle.
  Mr. Stephen: I stated it.
  Mr. Montaģue: Does the hon. Member for St. Albans (Sir F. Fremantle) remember the number of specific cases given by -Members of his own party on the question of the unemployment means test?
  Sir F. Fremantle: My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster was himself
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  not quite correct, because he was talking about this relief being given in respect of the repair of houses. This has nothing to do with the repair of houses. The repair of houses has been definitely excluded since the first of these Acts and has nothing to do with this Bill. It is a question of reconditioning.
  Mr. Silverman Mr. Silverman rose—
  Mr. Speaker: We cannot have these continuous interruptions.
  Sir F. Fremantle: I want to take the line of argument which, I think, is essential. That fact is clearly laid down. The duty of keeping houses in repair is laid down in the Public Health Act, 1875, and in the Act of 1881, and there is no compensation of any sort. Under the administration of that law, as hon. Members on both sides of the House who have taken part in local government know well, over 500,000 houses a year have been repaired in England and Wales without cost to public funds because the duty has been thrown rightly upon the owners of houses, and that machinery has always worked. This Bill is a minor Measure to recondition according to improved modern standards, and to recondition houses which could not be reconditioned otherwise. The ostensible reason of this new Clause, which says nothing about the means test, is that the matter shall be taken in hand to see whether the services necessary can be provided otherwise. This reconditioning is for improving the standard of houses and for the better accommodation of the people, and includes putting in things like damp courses in rural areas where, in fact, they do not exist, and where, under the law, they need not exist, unfortunately. These things ought to be in all houses, but you cannot suddenly introduce them. People are still living in houses which are up to, say, the standard of 40 years ago, but which have no chance of being improved at the present moment.
  Mr. Maxton: Why? Where are all these decent landlords? We have always been told, and I partially believe it, that the landowners of England particularly, were benevolent and progressively-minded gentlemen anxious to do everything for their labourers and tenants. The hon. Gentleman has said that for many years these things could not be

  887
  done, and I ask why? Are the landowners of England different from what they have been represented as being?
  Sir F. Fremantle: No, Sir; the landlords, taken as a whole—there are black sheep in every fold—try to do their best. They love the country and the people who are on their estates. They are the proper landowners. The proper landowners have been much chastened in this House in many kinds of ways. Many of them have wished to do the best for their property, and they are doing so, but things have to be taken in a definite order of possibility. Some landlords cannot make both ends meet. They cling to their estates, but cannot afford to do more than is necessary under the law. Others cannot do everything they would wish to do, and that is the case with which we are dealing here. The landlord may have a moral duty, but he may not be able to fulfil it. The Bill provides certain aids either by loans or grants. The original Acts placed the obligation upon the local authority to grant or not to grant a loan. They are to do it in order only to improve housing which could not otherwise be improved. I should like the Minister to say whether it is necessary to have this extra power. The local authorities already have the power to grant or not to grant a loan, or to make a definite financial grant in certain conditions. It is left to them. What is the need, therefore, of this new Clause? I think that it is unnecessary.
  Mr. Stephen: Is it not necessary to do something to prevent owners from robbing the public purse to the extent they have done in the past?
  Sir F. Fremantle: If there has been robbery—I do not know of the particular case the hon. Member mentioned, though, no doubt, there have been cases—it is the duty of the local authority to stop it. If you put this extra duty on the local authorities you will interfere with their responsibility, and, therefore, undermine the authority of local government. I am so keen on the improvement of local government in rural areas that I want them to have the responsibility and to be responsible to their electorate. If local authorities have allowed this robbery, the electors should turn them out and put in other representatives. I believe the law
  888
  is sufficient as it is, and that the new Clause is unnecessary.
  4.55 p.m.
  Mr. Dunn: If my memory serves me correctly, the hon. Member for St. Albans (Sir F. Fremantle) followed me in the Debate on the Second Reading of the Bill, and I am fortunate in having the opportunity of following him in the Debate dealing with this Clause. The hon. Member described the Bill as a minor Measure, and therefore there is no need at all for the heat which appears to have been engendered in the discussion. We on this side of the House agree that it is a minor Measure, but we also believe that there are major principles involved in it which, to us, are important. The hon. Member for St. Albans said that the reason for the Measure was to give to the agricultural labourers of this country, houses brought up to modern standards. Last week we debated the question of standards and whether or not there should be a bath put in these houses. We on this side of the House pressed by means of an Amendment that, in the reconditioned and reconstructed houses, provision should be made for a bath, and the hon. Member for St. Albans went into the Division Lobby and denied the right of the agricultural labourers of this country to such a provision.
  Mr. Stephen: Shame.
  Sir F. Fremantle: May I make a personal explanation? The only reason why we did that was that you cannot specify which is the most important improvement in each case. We do not wish to refuse the possibility of improvement in one direction because it might not be possible to improve in all directions. It was not because we are opposed to bathrooms.
  Mr. Dunn: In cricket language, that is a "no ball," but I will call the attention of the hon. Member to another point. Some of us have learnt to respect and appreciate the great public services which the hon. Member for St. Albans has rendered to this country, but last week we pressed for proper provision for the sexes in these reconditioned houses, and said that the farm labourer had as much right as any other section of the community, urban or otherwise, to have such a provision made for him in his house. The hon. Member for St. Albans, as an ex-medical officer of health, went into the

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  Division Lobby again to deny this right to agricultural labourers.
  Some of the hon. Members opposite seem to question the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston), who put his case with very great moderation. They appeared to doubt the veracity of the statement of my right hon. Friend as to whether or not he had received letters from various parts with regard to this Bill. I believe that, although this is a minor Measure, the country is seriously disturbed over this business, not only individuals but local authorities, who take the view that it is entirely wrong in principle to provide that public money should be used in this fashion.
  There is not one hon. Member on this side of the House who wishes to destroy a single cottage of an agricultural worker if it can be saved. There is great sentimental value attaching to many of these cottages in the rural parts of England, and there are many people who love to go to the rural parts to see the beautiful cottages. We do not want to destroy them if we can possibly avoid doing so, but we want the cottages to be brought up to a reasonable standard. We want them to be fitted with baths, and we want proper damp courses put into them. The Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Ministry of Health exhibited a number of photographs which, I suppose, were of reconditioned agricultural cottages. We are violently opposed to using public money, whether it is a grant of £50 or a grant of £400, as specified under the major Act of 1926, in order to give gifts to private landowners. We say that it is wrong in principle to use public money, whether it be the money of the taxpayer or of the ratepayer, to assist private landowners in this way. Those are our fundamental objections to this Bill. The proposed new Clause would, at any rate, give us some measure of control.
  When is this House going to awaken to the fact that already the agricultural industry has benefited handsomely at the hands of the Government? It has been stated from this side of the House, and has not been denied, that subsidies in one form or another to the agricultural industry have equalled the total wages bill of the agricultural labourers; it is a colossal figure, and now in this Measure we are asked to give grants of from £50 to £400 without any control over them.
  890
  Some doubt has been expressed with regard to the figures given by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling. I have been rather busy in regard to this matter and have ascertained the views of the local authorities in regard to it. It is said—I think the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. WardlawMilne) said it—that very few of these cottages have been improved and reconditioned. In one area, for which I have been supplied with particulars by the clerk of the local authority, 572 houses have been reconditioned and 107 of them were definitely of a bad type. The grants which have been made in 20 per cent. of these cases have been on the lines stated by the right hon. Member for West Stirling. No one will question the solid financial position of the coal industry at the present time, yet £1,400 has been spent on repairing property belonging to one colliery company, and in another case £500. Speaking from the standpoint of the West Riding County Council, there has been an expenditure by way of grants and loans of £11,313. As a ratepayer I take the view that that is entirely wrong to use either the taxpayers' or the ratepayers' money to subsidise people who do not want the money, or do not need it.
  A question has been raised as to the impossibility of finding out whether these people need the money. The hon. and gallant Member for Berwick and Haddington (Captain McEwen) said that because a person lived in a large house, that did not necessarily prove that he was a wealthy person. On the other hand, the fact that a person lives in a small house does not always prove that he is poor. If it is a question of testing needs, there is surely plenty of machinery to discover whether the owner can afford to put these cottages into condition. If machinery is required, the new Minister of Health can take steps in that direction. If he will accept this new Clause—he will not accept the parentage of the Bill—we shall be gratified. If we are to find out whether or not these people have means, what is there wrong with the Board of Inland Revenue?
  Mr. Macquisten: Everything.
  Mr. Dunn: We can get some idea there whether or not these people need the money. If that test is not sufficient, I am sure that if the Minister of Health

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  will consult the Minister of Labour he will find sufficient information. I agree with what the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. T. Smith) said, that if a person goes before a public assistance committee, or if an unemployed man goes before the unemployment committee, a test of means is soon applied. They examine him as to his family, his father, his mother, his son, his daughter, in fact they nearly go back to the Ark to find out the amount of the household income. You can test the owners of these cottages in the same way. We believe that rich people should submit themselves to the means test in exactly the same way as do the poor people at the present time.
  5.8 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Wedderburn): Perhaps it would be convenient if I now stated the Government view of this new Clause. In moving the Clause the right hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Johnston) explained that the wording had been taken verbatim from Clause 4 of the Herring Industry Bill, and he sought to draw an analogy between the two positions. If he were to pursue such an analogy it would be, not between the herring fishermen and the rich landowners, but between the herring fishermen and the farm servants who are occupying the houses. The herring subsidy is intended to benefit the fishermen, whereas the subsidies under this Bill are intended to benefit the occupants of the cottages. If a true analogy were to be drawn what would follow would be that we should have to have a means test for the farm servants, to see whether they could afford to pay an economic rent for a better house.
  Mr. Georģe Griffiths: That is a red herring.
  Mr. Wedderburn: Perhaps the hon. Member did not hear me. The correct analogy would be, and the correct inference to be drawn from the simile would be, that the suggested means test ought to be applied not to the landowner but to the farm servant, to see whether he could afford to pay an economic rent.
  Mr. MacLaren: Whose property is the house when built?
  Mr. Wedderburn: The right hon. Gentleman said that the grants to be given
  892
  under the Bill were to benefit the landowner, but the Bill is carefully drafted to ensure that no financial benefit can possibly accrue to the owner of a house that is reconditioned.
  Mr. Johnston: Does not the reconditioning increase the value of the property?
  Mr. Wedderburn: If he cannot let it for any more rent, how can it increase the value? He cannot sell it, unless subject to the conditions, and if the conditions under which the grant is given are brought to an end, then a repayment of the grant, with compound interest, has to be made. There are some Amendments down on the next Clause, which I cannot discuss now, dealing with that point.
  Mr. E. J. Williams: Is it not a fact that the length of life of the property is increased?
  Mr. Wedderburn: The conditions which are imposed are that the house must be let —in the majority of cases they are not ordinarily let, because they are generally rent free to the agricultural labourer—to a person who is either an agricultural labourer or in a similar economic condition, and that the rent shall not be increased by more than 4 per cent. of the proportion of the sum which has been spent by the owner on the improvements. That is to say, if the cost of reconditioning the house were £200 and a grant of £100 were received, the owner would have to spend £100, and he would not be allowed to increase the rent by more than £4 a year. If he borrowed the money he would have to pay that amount in interest, and, in addition, in Scotland at least, he would have to pay higher rates, so that he would get no financial benefit out of the grant. It is a complete fallacy to argue the case as if it were the. landowner who is getting the benefit. The entire benefit of these subsidies is directed to, and received by, the occupants of the houses.
  Mr. Dunn: May I read one paragraph from a letter which I have received from the Clerk of the West Riding County Council?
  "Instances have come to the notice of the West Riding Public Health and Housing Committee that attempts have been made by the owners of reconditioned houses to let them to tenants who are not agricultural workers or persons of similar economic condition, and the Committee are of opinion that all the houses in respect of which grant is made call for careful oversight."
  Mr. Wedderburn: That point is concerned with a possible breach of the conditions. I have not the English figures, but I understand that in Scotland in 44 cases out of some 30,000 the conditions have been departed from, and when we deal with the next Clause my right hon. Friend will have something to say on this question. Hon. Members opposite have put forward the further argument that if the owner of a house is not himself disposed to recondition it, he could be obliged to do so by a local authority. All that a local authority can compel an owner to do is to repair a house, which is an entirely different thing from enlarging a property or modernising a property which is of an old-fashioned type.
  Mr. Gallacher: A local authority can condemn a house, and there is all the difference between having a condemned house and a new house.
  Mr. Wedderburn: A local authority can condemn a house if the landowner does not do anything to put it right. In Scotland a local authority can execute the repairs itself and send the bill into the landlord, but that is a totally different thing from building extra accommodation or putting in modern conveniences.
  Miss Lloyd Georģe: Is it not a fact that a local authority has power to purchase a house compulsorily if the landlord will not carry out reconditioning?
  Mr. Wedderburn: In Scotland a local authority has power to carry out repairs and send the bill in to the landlord. It would not have power to purchase the house, and indeed would not want to do so. The right hon. Gentleman brought forward one or two examples which, I think, he also cited on the Second Reading, the principal one being that of the late Sir John Ellerman. Several hon. Members have suggested either that this is not a typical case or that owing to the fact that the Ellerman money was in trust it was unavoidable. But suppose a man of this kind, who has made, as the right hon. Member said, £40,000,000, buys an agricultural property in Aberdeen. I do not suppose that this agricultural property is likely to be more than .1 per cent. of his total fortune. Really it does not matter where the greater part of his fortune is derived, whether it comes from steel manufactures, or cotton, or
  894
  whisky or beer. Suppose that this person who has made this vast sum of money out of steel or cotton, or whatever it may be, buys a piece of land. Many thousands of workmen are employed in these industries, infinitely more than the number of workmen who may be employed on his agricultural estate, which is only a minute fraction of his total wealth. What is the housing position of the industrial worker from whom he derives 99·9 per cent. of his total wealth?
  Mr. S. O. Davies: Is not this an argument that wealth should be confiscated?
  Mr. Wedderburn: The industrial workers are provided with subsidised houses under the urban Housing Acts, which has the effect of subsidising their wages. If hon. Members opposite were logical they would say that if a man derives his immense fortune from cotton or steel he ought to pay for housing his employés and that the local authority ought not to get any subsidy for building houses from public funds, because it is in effect subsidising wages. Surely they would say that we are relieving the big manufacturing employer of the amount of wages which he would otherwise have to pay his employés in order to enable them to pay an economic rent for the improved type of house which the State has decided they shall occupy. Why should this very small number of workers who happen to live in the country be denied the same kind of advantages which we are giving to the workers employed by the wealthy industrial employer?
  Mr. Gardner: Is the hon. Member laying it down that all the houses of working class people are subsidised?
  Mr. Wedderburn: No, Sir. Neither are all the houses in which rural workers live. There is an enormous number of unsatisfactory houses in Glasgow, and I am not sure that they are being got rid of as quickly as unsatisfactory houses in the country. Suppose that on examination it were found that in Camlachie there were hundreds employed by a wealthy shipowner who is a millionaire, and another hundred employed by an engineering firm which is having a great struggle to make ends meet. Suppose we said that the wealthy shipowner can

  895
  afford to provide all the housing accommodation which his employés need, or to pay them sufficient wages to enable them to meet an economic rent without any assistance from the State, and that we thought therefore we should only give assistance to the employés working for the engineering firm whose means are more straitened; suppose we insisted that all the new houses of the Glasgow Corporation should be given only to the employés of the steel works and should not be given to the employés of the shipbuilding firms. That is an exact analogy to the argument of hon. Members opposite.
  Let me go a little further. Why should you not make a distinction between one local authority and another. Nothing would give me greater satisfaction than to argue the case that, since London is relatively wealthy and Glasgow relatively impecunious, the affluence of London should be reduced by refusing a subsidy in order that a larger sum might be available for the greater needs of Glasgow.
  Mr. Dunn: Surely one is a public authority and the other a private individual.
  Mr. Wedderburn: The distinction which hon. Members opposite are making is not between a public authority and a private individual, but between one private individual and another. The whole principle on which we feel bound to resist the Clause is simply that the real distinction which is embodied in this Clause is not a distinction between opulence and poverty, but really a distinction between the benefits which are available to rural workers and those which are available to many other classes of workers.
  Mr. Aneurin Bevan: Is the hon. Member aware that it has become the practice of large landowners in England, at any rate, to allow some of their cottages to fall into disrepair and then let other cottages to week-enders? Is it a condition to have these derelict cottages repaired that the landlord must make all his cottages available for his employés?
  Mr. Wedderburn: I spent a long time explaining this point. Perhaps the hon. Member was not present. You can force an owner to do repairs, but that is a totally different thing from enlarging a cottage. Under the Bill the person who
  896
  did so would not be permitted to let it to week-enders. He has to let it to a rural person or to someone in a similar economic position.
  Mr. Bevan: A landlord can then transfer some labourers into the house which has been subsidised leaving other houses on his estate available to be let at higher rents to week-enders. He can extend the housing facilities on his estate; he can satisfy all the conditions of the Bill by putting his employés into reconditioned houses, leaving available to himself other houses on his estate.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Captain Bourne): The hon. Member rose for the purpose of putting a question.
  Mr. Bevan: I am just about to come to my question. Is it not true that the conditions in the Bill do not prevent landlords from exploiting the Bill to improve the value of their premises and not to add to the facilities of housing in the country?
  Mr. Wedderburn: I took some trouble to explain that point at the beginning of my remarks.
  5.28 p.m.
  Mr. T. Williams: I have listened to many arguments from the Government Front Bench, but I do not think I have ever heard a more curious argument than that which has been given by the Under-Secretary of State. In the first place, he told my right hon. Friend that the analogy of the Herring Bill was not a correct one, and that if he wanted to refer to the Herring Bill he should not refer to the owner of the fishing boat but to the fishermen who use it and whose wages were derived from the earnings of the boat.
  Mr. Wedderburn: The right hon. Gentleman referred to an analogy between the owner of the fishing boat and the rural worker. The true analogy is between the fisherman and the rural worker.
  Mr. Williams: And that is exactly why I thought the argument of the Under-Secretary so extraordinary. The Government in the Herring Bill are taking powers to provide funds with which to build new fishing vessels, and the suggestion of the Under-Secretary is that it is not the owner of the fishing boat who is going to benefit as a result of the grant.
  Mr. Wedderburn: The fisherman is the owner.
  Mr. Williams: We know something about the division of the spoils. If the argument of the Under-Secretary is strictly relevant, I do not see why the Government should not subsidise the development of coal mines because it is going to employ miners, or subsidise the development of a factory because it is going to employ textile operatives. I do not see the relevance of the Under-Secretary's argument. In this case, the Government are taking power to subsidise the production of a means whereby certain men may earn their livelihood, and I do not see how the hon. Gentleman can argue that this is not a clear parallel to the powers in the Herring Bill. The hon. Gentleman said that it will not be the landowner, but the tenant, who will get all the benefit. Why, the hon. Gentleman knows that at the end of 20 years, the landed property owner will be able to do what he likes with his house—[Interruption]. If the present owner is dead, his heirs and successors will take charge. The hon. Gentleman knows that at any time during those 20 years, if the owner of the subsidised property cares to exercise an option, the local authority will have the power to compel him to pay back some proportion of the advance made from the rates and from the Treasury, as is provided in Clause 3. The hon. Gentleman said that the landowner will derive no benefit. If there were no reconditioning of the property, with the assistance of the Treasury and grants from the rates, would not the property fairly quickly become useless as a rent asset or for any other purpose? In any case, the Under-Secretary knows that although there is a difference between repairs and reconditioning, local authorities have certain powers to abolish slums, and in many cases, before reconditioning, these reconditioned houses are slums. Therefore, we are putting money or values into the hands of certain people who can manage very well without being subsidised.
  Sir F. Fremantle: These houses could not possibly be described as slums when they are in perfect repair, and have to be kept in repair.
  Mr. Williams: I have heard the hon. Gentleman say many times that he is an ex-medical officer of health. He knows that in his own area, or wherever he
  898
  happened to officiate as medical officer of health, there were scores and hundreds of houses that ought to have been condemned long ago, which he himself did not condemn even when he might have done so or had the power to do so. The hon. Gentleman knows that there is scarcely any rural area in the country where, if a census were taken to-morrow, scores of houses would not be condemned as being totally unfit for habitation.
  Sir F. Fremantle: Not in Hertfordshire.
  Mr. Williams: The hon. Gentleman knows better than most hon. Members how rural authorities have defaulted in their housing obligations and in their responsibilities to the rural population. It is ridiculous to suggest that the houses that are reconditioned are not, in the nature of things, slum property according to the modern conception of housing requirements. The Under-Secretary went on to refer to the Ellerman case, and said that if such an individual made a pile of money out of steel, textiles, coal, shipping or anything else, and went into a rural area and bought up land, it would be merely a tithe of his total wealth that would be invested in land. Often a person who has made a large sum of money out of our general industries invests some portion of it in land, as an estate for his son and heir and those who follow him, because he knows that in this country land in private possession is the best gilt-edged security there can be. The birth of every child means an addition to the value of some land in some part of the country. But having made a large sum of money in industry, and having bought up land for the purpose, not of producing food or of adding to the economy of the nation, but of providing himself with social amenities, why should such a person be given a subsidy from the rates and the Treasury? The Under-Secretary argued that to grant a subsidy for the erection of houses to be occupied by miners, steel workers, or artisans of any description, is really indirectly to subsidise the wages of those employés. I am ready to admit that, but what a terrible economic position it is when wages are so low and wretched that the Government have to subsidise every employer in the country. I agree that there is something in the hon. Gentleman's argument, but I do not think that he dealt with that

  899
  argument as fully as it ought to be dealt with.
  The hon. Gentleman wound up by putting forward the conclusion that if there are certain houses in certain parts of rural England that will bear reconditioning and will confer an indirect benefit upon the tenant, whether he be an agricultural labourer or his equivalent in industry, the ratepayers, and the Treasury ought to be called upon to make some provision for the reconditioning of that property, whether the owner of it be an impecunious owner-occupier or a millionaire who is more interested in industry than in agriculture. That is a carious argument to advance, and one which my hon. Friends on this side will not accept. In almost every case where a worker finds it necessary to seek assistance either from the State or from a local authority, he has to show cause why he needs assistance before it is forthcoming. The hon. and gallant Member for Berwick and Haddington (Captain McEwen) said that a large house is not necessarily an indication of great wealth. I agree, but prima facie it is proof that a man is not on the means test if he happens to live in a very large house. The hon. Member made very poor excuses in this matter, and gave no reasons for not making it a specific condition that persons of a certain affluence shall not be subsidised from the rates. The hon. Member said he was not sure about the letters which we receive, that he was not sure about the Usher case, or even the Ellerman case. What I suggest is that when an owner of property, personally or through his appointed agent, makes an application to a county council for a grant for the reconditioning of some of his property, he ought to show to the county council cause why he cannot recondition that property himself. Surely, that is a legitimate request.
  Let us assume that a house is to be reconditioned at a cost of £150, and that the owner makes an application for £50 from the rates and for a further £50 from the Treasury. Is it too much to invite him to show cause why he is entitled to that social assistance? No workman in the country can get financial assistance without showing why he needs it. I do not think the administrative problem is a real one. The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne) submitted an extraordinary argument when
  900
  he said that this new Clause is equivalent to imposing extra taxation upon the applicant for assistance. What the hon. Gentleman did not seem to appreciate is that if some extremely wealthy person applies for and receives financial assistance out of the rates for the purpose of reconditioning his property, the ordinary ratepayers have no voice in the matter, except through the councillors representing them in that area. If a grant is made from the rates and the Treasury to a very wealthy applicant, who has to pay the 50? The ratepayers. Therefore, it is they who are having taxation imposed upon them, and it does not matter whether the ratepayer is the recipient of public assistance, an old-age pensioner, or a victim of the means test, he or she must pay a proportion of the grant that is made to the wealthy owner of the property. The hon. Member for Kidderminster, who knows something about banking, seemed to me either to have got his arguments mixed up this afternoon, or not to have understood the problem before us. The hon. Member then put the question, "Who is a rich person, a man having £500 capital, or 5,000 capital; when is a person rich, and when is he poor?" We know when he becomes poor. The moment he seeks public assistance of any kind, the local authorities, acting on instructions from this House, tell him that he has to show cause why he should get assistance, before he is able to get anything. There is the dividing line.
  This Bill will make grants to people who do not need them, are not entitled to them, and do not deserve them, without there being any test. I think the new Clause ought to receive support not only from this side of the House, but from all sides. It is a great concession if we allow these houses to be reconditioned at all. The agricultural labourer is just as entitled to a new, modern house as any other artisan or skilled worker. To recondition some of the terrible houses in the countryside will, of course, improve the situation for the agricultural labourers, but it will have no relation to the problem of providing new houses in the countryside. I suggest that the Under-Secretary has not made a case against the new Clause. We are willing to concede to local authorities the power to make these grants if certain well-defined conditions are fulfilled, but where the owner of the property is able to re-

  901
  condition it without public assistance, where he has failed to recondition it, or has defaulted in his responsibility to his tenants or his employés, he ought not to be allowed to ask the State for a subsidy, but ought to be fined and punished for neglecting his duty to his property and his tenants.
  5.44 P.m.
  Captain Sir Derrick Gunston: The hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) has used some arguments with which, on the face of them, I think all hon. Members will agree. Nobody wants to give public money where it is unnecessary to do so, or to give it to people who can afford to do the necessary repairs themselves; but I ask the hon. Member to consider the question rather from the tenant's point of view than the landlord's point of view. I ask him to consider whether, in passing this new Clause, there would not be a real danger of depriving many tenants of improved houses? Hon. Members must realise that it would be practically impossible for this House to lay down a condition to apply to all grants of subsidy. Are we to say that no landlord is to have a grant under this Measure, if his income is above a certain level? The new Clause does not say so. It leaves that to the local authorities. Local authorities in different parts of England would have different views as to whether a landlord could or could not afford to recondition houses, and you would have extraordinary anomalies arising in adjoining areas. I think it was the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Dunn) who suggested that the machinery of the Inland Revenue could be used in this connection, but I do not believe that the Inland Revenue is allowed to disclose, even to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the income of any private individual. It would be impossible to use the Inland Revenue machinery for the purpose of discovering what was the wealth of one landlord compared with another. But surely we ought to consider the tenants. May I call the attention of hon. Members opposite to the report on rural housing which says:
  "Some witnesses have suggested that certain local authorities discriminated in their administration of the Housing (Rural Workers) Acts against owners with means. Discrimination of this kind is, in our view, contrary to the intentions of the Acts and likely to result in depriving tenants of agricultural cottages of the benefits which the Acts were
  902
  intended to afford them. Local authorities have, of course, complete discretion "—
  I think many hon. Members forget that, at the moment, local authorities have complete discretion and, according to the evidence, local authorities have refused in many cases to give grants owing to the individual wealth of the owner.
  Mr. Tinker: From what document is the hon. and gallant Member quoting?
  Sir D. Gunston: I am quoting from the report of the sub-committee on rural housing of which the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George) was a member. The report also says:
  "Local authorities have, of course, complete discretion to decide whether they will grant any particular application, but a general discrimination against a whole class of persons is, in our view, strongly to be deprecated."
  Mr. Johnston: No local authority has refused on the grounds of the means of the applicant.
  Sir D. Gunston: I, of course, will not contradict the right hon. Gentleman on that point, but the sub-committee on rural housing were under the impression that local authorities did refuse, having regard to means. If it is known that everybody's means are to be inquired into, the effect, rightly or wrongly, will be that fewer applications will be made and therefore fewer tenants will have their houses reconditioned and brought up to the standard which we all desire. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) told us that he had reluctantly agreed to the continuance of the Act in 1931, and that he was not going to vote against this Bill because in certain cases, in Scotland especially, to vote against it might mean depriving certain individuals of improved housing. According to the report of the committee the effect of a Clause like this would be to deprive many tenants of improved housing. Therefore I ask hon. Members opposite to forget about the landlords for a moment and to think of the tenants. [Laughter.] Hon. Members laugh, but surely if a tenant is to have a new room, or is to have water or electricity laid on to his house, he will benefit directly. May I remind hon. Members opposite that under this Measure the improvements which can be given to the tenant go far beyond anything which the landlord can

  903
  be compelled to do under the present Acts. Surely it would be very unwise, if we want to see this Measure a success, to pass a Clause which while it may appeal to many hon. Members on the face of it, would have the effect of depriving tenants of those improvements. I appeal to hon. Members to withdraw this proposal which, in the long run, would have an effect precisely opposite to that which they intend.
  5.50 p.m.
  Miss Lloyd Georģe: Some comment was made by the hon. and gallant Member upon the report of the rural housing subcommittee of which I was a member. It is perfectly true that they deplored the fact that any discrimination should be made between owners with means and owners without means. I did not share that view, and I share it still less after the Debate to-day and the speech of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. Some criticism was made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health of the fact that I signed the report although I dissented on this point. May I say that this was not a suggestion, and was not a recommendation, but was purely a view expressed by the majority of the committee—a view which I did not share. It would be extremely difficult to come to any conclusion in any report of any kind, if members of a committee felt that they had to write minority reports every time they dissented from any view expressed by the majority of the committee. I am sure no one knows better than the Minister of Health or the Parliamentary Secretary, the difficulty of expressing differences of opinion when they occur in one's own Government on matters not of opinion, but of policy and even of principle.
  Sir D. Gunston: May I assure the hon. Lady that in quoting the report I did not want to make any suggestion of inconsistency against her because she was a member of the committee? As a member of the Liberal party she is probably well aware of the difficulty to which she has referred.
  Miss Lloyd Georģe: I appreciate the consideration which the hon. and gallant Member shows to me, and he himself, as a supporter of the National Government, is now no doubt in a position to realise the difficulty of reconciling different views.
  904
  Much has been said this afternoon about landlords, good and bad. I do not wish to enter into that controversy, but it is certain that there are landlords even to-day who can afford to recondition their houses without any hardship. On the other hand, I do not dispute the fact that there are small landlords owning cottages in villages which represent a substantial part of their income, and there are also landowners who are no longer in a financial position to recondition their cottages. But I cannot see any justification for granting public funds to landlords who can recondition their houses. I think it is a principle of some importance.
  An hon. Gentleman who spoke earlier gave some interesting figures about the effect on rates of this Bill and showed how these grants compared with the subsidies given for the building of houses. We all realise how greatly the rates burden has increased, particularly on some authorities, and I do not see how that is possible to defend these grants being given without any conditions whatever. It has been suggested that this proposal would create difficulties as to how to define the rich landlord and the poor landlord. It is true that there is difficulty, but, somehow or other, the difficulty seems to have been got over in the case of the unemployed. Somehow or other it is easy to define a means test in that case, and I agree that if the Minister has any difficulty on this point he might with advantage consult the Minister of Labour. I am certain that machinery could be set up to deal with this matter and, in any case, I think it perfectly reasonable that a landlord should show cause to the local authority why he cannot recondition the houses on his estate.
  Sir R. W. Smith: Would the hon. Lady approve of the principle to which she has just referred being applied not only to grants to landlords but also to the payment of Members of Parliament?
  Miss Lloyd George: I see no reason why it should not be. I think it would be a perfectly reasonable thing. I do not see why we should be in a privileged position in that respect. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland said that the landowner got no advantage at all from this grant, because for 20 years he had not been able to raise the rent. But it is remarkable—and I am open to

  905
  correction on this point by the hon. Member for St. Albans (Sir F. Fremantle), who was also a member of the committee—that the only two bodies which brought this matter up in evidence were the landowners' association and the land agents' association. If they thought that no benefits could he gained from the Bill they would not have thought it necessary to bring up the matter. The point has already been made that reconditioning will increase the landowners' capital assets. Of course it will. If you recondition a house in time, it will prevent that house from falling into serious disrepair. That is a simple proposition. If you leave the house for a certain number of years it will not only fall into greater disrepair, but, in the course of time, will become a slum house of very little value to the landlord.
  The point has also been raised that if we were to deny this grant to certain landlords, it would have the effect of preventing houses being reconditioned and, therefore, the tenant would suffer. That is an objection which must be examined, and I was rather interested in what the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland said on that point. I do not know whether the Minister proposes to say anything more upon it. I hope he does. The Under-Secretary said that in the matter of repairs a local authority could take over, as it were, do the repairs themselves and charge the cost up to the landlord, but in the case of reconditioning it was not so. I understood—and I think it will be found in the report, on page 12—that where owners are unwilling to undertake reconditioning:
  "We suggest that the local authorities should consider the advisability of exercising their power to buy the cottages, if necessary by compulsion, and themselves carry out the reconditioning."
  I would very much like to know whether, in point of fact, that power does exist, because I was under the impression that it did.
  The Minister of Health (Mr. Elliot): My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland was in error on that point. That power does exist, but whether it should be exercised or not is a question of finance, and I shall be prepared to answer that point. On the point of fact, I think my hon. Friend was in error and that the hon. Lady is right.
  Miss Lloyd Georģe: I am glad to know that, because I hope very much that this power will be exercised far more in the future than it has been in the past. I think that where you do get a defaulting landlord, you should exercise this, the one power which you have, of compulsory purchase of these cottages for their reconditioning, and I hope that that power will be used side by side with the other means test, which I still hope the Government will apply to wealthy landlords.
  6.2 p.m.
  Mr. Henderson Stewart: The House will have listened with pleasure to the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George). I have been in this Chamber for over five and a half years, and although I have read her speeches, I had never before had the pleasure of hearing one of them, and to me it was a very special delight. The speech of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland has been severely criticised, and I should like to examine it still further, because it seemed to me to be not only inaccurate, but the most unconvincing defence of this Bill and opposition to the new Clause that I have heard. I am one of those who, on the last occasion, on 16th May, voted against the Opposition proposal similar to the present one, but I must say that, having listened to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State this afternoon, I am left entirely confused and cannot possibly support the Government. The hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State in, I thought an excess of zeal, made the extraordinary statement that owners gained no benefit whatever from this Bill. I support the principle of the Bill, I think it is right and proper, but it seems to me idle to deny that owners of cottages gain something by it.
  In the county of Fife, part of which I represent, there has been a marked development of such cottages, to the great advantage of the people who live in them. But it is absurd to stand up in this House and to say that the owners of these houses get no advantages. I would never dream of supporting the Bill on those grounds. Of course, they get advantages. The owner's property is improved, and if it is an agricultural property, he can charge a higher rent for his whole farm on which these reconditioned cottages stand. I am not going to

  907
  have it thought in the country that I support the Bill on the ground that it does not help the landlords, because that is not true.
  My chief criticism of my hon. Friend is on his examination, false as I thought it was in almost every particular, of the analogy between this proposed new Clause and the Clause in the Herring Industry Bill. In my opinion the similarity between this new Clause and Clause 4 of the Herring Industry Bill is almost exact, and I would like to examine it point by point. Under the Herring Industry Bill, to which the House has given a Second Reading since last we discussed this Housing Bill—and therefore the position is very different from that which we experienced last week—something like this is proposed: A fisherman in my part of the country, which would probably mean a middle-aged or older man of 60 or 65, who does not go very much to sea now and is more or less retired, will get a sum of £1000, roughly one-third of the cost of a new boat, to encourage him to build that new boat. That is a grant for him. So far I contend that he is in exactly the same position as the landlord who will get a grant under this Bill. The second stage is that he looks for a skipper. If he is an old man, he does not go to sea himself, and he says to the skipper, "I would like you to get a crew together and take this ship out for the herring season." He gets a skipper, who may be his son, and very probably is, and that skipper is in almost the same position as the tenant of a farm whose cottage is reconditioned under this Bill. Thirdly, the skipper looks for a crew, and the crew naturally benefit by this new boat which is going to catch herring so much more cheaply and, therefore, render a greater return to the individual members of the crew.
  The crew are the equivalent of the average farm workers, so that I see an analogy at each of the three stages—the landowner and the owner-fisherman, the farmer-tenant and the skipper of the vessel, and the farm servants and the crew of the fishing vessel. The hon. Member the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, on the last occasion opposed the Labour party's Motion with these words:
  908
  "A grant made under these Acts is completely different from the money granted after the means test mentioned by the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. C. Brown). It is not in any sense a dole to the landlord.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th May, 1938; cols. 120–1, Vol. 336.]
  He went on to say that it was not a dole to the landlords because it was an advantage to the tenant, and it was a special advantage to the farm worker who lived in the cottage reconditioned. If that be true, how can you possibly say there is any difference between the position of the owner of the reconditioned house and the owner of the new fishing boat?
  Mr. Elliot: Would my hon. Friend also agree, if none of the persons for whom this Bill is to be passed are to derive any advantage from it whatever, that the fisherman should be debarred from obtaining any profit out of that £1,000? That would be necessary to complete his analogy.
  Mr. Henderson Stewart: I hardly think that is so. In fact, what will happen is that in the case of the Herring Industry Bill proposal all three people concerned, the owner of the boat, the skipper, and the crew, will benefit, in the same way as in this Housing Bill all three people, the landowner, the tenant-farmer, and the man who occupies the cottage, will benefit. I would put the matter this way: How is it possible for me after this Bill becomes law, and after the Herring Industry Bill as now framed becomes law, to go up to my fishermen and say to one of them, "Look here, you, who are going to apply for a grant for a boat and to get £1,000, are to be subjected to a means test, but your brother, who happens to own a couple of little cottages outside the village, will get a third of the cost of reconditioning them, and he will get no means test"? I simply cannot put that with fairness to my constituents, and I ask my right hon. Friend—I am a supporter of his, and I hope I shall continue to be so—to help me out of this difficulty in which he has placed me. You cannot regard this as logical, that in the one case you ask for an examination of means and in the other you do nothing of the kind. If it is right in one, it is right in the other.
  Personally, I think it is wrong in practice to impose such a test of means. Much as I agree with the views expressed by the other side, especially

  909
  those of the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey—I regard it as a shame and as something approaching a scandal that people with great means should go begging to the local authorities for grants —I do not think it is possible to work this proposed new Clause; but if you insist upon a means test for one Bill, I do not know how you can reject the suggestion for a similar test in this Bill. I shall oppose this now, but I give my right hon. Friend warning that I shall also oppose his Herring Industry Bill when the time comes.
  6.10 p.m.
  Mr. Bevan: Every time the Government find it necessary to justify paying out subsidies from public funds to private persons, the argument becomes extraordinarily academic and philosophical. The hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) followed his hon. Friend and colleague into a discussion of what happens to this money when one person receives it and passes it on to another person. It reminded me of the old story that if a certain person had not bought a packet of cigarettes from a certain shop in Piccadilly, a fellow would not have broken his neck by treading on a banana skin in Buenos Aires. It is obvious that if a certain person receives £1 from the public Treasury, in expending that money he sets going a chain of circumstances in which an undefinable number of people will be affected. That is why it seemed to me that that discussion was highly academics, and academic because of the difficulty of trying to justify, on practical or ethical grounds, shovelling out public money to landlords because they have neglected their property.
  The argument of the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland was that it is the tenant who benefits by this legislation, and that therefore we ought not to do anything to make it difficult for the tenant to get that benefit. Here is a landlord who obviously— because we must speak now of the landlord who has means—has plenty of money to spend, but who neglects his property and does not keep it up to modern standards, and then, because we desire to benefit the tenant, we impose no penalties on the landlord but make him better off, so that the tenant will be a little better off. It is as if we saw a fellow in the street hammering another, and instead of
  910
  preventing him doing it, we sent for large doses of iodine, so that the wound inflicted would not be poisoned. Why, if it is the tenant who wants the benefit, we do not give the direct benefit to the tenant, I cannot understand. Why must the first recipient of the money be the rich, in the expectation that some of it will slowly filter through to the poor? One would think we did not know where the poor were or how to get at them. One would imagine we did not know what rural housing problems were, or who were the tenants who needed houses. If hon. Members opposite were not engaged in the most nauseating cant and humbug, they would know very well how to deal with the rural housing problem. Let them build rural houses, not make the landlords the recipients of public funds on the hypocritical justification that by shovelling out public money to those persons certain desirable advantages will be given to their tenants.
  The suggestion has been made by hon. Members opposite that if you carried this Clause, imposing a means test on the landlords, reconditioning would not take place. Then in what circumstances would reconditioning not take place if a means test were applied? If the means test were applied and it was discovered that the landlord had no means with which to recondition his houses, a grant would be given. Reconditioning would, therefore, take place. If the means test were applied and it was discovered that the landlord was able to provide the money, hon. Members argue that reconditioning would not take place. The argument from hon. Gentlemen opposite is this. It is a common desire in all parts of the House to get rural houses reconditioned. There is another way of doing it, but the Government are doing it by means of this Bill they are going to pump out public funds and to give subsidies in order to get the houses reconditioned.
  We suggest that there should be a means test so that public money should not be given to landlords who do not need it. It should be applied to discover the landlords who cannot afford to do it. The houses would then be reconditioned and the problem of hon. Gentlemen would be solved. Then there comes a second category to whom the means test would be applied, that is, the land

  911
  lord who has the money. Why do hon. Gentlemen suggest that the houses in that case would not be reconditioned because the landlord has the money? We ought to have an answer, and I will sit down at once if the Under-Secretary has a reply. There is obviously no reply. It seems to me that if ever there had been a case for this proposal hon. Members opposite have provided the reply to it. I gather that the Bill would apply on the initiative of the landlord and that if he knew he was to be subject to an investigation he would not make the application. Is not that the answer? Is it that the application of the means test would have an adverse effect upon the reconditioning of houses?
  Sir D. Gunston: At the present time there are very few applicants for grants. Therefore, financially, there is not much in it for the landlord. We want to encourage the landlords, small or large, to apply, and if restrictions are imposed which will have the effect of depriving tenants of improved houses, the tenants will lose more than the landlords.
  Mr. Bevan: What the hon. Gentleman is saying is that the landlords, in order to do their duty to the tenants, have to be bribed. His answer cannot apply to the poor landlord who will get the subsidy under a means test. It can apply only to the well-to-do landlord who will not do his duty unless he is bribed. This is the story we have heard about landlords for the last 20 years or more. A case has been made out in the House, but has not been proved, that land in this country is suffering from deterioration because of the incapacity of the landlords to provide the necessary capital. The fact is that the landlords have become irresponsible people who now look upon their farms as something that the State should keep up; they must be left in the full enjoyment of their revenues and rents and if anything happens the State must step in and put things right. Never in my experience in the House have I heard such a thin Debate from the Government benches. I have never heard such a mean case put up, and hon. Gentlemen had better think again. The country will not stand for this modern buccaneering on the part of the landlords.
  The Under-Secretary said that one of the safeguards in the Bill is that the land-
  912
  lord will not get any direct financial benefit from the reconditioning of a house because he must put in one of his tenants or a person of similar social status. I know one or two large estates owned by individuals who are now living on the results of their grandfathers' and great-grandfathers' prowess. They have a large number of houses on their estates and these are let by stewards. The landlord leaves the steward a free hand to let the houses to whom he likes. The steward lets the houses at much larger rents than he pays to the landlord because the steward becomes, with the knowledge of the landlord, a mere factor collecting the rents. On such an estate there are houses in a number of different categories—big and medium sized houses, rustic cottages and derelict buildings. Some of the good cottages with aesthetic attractions are let at high rents to people who normally live in the cities. Other houses on the estate are let to the tenants of the estate. Some of these houses under this Bill will be reconditioned, although the landlord would have available for the rural workers all the houses he needed if he had not let many of them at high rents to well-to-do people. He will have some of these houses reconditioned. It is true that he will not be able to let them to weekenders, but he can shift his labourers from the other houses to the reconditioned houses and then let the empty houses to the week-enders.
  It is the big landlord, not the small one, who can benefit most from this Bill. To assume that houses on these estates are used exclusively for the tenants of the estate or for rural workers is a falsification of the countryside. They are being let to all sorts of people, and the mere safeguard that the tenant or some person of similar social status shall get the houses is no safeguard against the landlord benefiting by it because it will release other houses of the estate which he can let at higher rents to well-to-do people. The only advantage there will be is that the comparatively well-to-do people will be living in insanitary houses of the aesthetic type while the agricultural workers will be living n reconditioned and modernised houses.I The suggestion has been made that the landlord will get no direct benefit from the reconditioning of the houses. The point has been dealt with by the hon. Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George). It obviously adds

  913
  to the capital value of the estate; farms can be let at far higher rents, and the landlords will benefit in that way. If you want to aim a blow at the good landlord this is the sort of legislation that ought to be passed.
  Think of the position in the countryside where a good landlord, with perhaps limited means at his disposal, has kept his buildings in good repair out of his own revenue with no assistance from the State. Living next to him is another landlord with less sense of responsibility. It often happens in this country that the landlord with the greatest sense of responsibility is the landlord of the small farm, to which he has to give personal supervision in order to keep it in good condition; whereas the richer landlord is an absentee who sublets the work to other officials and merely wants his revenue and grudges every pound of capital expenditure because it decreases his income. We see, therefore, the large landlord, irresponsible and leaving his cottages to fall into disrepair, living alongside a small and good landlord who has kept his property up. The good landlord gets no benefit under the Bill. It is the negligent landlord who gets the benefit. As if this were not enough, the good landlord is made to pay higher rates for the reconditioning of the houses of the bad landlord. This is the weirdest legislation I have ever seen. Hon. Members opposite have tried to represent themselves as the natural custodians of agricultural interests. It is no wonder that the countryside is in such a deplorable condition.
  6.30 p.m.
  Sir John Withers: I have listened with very great interest to all this Debate, and with particular interest to the right hon. Member who proposed the new Clause, who, I think, spoke with the greatest moderation and good sense, but there was one argument which I did not follow. It was the argument that because a man like Ellerman dies leaving, say, £10,000,000, therefore a cottage which was his—because he is dead, remember—must necessarily not come within the ambit of this Bill. That view is entirely wrong, in my estimation, because such a man—call him Ellerman if you like—may have left that cottage to a friend, perhaps to his gardener or to some dependant. Although the cottage did at one time
  914
  belong to Ellerman, who left £40,000,000, it may now belong to a person who really cannot afford to expend money upon reconditioning it. Therefore, it should be clearly understood that the cottage ought to be considered in the light of the circumstances of the present owner and occupier and not in relation to any past owner. I am strongly in favour of not paying public money to landlords who can afford to recondition these cottages themselves, and therefore I feel there is a great deal to be said for this new Clause. I notice that the onus of showing that he has not got the money is to be placed on the landlord, because the Clause says:
  "Unless the local authority are satisfied that the works proposed cannot be executed without such assistance."
  It is clear, therefore that the onus probandi is now being shifted on to the shoulders of the landlord himself, and if he asks for assistance he must be prepared, and no doubt would be, to make out his case. Every good landlord would be prepared to do so. My own view of landlords is that they are not persons such as hon. Members opposite represent them to be. I have seen a very great many landlords in my time, and 99 out of Zoo are good landlords and not bad landlords. I think this Clause is on the right lines, and that landlords ought to be prepared to show that they cannot do the reconditioning themselves. In listening to the Debate I have felt that no valid answer has been forthcoming to the arguments put up in favour of the Clause, and, therefore, I shall vote for it.
  6.34 p.m.
  Mr. Tomlinson: I wish to call attention to one class of case which has not been mentioned throughout the Debate. To this particular class, to my mind one of the most deserving, the means test is applied. During the Second Reading of the Bill the Minister in charge was asked by the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Hopkin) whether the Bill would apply to a smallholder, a man who was farming a few acres and whose house had fallen into disrepair or was in such a state that it needed reconditioning. The answer was, "Yes, providing the smallholder is in the same economic position as the agricultural labourer who would normally live in a cottage of this type." That means that if a smallholder applies for a grant

  915
  in order to recondition his cottage he is to be subject to a means test, and if it is to be applied to him then why not to these other people? Something has been said about the difficulty of differentiating between individuals. The hon. Member for Cambridge University (Sir J. Withers) suggested that 99 per cent. of landlords were good landlords. If there is anything like that percentage of good landlords this particular Clause will not cause any difficulty.
  I have seen a means test applied to quite a number of different people, not always working-class people. It was this Government which sent out to local authorities from the Board of Education Circular No. 1421. Under that Circular local authorities had to apply a means test to persons whose incomes went up to £800 a year, and who were able to benefit even when receiving £800 a year. Nobody will say that they are poor people. That is a means test which I think could be applied to the poor landlords of whom we have heard this afternoon. If landlords are good landlords there is nothing to worry about in including this Clause in the Bill. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland suggested that the source of the income was what should determine whether or not a means test should be applied. That is a very strange argument coming from a representative of this Government. I have had scores of cases to deal with in my present constituency and in other constituencies in which old age pensioners have been involved, and there was then no question of the source of income, if the applicant had got £26 a year—and that at 70 years of age. It did not matter then what was the source of the income, the only question was whether it was coming into the home. We had not to go into the question whether it was from profits on beer or tobacco or anything else; all we had to do was to take the amount of it into consideration. Therefore, the only question here should be whether the individual has got the money; if he has not then he will not come under the Clause and there is nothing to worry about. The source of his income does not matter.
  I must express my amazement at the fact that twice within a week I have heard it suggested from the Government benches that money can be spent upon property and yet the individual who owns
  916
  the property will not be benefited. That is the strangest logic and the strangest economic proposition which I have ever heard, and little did I ever think that I should have to come to the House of Commons to hear it. What would be the position of this property if it were not put into repair? A school child knows that it would become an uneconomic unit, and that the only way in which it can be made an economic unit is by the expenditure of money upon it. Yet when the State and the local authorities have spent their money upon it—contributing two-thirds of the cost of the reconditioning—we are told that the individual who owns it and who has made a contribution of only one-third has not benefited. The hon. Member for St. Albans (Sir F. Fremantle) suggested that there was no need to introduce "hot prejudice" into this Debate. It seems to me that prejudice is always permissible if it does not come from this side, and I would point out that the only two Members on the Government benches who have attempted to examine the proposals in the new Clause from a logical point of view have decided that they will vote for it.
  6.40 p.m.
  Captain Heilģers: On the Committee stage of this Bill last Monday I supported an Amendment moved by the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood), who proposed to leave the question of the repayment of grants to the discretion of the local authorities. I did so because I thought it would be for the benefit of the agricultural workers, and I received the thanks of the right hon. Gentleman. To-day I oppose this new Clause for the same reason, namely, that to pass it would, in my opinion, be against the interests of the agricultural workers. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) said that when Members on this side spoke on this subject they became extraordinarily academical, philosophical, and that it was rarely possible for us to justify our attitude on practical grounds.
  I was a member of the Rural Housing Committee of the West Suffolk County Council which was formed to work the Act of 1926. I was on that committee for a number of years. Several rich landlords were also members of that committee, and they, to their credit, refused

  917
  to approve of any applications made under the Act, because they believed, as hon. Members opposite have said, that it was not right to subsidise their fellow landlords. I say quite frankly that I voted against them—not in my own interests, because I have never applied—but I was beaten, because there was a majority of landlords against me. In the neighbouring county of East Suffolk that line was not taken. In East Suffolk from 300 to 400 houses were reconditioned and it was held up as one of the "star" counties. The result of the rich landlords in West Suffolk taking the line I have described was that no houses were reconditioned—at least in eight or nine years only three houses were reconditioned, as against 300 or 400 in East Suffolk.
  Mr. Bevan: If a Clause such as the one we are proposing had been in existence those poorer landlords would have been able to get a subsidy.
  Captain Heilgers: I do not agree, because the position was that the landlords on the county council were not willing to consider it in any case whatever. I think that hon. Members opposite are looking at this matter from the wrong point of view. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale said "Build houses.' ' I can only say that more houses are being built in the rural areas in my constituency than was ever the case before, but all the same it would be the greatest possible mistake to allow existing cottages to tumble down. I suggest that if there is to be a means test in these cases it will lead to a waste of time in going into the assets of the landlords who apply for the subsidy. It will result in great and unnecessary delay. I suggest further, as I think has been pointed out before, that it would be quite impossible, because all the personal finances of the landlord would have to be revealed to a committee, and that is not permitted even by the Inland Revenue authorities. I want to see the agricultural workers get good houses. I have had the experience, as I have said, of seeing that where a bar was put up on a county council no houses were reconditioned, and I say to the party opposite, "Do forget your prejudices and give the agricultural workers a chance."
  6.45 p.m.
  Mr. Elliot: Perhaps it would be courteous, after a Debate which has lasted
  918
  for some time and in which various expressions of opinion have been made, that I should say a few words.
  Hon. Members: You will start another discussion.
  Mr. Elliot: If it were suggested that the discussion would start again I would immediately resume my seat, but out of courtesy to the House of Commons upon the Report stage, I think it desirable that a word or two should be said. There has been a certain amount of difficulty because Members of the House have been divided against themselves. I do not wish to make too much of the point but hon. Gentlemen opposite are divided against themselves on this matter. In 1931 they introduced a similar Bill, but they did not bring forward any of the Amendments which they are now supporting. The hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George), who signed the report without making a reservation on this point, has explained that she did not agree with it. I do not wish to stress that point too far, because she has a right to make a reservation now. The hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. H. Stewart) is going to divide against himself on 16th May, on the question of the means test and defending this Bill against the provision of a means test.
  Mr. Henderson Stewart: I said that it must not be supposed to-night that I would vote against the Labour Amendment, but I am not able to vote either way at this present moment.
  Mr. Elliot: It is a matter of the balance of forces. He is so strongly drawn in opposite directions that he is entirely unable to make up his mind.
  Mr. W. Joseph Stewart: He does not want to hurt your feelings.
  Mr. Elliot: There are, as I have indicated, more views than one on this point. I come back to the point which was repeated from the other side, but not perhaps so as to carry complete conviction, that what we are fundamentally concerned with is the interest of the tenant. It is said on the opposite side that if you spend money on a property, that property is thereby improved in value. Nobody can avoid that conclusion. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), and indeed the hon. Member for East Fife will

  919
  agree that if you put a sufficient rate upon an improved property you can absorb the improved value altogether. In a succeeding group of Amendments I am accepting a number which will have the effect of enforcing that servitude upon property to a very much greater extent. It will be impossible for a person who has once accepted the position to free himself.
  Mr. Bevan: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept the point which I put to him about the landlord using some of that property to let to well-to-do people?
  Mr. Elliot: I am not clear how that affects the matter. If the hon. Member would try to draft an Amendment to that effect, he would appreciate the difficulty. If he will try to do so and let me see the Amendment I shall be very glad to discuss it with him. The fundamental point is that it should not be within the power of a very wealthy individual to derive advantage from an Act Mach as this, and we go a very long way to meet the point by imposing a servitude by which a person accepting benefits under the Bill will be unable to liberate himself without the consent of the local authority—further, without the consent of the Minister or, indeed, of this House, because everything done by the Minister is open to criticism in this House. Hon. Members opposite did not divide against the Bill on Second Reading and I hope they will not do so on Third Reading, when we shall debate the general merits of the Bill, and I shall be ready to bring forward arguments with
  regard to Berwickshire and the position of local rating.
  Various reasons have been advanced from the other side why the Bill should not be passed, but I hope to be able to deal with them and to convince hon. Members upon this issue. We hope to canalise the benefit by means of legislative provision and to attach it to the tenant. We are accepting later on an Amendment which will enforce that principle. One comes down to the question of whether we can allow a private individual to be the channel through which the State operates in the case of houses, but it is a position which all parties in this House have accepted.
  Mr. Bevan: Perforce.
  Mr. Elliot: We are not accepting it perforce. The hon. Member knew the late John Wheatley as well as any of us, and will agree that he did not accept any of his Bill perforce. He will agree that all parties in the House have from time to time accepted the principle that a private individual can be utilised as a channel, if proper safeguards can be found, by which he can assist in the improvement of housing in this country. Now that we have had a long and thoroughly interesting argument I hope that the House will find itself ready to come to a decision on the proposed new Clause.
  Question put, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
  The House divided: Ayes, 132; Noes, 221.

  Division No. 215.]

  AYES.

  [6.53 p.m.

  Adams, D. (Consett)

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

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

  Day, H.

  Hills, A. (Pontefract)

  Adamson, W. M.

  Dobbie, W.

  Holdsworth, H.

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

  Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

  Hopkin, D,

  Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

  Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)

  Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.

  Banfield, J. W.

  Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

  Jones, Sir H. Haydn (Merioneth)

  Barnes, A. J.

  Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)

  Jones, J. J. (Silvertown)

  Barr, J.

  Frankel, D.

  Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

  Bellenger F. J.

  Gallacher, W.

  Kelly, W. T.

  Benn, Rt. Hon. W. W.

  Gardner, B. W.

  Kirby, B. V.

  Benson, G.

  Garro Jones, G. M.

  Kirkwood, D.

  Bevan, A.

  George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)

  Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.

  Broad, F. A.

  George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)

  Lawson, J. J.

  Bromfield, W.

  Gibson, R. (Greenock)

  Leach, W.

  Brown, C. (Mansfield)

  Green, W. H. (Deptford)

  Lee, F.

  Burke, W. A.

  Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.

  Leonard, W.

  Charleton, H. C.

  Granted, D. R.

  Leslie, J. R.

  Chater, D.

  Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)

  Logan, D. G.

  Cluse, W. S.

  Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

  Lunn, W.

  Clynes, Rt. Hun. J. R.

  Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

  Macdonald, G. (Ince)

  Cocks, F. S.

  Guest, Dr. L. H. (Islington, N.)

  McEntee, V. La T.

  Cava, W. G.

  Hall, d. H. (Whitechapel)

  McGhee, H. G.

  Crisps, Hon. Sir Stafford

  Harris, Sir P. A.

  MacLaren, A.

  Daggar, G.

  Hayday, A.

  Maclean, N.

  Dalton, H.

  Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

  Marshall, F.

  Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)

  Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

  Maxton, J.

  Messer, F.

  Salter, Dr. A. (Bermondsey)

  Tomlinson, G.

  Milner, Major J.

  Seely, Sir H. M.

  Viant, S. P.

  Montague, F.

  Sexton, T. M.

  Walkden, A. G.

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

  Shinwell, E.

  Walker, J.

  Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Hackney, S.)

  Silkin, L.

  Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. J. C.

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

  Silverman, S. S.

  Welsh, J. C.

  Muff, G.

  Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

  Westwood, J.

  Noel-Baker, P. J.

  Smith, E. (Stoke)

  Whiteley, W, (Blaydon)

  Oliver, G. H.

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

  Wilkinson, Ellen

  Paling, W.

  Smith, T. (Normanton)

  Williams, D. (Swansea, E.)

  Pearson, A.

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

  Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.

  Stephen, C.

  Williams, T. (Don Valley)

  Price, M. P.

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

  Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)

  Pritt, D. N.

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

  Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

  Richards, R. (Wrexham)

  Summerskill, Edith

  Withers, Sir J. J.

  Ritson, J.

  Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

  Woods, G, S. (Finsbury)

  Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)

  Thorne, W.

  Robinson, W. A. (SI. Helens)

  Thurtle, E.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

  Rothschild, J. A. de

  Tinker, J. d.

  Mr. John and Mr. Grove.s

  NOES.

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

  Edmondson, Major Sir J.

  Magnay, T.

  Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

  Maitland, A.

  Albery, Sir Irving

  Ellis, Sir G.

  Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.

  Allen, Col. J. Sandeman (B'knhead)

  Elmley, Viscount

  Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

  Aske, Sir R. W.

  Emrys-Evans, P. V.

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

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

  Entwistle, Sir C. F.

  Markham, S. F.

  Baxter, A. Beverley

  Errington, E.

  Maxwell, Hon. S. A.

  Beamish, Rear-Admiral T. P. H.

  Erskine-Hill, A. G.

  Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

  Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)

  Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)

  Meller, Sir R. J. (Mitcham)

  Beit, Sir A. L.

  Findlay, Sir E.

  Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)

  Birchall, Sir J. D.

  Fleming, E. L.

  Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

  Bird, Sir R. B.

  Fox, Sir G. W. G.

  Moreing, A. C.

  Blair, Sir R.

  Fremantle, Sir F. E.

  Morgan, R. H.

  Boothby, R. J. G.

  Gluckstein, L. H.

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

  Bower, Comdr. R. T.

  Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.

  Munro, P.

  Braithwaite, Major A. N.

  Gower, Sir R. V.

  Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

  Brass, Sir W.

  Grant-Ferris, R.

  O'Connor, Sir Terence J.

  Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

  Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.

  O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh

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

  Gridley, Sir A. B.

  Palmer, G. E. H.

  Bull, B. B.

  Grimston, R. V.

  Patrick, C. M.

  Butcher, H. W.

  Gritten, W. G. Howard

  Peake, O.

  Butler, R. A.

  Gunston, Capt. Sir D. W.

  Perkins, W. R. D.

  Campbell, Sir E. T.

  Hambro, A. V.

  Peters, Dr. S. J.

  Cary, R. A.

  Hannah, I. C.

  Petherick, M.

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

  Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)

  Haslam, Sir d. (Bolton)

  Pilkington, R.

  Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)

  Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

  Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

  Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)

  Hely-Hutchinson, M. R.

  Procter, Major H. A.

  Channon, H.

  Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.

  Ramsbotham, H.

  Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)

  Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan

  Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

  Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)

  Hepworth, J.

  Rawson, Sir Cooper

  Chorlton, A. E. L.

  Holmes, J. S.

  Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

  Clarke, Frank (Dartford)

  Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

  Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

  Clarke, Colonel R. S. (E. Grinstead)

  Hopkinson, A.

  Remer, J. R.

  Clarry, Sir Reginald

  Horsbrugh, Florence

  Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

  Cobb, Captain E. C. (Preston)

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

  Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)

  Colfox, Major W. P.

  Hudson, Rt. Hon. R. S. (Southport)

  Repner, Colonel L.

  Conant, Captain R. J. E.

  Hume, Sir G. H.

  Roes, Major Sir R. D. (Londonderry)

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

  Hunter, T.

  Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)

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

  Hutchinson, Q. C.

  Rowlands, G.

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

  Joel, D. J. B.

  Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.

  Courtauld, Major J. S.

  Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k N'w'gt'n)

  Rugglas-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Keeling, E. H.

  Russell, Sir Alexander

  Craven-Ellis, W.

  Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)

  Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)

  Crooke, Sir J. S.

  Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

  Salmon, Sir I.

  Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

  Kimball, L.

  Salt, E. W

  Croom-Johnson, R. P.

  Lamb, Sir J. Q.

  Samuel, M. R. A.

  Cross, R. H.

  Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.

  Sandeman, Sir N. S.

  Crossley, A. C.

  Leech, Sir J. W.

  Scott, Lord William

  Crowder, J. F. E.

  Leighton, Major B. E. P.

  Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)

  Culverwell, C. T.

  Lennox-Boyd, A. T. L.

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

  Davidson, Viscountess

  Levy, T.

  Smiles, Lieut. Colonel Sir W. D.

  Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)

  Lewis, O.

  Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)

  Davison, Sir W. H.

  Liddall, W. S.

  Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

  Dawson, Sir P.

  Lipson, D. L.

  Somervell. Sir D. B. (Crewe)

  De la Bère, R.

  Lloyd, G. W.

  Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

  Denman, Hon. R. D.

  Loftus, P. C.

  Spears, Brigadier-General E. L.

  Denville, Alfred

  McCorquodale, M. S.

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

  Doland, G. F.

  Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)

  Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.

  Dower, Major A. V. G.

  McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.

  Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)

  Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)

  McKie, J. H.

  Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h)

  Dugdale, Captain T. L.

  Macmillan, H. (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)

  Eastwood, J. F.

  Macquisten, F. A.

  Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.

  922

  923

  Tasker, Sir R. I.

  Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)

  Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.

  Tate, Mavis C.

  Wardlaw-Milne, Sir d. S.

  Win, A. R.

  Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

  Warrender, Sir V.

  Wolmer, Rt. Hon, Viscount

  Thomas, J. P. L.

  Waterhouse, Captain C.

  Womersley, Sir W. J.

  Thomson, Sir J. D. W.

  Watt, Major G. S. Harvie

  Wood, Hon. C. I. C.

  Titchfield, Marquess of

  Wayland, Sir W. A

  Wragg, H.

  Touche, G. C.

  Wedderburn, H. J. S.

  Wright, Wing-Commander J. A. C

  Tree, A. R. L. F.

  Wells, S. R.

  Young, A. S, L, (Partick)

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.

  Whiteley, Major J. P. (Buckingham)

  Turton, R. H.

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

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

  Wallace, Capt. Rt. Han. Euan

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

  Lieut.-Colonel Kerr and Major Herbert.

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

  Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)

  HOUSING (RURAL WORKERS) AMENDMENT BILL.

    CLAUSE 3.—(Repayments of grant to be proportionate to unexpired part of period for observance of conditions.)
    7.2 p.m.
    Mr. T. Williams: I beg to move, in page 2, line 21, to leave out from the first "of," to "proviso," in line 24.
    This is the first of a series of Amendments which hang together, and the right hon. Gentleman indicates by an Amendment which he has down on the Paper that he is going to accept the principle embodied in them. If there has been a breach of the conditions entered into by the owner of the property, or if the owner of the property desires to make repayment of sums received by him, the local authority has power to call for repayment of the whole or a portion of the advances made from the rates. The acceptance of these Amendments implies that, where the owner of the property has definitely committed a breach of the contract into which he has entered, the local authority shall not have the power to reduce the repayments to be made by the owner. When this Amendment is accepted, the power of the local authority to determine whether the whole or part of the repayment shall take place shall be exclusively in the case where the owner of the property definitely makes application to the local authority to accept the option provided for in the Bill.
    7.5 P.m.
    Mr. Elliot: I advise the House to accept the Amendment. The arguments that have been advanced in support of it are reasonable, and indeed on a previous stage of the Bill they were advanced from more than one quarter of the House. I have set down a further Amendment which is in line with these but does not go in any way counter to their intentions.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendments made:
    In page 2, line 29, leave out "(3) or." —[Mr. T. Williams.]
    In line 3o, leave out "breach of conditions or."—[Mr. Elliot.]
    In line 32, leave out "the breach is ascertained, or."
    In line 39, leave out "breach or of the."
    In line 40, leave out "as the case may be."—[Mr. T. Williams.]

    CLAUSE 6.—(Amendment of condition a to maximum rent where further assistance given by way of grant.)
    7.6 p.m.
    Mr. Wedderburn: I beg to move, in page 4, line 8, to leave out" four per cent.' and to insert "the following percentage."
    This is put down as the result of a question asked in Committee by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stirling (Mr. Johnston), who was not quite sure that the Clause as it stood would not permit the 4 per cent. to apply retrospectively to houses which had been reconditioned before 1935, the date on which the increase in rent on the owner's expenditure was raised from 3 to 4 per cent. We believe that under the Act as it stood that would not be so, but we have put down an Amendment to make the position absolutely beyond doubt.
    7.8 p.m.
    Mr. T. Williams: Is not the next Government Amendment directly involved and ought we not to take both at the same time?
    Mr. Wedderburn: The two Amendments hang together. The effect is that 3 per cent. is allowed before 1935, and 4 per cent. between 1935 and 1938.
    Mr. Williams: The 4 per cent. as distinct from the previous 3 per cent., has been justified in previous arguments by one Minister or the other, but what I do not quite appreciate is why this retrospective application to 1st January, 1935, should take place, because it may result in very definite hardship if the property owner took adavntage of it in this sense:

    925
    Take the case of a cottage reconditioned at a total cost of £150 in January or February, 1935. The contribution of the owner would be £50. Therefore, for three years or more the owner will be entitled, under the terms of the second Amendment, to an increase from 3 to 4 per cent., and, if he has been charging only 3 per cent. for three and a-half years before the Bill becomes an Act, he will be able to present his tenant with a bill for 35s., which is almost the equivalent of a week's wages. If any such property owner exists who would dare to claim the full value of this Clause and invite his tenant to make this retrospective payment of some 35s., which would be a definite hardship and an almost impossible demand for hundreds of thousands of agricultural labourers to meet, I am sure that is not exactly what either the Minister or the Under-Secretary would desire. The possibility may be remote, but it is a possibility, and I should like to know whether they have investigated it and seen the possible effect of their Amendment.
    Mr. Wedderburn: I think the Amendment merely justifies the permissible increase now in respect of works which have been executed within that period. I do not think it means that the owner could retrospectively charge a higher rent but only that he would not be precluded from charging a higher rent now on account of the fact that the additional works had been executed before the Act came into effect. That is how I read the Clause, but I will undertake to look into the matter again and see whether it is necessary to do anything to meet the hon. Gentleman's point.
    Mr. Williams: The second Amendment on the Paper is very clear. If the works were completed before 1st January, 1935, 3 per cent., or, if they were completed on or after that day, 4 per cent. If the total cost of reconditioning a house is £150, the property owner's contribution is £50, and, if a retrospective payment were demanded for 3½ years, then, since per cent. of £50 is 10s., the payment for 3½ years would be 35s. If the property owner made that demand, it would be definitely a hardship. Perhaps the Under-Secretary will look at the matter again.
    Mr. Wedderburn: The hon. Member will realise that the owner always had
    926
    power to charge 4 per cent. in respect of improvements made since 1st January, 1935. But, if he forbore to do that, the Clause would not entitle him to make the charge retrospectively.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: In page 4, line 1o, at the end, insert:
    "that is to say, if those works were completed before the first day of January, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, three per cent. or, if they were completed on or after that day, four per cent., and no fine, premium or other like sum shall be taken in addition to the rent."—[Mr. Elliot.]
    7.17 p.m.
    Mr. Elliot: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
    In view of the fact that this Bill has caused considerable interest and a fair amount of debate in the House, it is desirable that a few words should be said in speeding it on its way, and, in the midst of scenes of turmoil and violence such as we are witnessing to-day, I am sure the House will turn aside for an afternoon with a reasonable degree of pleasure to forward a constructive work of peace, and, still more, a constructive work of peace which goes to the consolidation and preservation of the countryside. The purpose of the Bill has, I think, been the subject of universal good will, namely, that the rural worker should be well housed, and housed in a comely, seemly, and, if possible, even a beautiful fashion. I think it has been in the minds of Members in all parts of the House that in many cases, at any rate, it is possible by the reconditioning of an old house, to produce a house which for beauty greatly surpasses the houses which can be built at present. I have here one or two photographs, which I will pass across to my hon. Friends, of reconditioned houses—houses such as only Great Britain, and indeed, I might almost say, as the English Minister of Health, only the English countryside can produce. There is an urbanity, a serenity, a settled peacefulness about the English countryside which you do not get in the more turbulent countries North of the border or West of the Severn.
    Under my predecessor in office, some 17, 00o houses have been dealt with in England and Wales, and some 33,00o in Scotland. Although it may be said that many of these houses do not come up to

    927
    the full standard that we should desire yet at any rate, in the great majority of cases, they have been enormously improved, and in some—I should say the majority—of the cases they have been brought fully up to the very best modern standards. In making that statement I base myself on the admittedly very exact and mildly censorious report of the Scottish Rural Housing Committee. This Measure is not to be taken by itself alone. It is part of our programme; it is supplemental to the other legislation. It would be wrong for me to go in detail into the two Bills, the Scottish and the English Bill, dealing with the provision of new houses for general purposes. One of them has already reached the Statute Book, and the other, I hope, will reach it in a very short time. I would, however, ask the House to consider this Bill as part of a programme. Hon. Members opposite, and, indeed, hon. Members on this side of the House, have said that they wished for new houses to be built, and we fully agree with them. It may be that in many cases the new house is essential, and the old house should be scrapped and demolished. The sites chosen in the old days were in many cases not suitable; houses were built in hollows because they were near water, or they were built in damp places because the builders of those days had not the full knowledge of conditions which sad experience has taught their successors; but I put this Measure forward as a part of our programme, and as a part of our programme for which we see no need at all to apologise.
    If there has been a certain amount of difference in the House this afternoon, I think that perhaps it is due, to a certain extent at least, to the difficulty which urban Members very often find in appreciating rural conditions, and, in some cases, in bearing with rural conditions. It is true that the argument has been put forward that the private individual should not be employed at all in the housing programmes of this country, but I think it would be difficult to substantiate that argument. Many Bills brought forward by the parties now in Opposition have accepted from time to time the principle that the private individual also may find a useful place in assisting programmes for the housing of the people of this country. Certainly that is so in the countryside.
    928
    For instance, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) has done in Devonshire a great work for rural housing, which I gladly acknowledge, and, indeed, many local authorities not controlled by supporters of the present Government have done much to help on that cause. The County Council of Durham has never been brought forward as a centre of active and continuous support of the present Government, but some 500 or more houses have been reconditioned under the Housing (Rural Workers) Act in Durham county, and I am sure that Durham county is the better for that improvement in housing which has taken place there.
    As I have said the opposition to certain sections of this Measure has frequently been led by urban Members, but I would ask them to bear with the countryside in this matter. I should be very willing to admit that not enough has been done, but I should be most unwilling to admit that what is being done should now be brought to an end. It is true that there may have been mistakes, there may have been anomalies, there may even have been waste of public money; but, taking by and large the housing effort of this country, on which £15,000,000 is being spent every year (as compared with 50,000 under the Rural Workers Acts) would anyone suggest that, if one went over it with a microscope, one would not find, in that £15,000,000 of annual expenditure on housing, mostly urban, some anomalies, some things that one would rather had not happened, even what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston) might call scandals and a great waste of public money? The improvement of housing in this country has been the greatest effort in Europe since the War, and the improvement in Scotland which has taken place under this Act is one of our great achievements in rural housing. I hope very much that the achievement which has been found possible in certain counties, such as Devon, Cornwall, and other English rural counties, and in many Scottish rural counties, will be the prelude to an effort which will spread throughout the land.
    The average costs in this case are small as compared with the cost of building completely new houses, and that is an argument which I would ask those to consider who have said that this Act

    929
    should not be used, but that new houses should be built instead. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling pressed very strongly the case of the County of Berwick where, as he said, a 7d. rate was the amount that was estimated—for, as he knows, there is no exact return available on the matter—to have been spent in respect of this Act, as against only a id. rate in respect of other Measures. The two rates, however, are not exactly comparable, since the assistance under the Rural Workers Acts runs out in 20 years, whereas under the other Acts it does not run out until after 40 years have elapsed. This point seems to be germane to the argument, raised by an interjection during the right hon. Gentleman's speech, as to what a 1d. rate in Berwickshire produces. It produces only £369. A county with such limited resources inevitably requires to spread the money as far as it will go, and the right hon. Gentleman will recollect, from the table which is given in, I think, the Fourth Appendix to the Report of the Rural Housing Committee, that the cost of rural housing in Berwickshire is fairly high. I think it might easily be said that for a similar expenditure you can recondition five, or it might be even more, houses by the use of the Housing (Rural Workers) Act, as against one which could be produced by the building of a new house from the ground up. Clearly a local authority which desires to improve housing conditions in its area, and which can do five times as much under one Act as under another, will have a strong bias towards the Act which will produce the larger amount of improvement in housing. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider the record, say, of Devonshire in regard to rural housing.
    Certain hon. Members have said, including, I think, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood), that it is impossible to recondition these houses satisfactorily. The right hon. Gentleman said that as many as 95 per cent. should be destroyed. Again, I do not think that that is borne out, and I do not think that on this occasion the hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George) would make any mental reservations on the subject, or would agree to any estimate nearly so high as that. I think the hon. Lady would agree that on the whole a con-
    930
    siderable number of rural houses can be reconditioned by the use of this Act so as to be completely satisfactory, and again I would call in evidence the very report on rural housing in Scotland which has been so often referred to in these Debates. For instance, I would call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the statement in paragraph 34, that 58 per cent. of the houses certified were houses in the case of which repairs and improvements could be dealt with at reasonable expense. Certainly from 50 to 60 per cent., and possibly more, according to this very close and accurate and, as I have said, censorious survey, could be put right by such measures as are envisaged in this Bill. I think we should be rash if we went forward with too much zeal for demolition in these cases as against reconditioning. There is something to be said for the improvement of a house which has lasted a long time. In some cases the house is outworn and exhausted, but in others it has merely gained greater beauty and greater strength, and has attracted round it memories which neither the family nor the village nor the county would cheerfully abandon. I think it would be a thousand pities if we said that 95 per cent. of the rural cottages of England should be destroyed and replaced by modem structures.
    I attach very great importance to the question of rural housing. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling and my hon. Friend the Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) have said, from the very first moment when I occupied the position of Minister of Health in the Northern Kingdom I took the matter very seriously indeed; and I hope forthwith to go on tour in England with the object of finding out the difficulties, conferring with local authorities and calling their attention to the advantages of proceeding, not only under this Measure, but under every Act which the House has passed dealing with this subject. This very month, I hope to have a conference at York;_ in June, at Shrewsbury; in July, at Chippenham; and, if I can manage it, before the Houses rises, at Bury St. Edmunds. That is to say, I shall visit the four quarters of England with the object of discussing this subject with local authorities, and doing my best to bring before their attention the advantages of our rural housing programme.

    931
    This is the real preservation of rural England and rural Scotland. Scenery is all very well, but scenery without housing is like a man without eyes in his head. The tumbling waterfall or the mountainside gains in attractiveness when associated with the English, Scottish or Welsh village, or the farmhouse with its cottages attached, where people have reasonably decent conditions, where children are brought up without being a burden to their parents, where, in fact, rural life is carried on as we would wish it to be carried on, and as we believe it can be carried on with proper administration of the Acts which have been passed by this House in order to make it possible. The Debates on the Second Reading and Committee stage of this Bill began with a good deal of heat and cross purposes; but, as they went on, a certain measure of agreement began to emerge. It was interesting to note. The hon. Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Price) will bear me out that at the end what began to emerge was whether it would be possible to secure the use of those cottages for the people, rather than the question of doles for landlords. The hon. Member for the Forest of Dean said that he himself was reconditioning cottages under this Act. I am sure that he is doing that with the object of making good cottages for folk of whom he is fond to live in, and not with the object of selling his property to some visitor from London. One hon. Member—the hon. Member for Clay Cross (Mr. Ridley) spoke of week-enders with the authentic tones of Colonel Blimp, or of Colonel Blimp's wife. He said:
    "I do not suggest that the week-end habit can be described as evil or pernicious, but it comes dangerously near to it. It is a piece of middle-class snobbery. It certainly is evil in the sense that in many normal beautiful English country villages, what were once charming cottages are being refurnished in a garish fashion, and painted in the most glaring colours. If we want to preserve the amenities of the countryside I think it is necessary to keep these week-enders away." —OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th May, 1938; col. 100, Vol. 336.]
    Much as I like Clay Cross—indeed I have often gone through it—I think there are times when one would wish to go elsewhere, and when one would feel that a little less contact with his fellow-men is essential. The effect of this Measure will be that the owner of the cottage will accept a bond from which he cannot free himself,
    932
    except with the consent of the Minister, by which these 16,000 cottages and these 33,000 cottages in Scotland are secured to the benefit of the agricultural population. That is especially valuable in these days when, near London particularly, the town overflows into the country, and there is a risk of ejecting the rural population altogether. It is a good thing that legislation containing such compulsory conditions should be placed on the Statute Book. It would be a thousand pities if, eventually, all the week-enders lived in the beautiful cottages, and the rural inhabitants in the ugly ones.
    You cannot enjoy the countryside unless, in the beautiful surroundings, there are people living who have lived there since the beginning of time. [Interruption.] Well, I know the hon. Member will agree with me that the rural cottage, with the rural cottager living in it, has been a feature of the countryside throughout the memory of man, and, although it is, in many respects, not up to modern standards, there are certain compensating advantages about these cottages. I should be sorry if there were not cottagers living in these cottages. Therefore, I commend this Bill as part of our programme—not the whole of it, but a part of which we have no reason to be ashamed, and I hope that hon. Members, having found us prepared to accept Amendments to improve the Measure, will decide to give it the Third Reading without a Division, and help us to bring into operation a programme which in these days of disaster and turmoil will be one of the sheet-anchors of those who wish to preserve the peaceful beauty of rural England.
    7.37 p.m.
    Mr. Arthur Greenwood: I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That", to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
    "this House, whilst recognising, as a supplement to the erection of new houses, the advisability of improving existing houses in rural areas where practicable, cannot assent to the Third Reading of a Bill which fails to provide that all houses so repaired will approximate to modern standards."
    I find it difficult to readjust my mind to the Ministerial changes that have taken place during the last week. I appear to have lost a very old friend with whom I have crossed swords, metaphorically speaking, on many occasions. I should like to welcome into our battlefield the

    933
    right hon. Gentleman who succeeds him, and who made his maiden speech on this Bill at a very late hour on Monday night. I would like to thank the right hon. Gentleman for the concessions he has made. He has proved what I believe to be true of all Scotsmen, that they are open to make concessions—but not very many. Those concessions are of some importance. But it will be remembered that, although we allowed the Second Reading to pass without a Division, we did stake out our claim to resist the Bill in the further stages, and we did drive the Committee to a number of Divisions on the Committee stage.
    I do not want to follow the right hon. Gentleman in detail. I like to see lovely scenery and beautiful surroundings. I am all for maintaining beauty in the countryside. It is all very well for the passer-by, perhaps driving swiftly along a road in a motor car, to enjoy the external beauty of a rural cottage; but what of the people who are living inside? We have been told that "man cannot live by bread alone"; but neither can we live by beauty alone, and many of these externally beautiful cottages—which I, personally, because of their external beauty, would like to preserve—are no longer fit habitations for the citizens of this country. The right hon. Gentleman passed across the table to-day photographs which, I am bound to say, did credit to the people who have improved the houses, at least externally; but I am not sure that that proves anything.
    The right hon. Gentleman has told us that these cottages which have been reconditioned come up to the very best modern standards. I cannot accept that. To enlarge a window or two windows and let in more of God's sunlight, is a good thing; to let in more air is a good thing, but that does not necessarily bring the house up to modern standards. To add another room to an overcrowded house is good, but it does not necessarily mean that that house has been brought up to modern standards. The Minister quoted what I said about the proportion of houses which, in my view, ought to be demolished. He said something about "this zeal for demolition." I have no zeal for demolition. I would not destroy a structure of beauty if I could avoid it. I would keep it empty, if you like; but the passer-by has no right to claim beauty
    934
    at the expense of the people who have to live in such houses.
    Some of the reconstruction which has been done, while it has improved housing standards—and I am certain it has in many cases—has not improved them sufficiently to make the new housing accommodation satisfactory according to modern standards. The right hon. Gentleman talked about the real preservation of rural England. He talked about the waterfall tumbling down. Waterfalls will always tumble down, but what I very much object to is the use of public money on cottages that tumble down. The right hon. Gentleman seems to think that new cottages are bound to be ugly. Why should they? Why should not the rural cottage built in 1938 nestle down in the countryside, as part of it, as harmoniously in it as the old one that is falling to pieces; and why should it not, in addition to that, conform to the standard which the urban dweller regards now as essential?
    The Minister almost complained that urban Members take an interest in this Bill. I am very proud that they have done so, for, if it means anything, it means that my hon. and right hon. Friends on this side of the House believe that the landworker is as much entitled to the decencies of family life as the town worker. And in the overwhelming majority of cases now—not in all, unfortunately—the town workers are enjoying at least the decencies of life. Many of them, as the result of successive Housing Acts, are enjoying, in addition to the bare decencies of life, the amenities of decent housing conditions. Why should not the rural worker? Why, because of this pose to beauty—for that is what it amounts to—should the rural worker and his wife and children be condemned to live in conditions which are insanitary?
    We come to the root of this Bill. It has never been disputed—I made this point in 1926, and it has been proved by inquiry after inquiry—that in the rural areas the Housing Acts have never been properly administered. By-laws have been hopeless.
    Mr. Quibell: And are.
    Mr. Greenwood: By-laws, where they exist, have never been enforced. Cottages have been allowed to fall into disrepair during the whole of our lifetime,

    935
    and now there is a cry for the expenditure of public money in order to try to restore these decrepit structures to something which is beautiful outside, and healthy within for those who dwell within them. That is really an impossible policy. The right hon. Gentleman has claimed that it is only a part of the programme of which they were proud, and that it was supplemental to further legislation. He argued that it would be right to assist private enterprise. That is not new on the part of Members of the party opposite. The 1923 Housing Act was primarily based on assistance to private enterprise. I do not press this point, because it has been argued in the Debate to-day at very great length, but I am simply putting the point that, if this be part of a considered policy, the Government would be far better advised to throw their weight and influence on the side of comely, seemly and beautiful houses, but new, rather than in continuing after all these years for a further period this method of trying to improve second-hand, third-hand, and fourth-hand houses, which no longer conform to modern standards. The right hon. Gentleman said that this is cheaper than building new houses in the rural areas. That, as I understood the right hon. Gentleman, was the case he made, and he quoted the case of Berwickshire. I am not a person who comes from so far north, but I admit that what the right hon. Gentleman said is right, that a sevenpenny rate over a 20-year period is not quite the same as a penny rate over a 40-year period. But on his arithmetic, Berwickshire has been spending far more on reconditioning old houses than it has on building new houses. The total cost to date of reconditioning has been nearly £70,000, and there is this point which increases the burden upon the local authority; they do not get any increased rateable value out of the houses that are reconditioned. Every new house is a new asset to the locality.
    I explained quite frankly to the House on Second Reading my position on this Bill. I opposed it on Second Reading. I have never liked it. I supported its continuance in 1931, and I do not apologise for my change in attitude. It was out of loyalty to a colleague, who felt that, in that period when the 1930 Housing Act was not fully operating, it might be of
    936
    service to Scotland, and I say that, having already protracted that period, the Government, in asking for a further four years, are asking too much. On Second Reading I raised a point on Clause 9 of the Bill. Under that Clause additional public money can be provided for the assistance of the abatement of overcrowding but the Bill makes no provision—though we have had verbal promises—for ensuring that, where this increased assistance is given, the houses are up even to what I regard the meagre overcrowding standards, as I explained to the House, of the Housing Act, 1936. If these standards are to be applied to houses where additional money is being provided, why should not this public money be devoted to reconditioning houses, which, when reconditioned, should conform as far as practicable—and I am not pressing the point too far, because I know the difficulties about water supply, and so on, in rural areas—to the standards now required of local authorities when they build houses with the assistance of the State and of the rates? That point has not been conceded to us, and I feel that I am entitled to move the rejection of the Third Reading of the Bill. We are thankful to the right hon. Gentleman for such concessions as he has given to us, but we on this side of the House will never again in any circumstances consent to provide public money for private landlords unless—and I am not sure that we will even do it then—those houses conform to the standards of houses built under the Housing Acts of this country and required now by the public conscience of this country.
    7.55 P.m.
    Mr. Boothby: It is always rather difficult to follow the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) when he has been in one of his most censorious moods, and it is even more difficult when he has been preceded by the Minister of Health in one of his most lyrical moods. I have very few qualifications to speak at length on this Bill, and I am not going to speak on it to-day except as the representative of my constituency. I have no objection in any shape or form to declaring myself to be one of those week-enders—to whom my right hon. Friend referred in censorious and scathing terms—who live by beauty alone. I will only say to my right hon. Friend that I do not care what

    937
    he says, and I do not care what his country friends say. I shall continue to go into the country as long as I am able to pay rent, and I hope to be able to get some credit even then. I have no objection to the week-end habit. It is a thoroughly good idea and I hope to live to see the day when practically every member of the population of this country will be able to enjoy at least a large part of the week-end in the countryside. The idea of the countryside for the countryman can be taken very much too far. I do not intend to enter into a dispute to-night with my right hon. Friend upon the respective aesthetic merits of a tumbling waterfall. There is a great deal to be said for a waterfall, but we can discuss that matter later on. The right hon. Gentleman would have us believe that this Bill is claimed to be a great, ambitious and a comprehensive Measure to solve for all time the problem of rural housing. I do not think that the Minister of Health has claimed that point. It is a useful Measure supplementing the general housing policy of the Government.
    The successive rural Workers Acts have proved enormously useful in my constituency, and if it had not been for them we should never have had anything like the satisfactory housing conditions in the countryside in Aberdeenshire as we have to-day. There is in Scotland, at any rate certainly in the North of Scotland, a great deal to be said for reconstruction as against new construction, not only on account of cheapness, which applies very strongly and forcibly in these scattered countrysides, but because in many ways the houses which were built 30, 40 or 50 years ago are very much better structurally than the houses that are built today. They have better and thicker walls. It is a hard country from which we come, and the people who live in a hard country have to have very hard houses, much harder than some of those which are built in modern times, to withstand the rigors of our climate. There is many a cottage built many years ago in which, if it were reconstructed, I would much rather live than in one of the modem brick and slate houses of the present day.
    Mr. Greenwood: Why not brick and slate? Why brick versus stone? The hon. Gentleman, like the right hon. Gentleman, is endeavouring to put us
    938
    into a false position as wanting slate or asbestos roofs. We want nothing of the kind. We are prepared to agree that the structure should be appropriate to the surroundings.
    Mr. Boothby: I will put two arguments. First of all, the country districts are poor, and I do not think that they are in a position at the present time, after the agricultural depression has continued off and on ever since the War, to build very expensive houses. If we had new houses, asbestos houses would be the sort of thing we would get from the Ministry of Health whether under a Labour Government or a Conservative Government. The right hon. Gentleman may say there is no reason why new houses, modern houses, should not be beautiful and nestle down into the countryside and take their place in the scheme of things. There may not be any reason why they should not, but the fact remains that they do not. I put it to hon. Members, particularly those from Scotland who have any knowledge of housing schemes, urban and rural, since the War, that nine-tenths of them are absolutely frightful in their ugliness. If you put this sort of house all over the countryside you will ruin the countryside, certainly in Scotland. There are one or two housing schemes in Scotland, including a scheme outside Aberdeen, where a young architect of brilliance has carried out a comprehensive scheme, but as a general rule in the housing schemes carried out in Scotland the new houses have been uniformly ugly. As the right hon. Gentleman is so keen on urban housing, let him get some improvements in urban schemes before he seeks to bring those houses to the countryside on a large scale. The new houses are ugly, on the whole. There has been a little sign of improvement during the last year or two, and it certainly has been overdue.
    The right hon. Gentleman under-estimates the beauty of some of the older houses and the intrinsic merit of some of those houses. I deny strongly that it is impossible, by the use of this Bill, to put some of these older cottages into a condition which is fully up to modern standards, and which in many respects would be better houses for the farm workers than the new houses, unless you spend more money on the new houses than the countryside is at present able to afford. I can only repeat that I do not know what

    939
    we should have done in Aberdeenshire without these Housing Acts. They have done an immense amount of good, and I am glad that, with the Amendments which have been made in Committee, with the assistance of hon. Members opposite, this Bill when it becomes an Act will be of great use in the countryside, particularly in the North of Scotland.
    There is one final point with which I should like to deal, which was raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Stirling (Mr. Johnston), and that is the giving of money to the rich landlords without a means test. If Sir John Ellerman were the real landlord test as far as rural houses were concerned, there might be a strong case to be made out in favour of having some kind of means test, but in point of fact, as hon. Members know full well, what the countryside lacks at the present time, above everything else, is capital. If we had a few Sir John Ellermans in my constituency I am sure that they would be warmly welcomed. The difficulty—and it has been the difficulty in agriculture almost ever since the War—has been to get a sufficient flow of capital into the industry. The industry has been starved for want of an adequate supply of capital, and that is the main reason why we are not making full use of the land in this country. The present Government has ways and means of dealing financially with the Sir John Ellermans of this world, both in life and in death.
    Mr. Johnston: I suppose the hon. Member will apply the same arguments next week when we come to deal with Clause 4 of the Herring Bill, under which this Government is proposing to apply the means test to the wealthier proprietors who ask for grants for new motor boats.
    Mr. Boothby: I certainly propose to move an Amendment, which I hope the right hon. Gentleman will support, to delete that obnoxious provision in the Herring Bill, and I have no doubt that the Government will accept the Amendment. If you are going to deal with the mythical figure of the rich agricultural landlord this is not the time, the place or the Bill in which to do it. I warmly welcome the Measure on behalf of my constituents, and although I do not think it is a solution of the problem of rural
    940
    housing, it will do more than much of the housing legislation that has been introduced for some time.
    8.5 p.m.
    Mr. Quibell: I do not share the opinion of the hon. Member who has just spoken. He seems to have a very decided preference for the country cottage as compared with the modern cottage. He said that he would prefer the country cottage to the modern jerry-built house. I have heard that same expression used before in this House on many occasions, and it would be very useful if the hon. Member would briefly give us a definition of what he means by a jerry-built house. Then he might be able to direct the attention of the Minister to some improvement in the conditions laid down, so that we might eliminate what he calls the jerrybuilt house. I think he would be under a difficulty in trying to define a jerrybuilt house. I was brought up on the countryside in a cottage which was thatched and whitewashed, and beautiful to look at. There was a certain sentiment attached to that cottage, and if I brought here a photograph of it, hon. Members would admit that it was beautiful, but if they had seen inside it, the back of it and the end of it, and they realised the kind of house it was, they would agree that so far as its beauty was concerned it was like the snowstorm, which looks all very well on a picture postcard, but which in reality is not nice.
    Mr. Boothby: It must have been a healthy cottage.
    Mr. Quibell: I have been brought up on English wheat, which is supposed not to be made into flour. I am an example of nutrition of the older type. So far as the country houses are concerned, there are hundreds of them 70 or 80 years old which cannot be reconditioned, and it is a scandal that public money should be spent on reconditioning them. I have looked very carefully into the report of the committee on rural housing, and although I do not desire to make any reflection on the personnel of the committee and those who gave their services, I like practical men on a committee. I do not think that the practical man would say that some of the stone houses, which we are told will stand the rigour of the Scottish climate, are fit to be reconditioned. It is impossible to recondition them. You

    941
    may repair them, but hon. Members who come from Scotland must know that if the local authorities in the rural parts—and the same remark applies to the local authorities in the rural parts of this country—had done their duty and called on the landlords to repair their houses in the rural areas, as is done in the urban areas, the state of affairs would have been very different to-day.
    Why should Parliament be called upon to provide money for the landlords under this Bill because the landlord has failed in his duty for the last 30 or 40 years and has allowed his houses to get into such a state of disrepair that they have become uninhabitable? Now we are told that they are to be given grants to recondition these houses in order to preserve the beauty of the countryside. It is absolute nonsense to talk about reconditioning houses of that kind. One of the most important things in connection with a house is the damp-course. If you tried to put a damp-course into some of these cottages, they would fall down. It is impossible to cure the dampness unless you take the house down, and put in a proper damp-course. I think as much about the countryside as any hon. Member, but I shall have the greatest pleasure in voting against this Bill. I want to see, as the authority covering nearly the whole of my division wants to see, these houses demolished and proper houses put in their place.
    If the hon. Member opposite wants to help, as I believe he does, and if other hon. Members desire to help, they ought to press the Government to see that the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act is put into operation. If they want to assist the small owner-occupier, let them bring pressure to bear upon him so that he in his turn may bring pressure to bear upon the local authority to adopt that Act, under which they have power to borrow—as my local authority have been doing for years —at 3¼ to 3½ per cent., and then lend the money to the small owner-occupier to enable him to get a new house. But the Government are very careful about this matter. You do not find them issuing circulars asking the local authorities to adopt the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act, and the reason is that the strong financial corporations, called building societies, object to the local authorities lending cheap money, because they have so much money they want to lend at a
    942
    greater rate of interest. I would press the Minister to draw the attention of the local authorities to this Act. Many of them do not know that it is on the Statute Book. If they adopted the Act it would do a great deal for the small owner-occupier, for whom they pretend to be so very solicitous.
    Reference has been made to the brick house and the slate-roofed house. I believe in using the materials that lie nearest to our hands. If you go into North Wales you will see stone houses with Welsh slates, which have lasted many years. I would much prefer the Welsh slates to the Portuguese slates and the French slates which I have seen lately. Some hon. Members decry slate, but I like the Welsh slate, the Penryn slate. I know of houses on which Welsh slates have lasted for a century, and they will probably last the house out, because they certainly stand very well. Let those who want tiles have their tiles. Let them get different colours of tiles. But if you want a change and it affects the price, perhaps to the extent of an additional £10, the Ministry will turn to some other adjoining district where cheaper tiles are in use, and they will ask for a fresh specification to see whether they cannot bring the cost down to the level of the other place where they have the cheaper materials, and consequently there is no variety. The trouble is with the Ministry.
    I maintain that the right policy is to continue the building of new hoases. The authorities which are to be complimented are those which are reconditioning least. It is no good putting an additional room on a damp house; that is not reconditioning. This Bill is only recompensing the landlord who has neglected his duty. I cannot but regard the handing out of public money for this purpose as other than a dangerous precedent, and much as I love the countryside I shall have the greatest pleasure in voting against the Third Reading of this Bill.
    8.16 p.m.
    Mr. Henderson Stewart: The hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) speaks upon this subject with great knowledge and a big heart, and in that respect reflects, I think, the sentiments of the new Minister of Health. I have never heard the Minister of Health make a more eloquent speech than that which he delivered on the Third Reading. We

    943
    all know that the right hon. Gentleman understands this problem and has it very much at heart. Indeed, I can confirm his suggestion that since he became interested in the matter of rural housing it has become almost his first care. I want to ask only one or two questions. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) opposes this Bill on two main grounds, one, that it is a dole for the landlords and, secondly, that it will mean the improvement of houses which ought not to be improved, or which, when they have been improved, are such that you should ask no one to live in them. It is no good trying to persuade the party opposite that this is not a Bill for the landlords, but on the other point I think they have raised an important issue. When the Under-Secretary of State replies, will he tell us what has been the effect of the circular issued to local authorities in Scotland following the report of the Rural Housing Committee? It was sent out by the Department of Health on 21st July last year. Let me quote from it, because I think if we can get satisfactory answers to my questions it may be possible for the hon. Member for Brigg to reconsider his view.
    "The survey of typical parishes carried out for the Committee revealed that only slightly more than half the dwellings dealt with under the Acts in those parishes have been satisfactorily reconstructed according to modern requirements."
    That being so, criticism of the Act was clearly justified. The right hon. Gentleman goes on in his address to the county councils:
    "The Secretary of State is certain that county councils will recognise the importance of seeing that no public money is spent under the Acts except on dwellings that can be rendered in all respects fit for habitation, and he would be glad if county councils would review their procedure for dealing with applications for assistance under the Acts with this object."
    Can the Under-Secretary tell us what has been the effect of that circular? Have the county councils in Scotland reviewed their proceedure? Have they carried out the instructions which appear in the second paragraph:
    "The Secretary of State has decided…. to ask the county councils to submit to the Department in respect of all applications received after 1st January, 1938, a statement in the form given in Appendix II."
    944
    The form which county councils were asked to fill in contains the following pertinent questions:
    "Is the site of the existing building satisfactory, and the building suitable for reconstruction?
    Is dampness present in the existing house or building? If so, what specific works are to be carried out in order to remedy this defect?
    Will the dwelling after the execution of the works, contain an indoor water supply, with sink, a water closet and a bath? If not, what are the reasons why it is not practical to provide these conveniences?
    Will the dwelling, after the execution of the works, contain: a scullery, a larder with external ventilation, fuel store; facilities for Washing and drying clothes, press accommodation, and facilities for cooking food? "
    I believe that if the Government could assure the House that, at any rate, in Scotland, and we hope in England, no grant will be given under the Act unless these conditions are met, the whole House will be ready to support this Measure. I would like to think that in this urgent problem of country cottages we are not maintaining a partisan point of view. I am satisfied that the right hon. Member for West Stirling feels as strongly on this matter as any of us on this side of the House. Like the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) I can speak with first-hand knowledge of the great advantage that these Acts have been in my part of the country. I can take the hon. Member for Brigg to almost any part of it and show him not only dwellings that look attractive from the house outside, but which also are well worth living in. I cannot see why we should stop an Act that has effected this kind of improvement and may do still more in the future. I wish to express my gratitude to this Government and to the previous Governments for having introduced these Measures, and I wish this present Bill, which is intended to strengthen the existing Acts, every success.
    8.25 p.m.
    Sir F. Fremantle: I wish to make a few observations from the point of view of the medical officers of health, who are anxious to promote good housing under whatever Acts it is possible to do so. That is the object of this Bill, and, in view of that object, many of the criticisms that have been made on both sides of the House have been beside the point. The

    945
    object is not to substitute this Bill, when it becomes an Act, for any other Act, and the last thing which any medical officer of health would wish would be that this Bill should in any way substitute the provision of reconditioned houses for good, new buildings. What we want is to get good, new houses in the countryside. This Bill will give further help, and it is for that reason that this exceptional provision of a subsidy is made.
    The hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George), who was a colleague of mine on the Rural Housing Committee, has explained how she differed from us with regard to the giving of this subsidy to rich landowners. She said that she would never agree that it was right to give the subsidy to people who could recondition the houses themselves. In that, the hon. Lady and other hon. Members entirely miss the point, which is not whether a person can supply better accommodation or reconditioned houses, but whether he will do so. It is right to say that these persons ought to do so, but it is not the law that they shall do so. They may prefer to spend their money in other ways, it may be with good reason, or perhaps, as is the case with many small landowners, they have not got the money; but if they do not recondition the houses themselves, there is no legal power to compel them to do so. That was the question which concerned those of us who, 15 years ago, were trying to find out in what way we could improve housing, especially in the rural areas. We said that, in addition to building new houses, existing houses could be improved, but that in most cases that could not be done without assistance, and that that assistance ought to be given under conditions that would not inure to the benefit of the landlord, but to the benefit of the tenant. That is a matter that has been discussed a good deal to-day. Speaking as a small landowner, who has a good number of houses and cottages that have been reconditioned, I can say that the benefit that will come to the estate at the end of 20 years will be so infinitesimal that I am certain that it will not be considered of any value when the probate value of my estate is calculated on my death.
    Mr. Quibell: If the hon. Gentleman has reconditioned the houses already, there is no reason why the subsidy should be given to him.
    Sir F. Fremantle: I have already explained in the Debates on the Bill that I did it myself, but that I was not prepared to do any more unless I could get a grant. Let it be remembered that this Bill deals only with cases where provision would not otherwise be made. As regards the conditions and terms, those are within the power of the local authorities at the present time, and they have power to refuse to give a loan or grant where they think it is unsuitable. Unfortunately, most authorities hitherto have not used the Act as frequently as we would have wished. It was only as a result of the Rural Housing Committee and the efforts of the late Minister of Health that action was taken which led the local authorities to revise their opinion in that respect. I hope they will do so a great deal more in future. The hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) said that little attention had been paid to the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act. I am glad that the hon. Member revived the memory of that Act, which was an inspiration to those of us interested in housing 35 years ago. The Act was originally introduced by a Conservative Member, the late Sir Thomas Wrightson, and it was taken up in the original programme of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, some 40 years ago. He always made a great point of the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act. It was developed in one way and another, and was largely taken up by the present Prime Minister, when he was Minister of Health, in connection with the 1923 Act. I think that the provisions of the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act and the corresponding provisions in the 1923 Act need to be brought to people's notice a great deal more at a time when so much is done to advertise the building societies, which also have done a great deal of good work. This Bill gives small extra help in the matter of housing. I hope that it will be used increasingly where it is required, and that local authorities will be made to recognise their responsibilities and their powers in the matter, because a great deal needs to be clone to strengthen the administration in rural areas throughout the country. I hope hon. Members will support the Bill.
    8.32 p.m.
    Mr. Johnston: I wish to offer a few observations on the Debate which has taken place. The hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart) made a speech with a very great part of which

    947
    many of his Scottish colleagues on these benches will agree. I have never before voted against an agricultural workers housing Measure, either in 1926 or in 1931. Many of my colleagues voted against those Measures, but I abstained, because I felt that on balance, as long as there was a chance of some poor rural workers in Scotland getting a bathroom, a water supply in their homes or additional conveniences, it would be criminal on my part, because of abstract, political or economic theories, to go into the Division Lobby and to do anything to prevent them getting those advantages which I enjoy myself. However, it must be recollected that there has been a commission dealing with this matter in Scotland. It must be recollected that it was the opinion of the majority of that commission that at most they could recommend the extension of this Measure for only two years. It must be recollected that they described, in scathing words which are very seldom found in a Royal Commission's report, the situation in Scotland as being a grave waste of public money. We have specific evidence of what has happened in certain villages in Scotland, supplied to us not by politicians, but by a skilled inspector sent by the commission to make an examination of the matter. The hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) referred to that subject in his speech. But the hon. Member did not quote what was said by the official who carried out the survey for the housing committee:
    "On an average 75 per cent. of the working-class houses surveyed were considered to be unfit for human habitation in their present condition. Hardly any of the cottages for workers have indoor water supplies; 48 per cent. of the houses surveyed had only dry closets and 29 per cent. had no sanitary conveniences at all."
    These were houses surveyed in the parish of Tarbat in Ross-shire, in Inverarity, in Angus and in Jedburgh; and one in three of those houses, inhabited by the rural population of Scotland, had no sanitary conveniences of any kind. I do not believe that this Measure touches the difficulty at all. The first difficulty is to provide water supplies for the villages. There is no use in talking about providing sanitary conveniences in villages where there is no water supply, and anyone who has studied the position in rural Scotland knows that the primary, the essential con-
    948
    sideration is an adequate and efficient water supply. Only when we have water supplies and drainage systems will it be possible to supply even existing houses with the ordinary conveniences of modern life. Until that is done, vast numbers of the present generation of our people will be compelled to pass their lives without sanitary conveniences such as are enjoyed even by the Kaffirs in their kraals. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Yes, I am told that they have water supplies in the kraals in many places but such conveniences are refused to the inhabitants of rural Scotland.
    Here we have another Measure extending these Acts not for two but for four years. I should hesitate to vote against even that proposed if there was any observable effort to ensure that where decent new houses could be provided, they would be provided, that where water supplies could be installed, they would be installed, and that where drainage systems could be constructed they would be constructed. Under this Measure, publicity in regard to applications for grant is refused. Hon. Members walked into the Lobby a week ago and voted against an Amendment which sought to provide that recipients of grants under this Measure should be catalogued and that a copy of the list should be available to any local government elector on payment of 6d. All sorts of amazing arguments have been adduced as to why rich men, who do not need the money, should be entitled to grants. Some hon. Members who sit opposite have said privately that they would be ashamed to ask a county council for grants for themselves. Yet, as supporters of the Government, they have voted for these prpoosals. It is true that I have given only the one instance of Sir John Ellerman, because it is a notorious case—and I am not sure that it is not in the division of the hon. Member for East Aberdeen.
    Mr. Boothby: Unfortunately not.
    Mr. Johnston: There is a vital difference between us. The hon. Member says "Unfortunately not." I say it is immoral, it is socially wrong, it is a misconception of citizenship, for a man with £40,000,000 to go to an already overburdened local authority to get them to improve his property.
    Mr. Boothby: I should not like to be taken as approving in any way of Sir John Ellerman's methods in this connection, if he did so. If he did what the hon. Member says I think it was indefensible, and when I said "Unfortunately not," I only meant that I wished there was more capital behind the landlords in my constituency.
    Mr. Johnston: That is another question and I am not sure that I disagree with the hon. Member on that point. One of my objections to the present landlord system is that a large number of landlords have not the capital with which to keep their property in a decent condition. A number of them are only nominal owners and are in the hands of mortgage companies with representatives in Edinburgh, or in London, or in Palestine, or somewhere else, drawing perhaps 6 per cent. on loans. The landlord who "swanks" about in a kilt is really only a factor or a rent collector for some group of moneylenders. That is one of the evils of the private landlord system, but it has nothing to do with this Bill. The Bill is a Measure to provide public funds—disguise it how you will—for the renovation and perpetuation of private house property, and in some cases that private property is owned by people who do not require grants.
    We do not deny what the right hon. Gentleman has said, that a number of houses have been reconstructed under these Acts and that the tenants of those houses enjoy a higher standard of life now than they did previously. I know, personally, a number of such cases, and it would be foolish to deny that they exist. On the other hand, I know of cases in which walls which were dripping with damp have had wooden structures plastered on to them and grants have been made for that work. In an earlier Debate I gave a case in which two years after a grant had been made by a local authority, the same local authority passed a demolition order on the property because it was unfit for human habitation. In any number of cases there has been a grave waste of public money. I cannot anticipate a question which I understand is to be put in the House to-morrow about houses in Aberdeenshire, but I understand there are allegations about second-hand grates and other secondhand ironwork being used in recon-
    950
    structions for which public money is being paid under these Acts.
    On all those grounds, we would prefer the right hon. Gentleman to make use of the Act already referred to on this side and to purchase the property and do anything and everything necessary to serve the public interest. May I offer one constructive suggestion? In the burghs there are thousands of people who have inadequate sanitary conveniences but in the rural areas we have 75 per cent. of houses unfit for habitation and 29 per cent. of people without any sanitary conveniences at all. We cannot afford to stand too rigidly upon abstract economic dogmas when it comes to dealing with these matters, and I appeal to the Government to take every possible step available to them, by administrative order, to stop local authorities in certain areas from spending public funds in preserving what is in many cases a decayed housing system, and to drive them as far as possible into erecting new and decent habitations.
    I would plead with the Government not to allow them to cut down trees. When they buy an estate now and they are going to put so many cottages on it, the first thing they do is to cut down all the trees, as if those trees were an offence on the landscape. Why should they do it if you are fighting to preserve beauty and something lovely to look upon in the world? I would beg the right hon. Gentleman to do everything he can, both through his own Department and through the Scottish Office, to prevent the demolition and the destruction of what is really beautiful in the world. But I do not believe that it is "a thing of beauty" and "a joy for ever" to place people in homes where the women and sickly children in winter weather have to go perhaps a quarter of a mile to carry a water supply or have to go out into the blizzard because there is no sanitary convenience in the home. These things are no credit to landlordism, no credit to the capitalism which has bossed and ruled Scotland for so long; and while we on these benches would be willing to do anything and everything we could to raise the standard of civilisation in our country, we do not believe that this Measure, as it leaves our hands, fulfils the necessary conditions. For that reason, while we do not oppose a blind negative to the Bill, we are prepared to support

    951
    the reasoned Amendment which my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) has moved.
    8.48 p.m.
    Mr. Wedderburn: Although the party opposite have decided to oppose the Third Reading of this Bill, they have taken that decision for reasons which have already been thoroughly discussed in the earlier stages of the Bill, and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will not wish me now to take up the time of the House in going over the same ground again. The right hon. Gentleman made some comparisons between the state of housing in urban and in rural areas, and he gave some figures to show how few of the existing rural houses were up to our modern standards. I think he said that 75 per cent. were unfit for human habitation and that 29 per cent. were without any sort of sanitary convenience at all. I am not sure that these conditions are so bad as those in some of the parts of Glasgow which I have seen myself, and I think there are many parts of our great cities which would compare pretty unfavourably even with the least advanced of our rural areas. But if it is the case, as we agree it is, that there is much that needs to be done, I think that is all the stronger reason for prolonging this Act, because a great deal of what ought to be done can be effected by this method, and it can be effected, not only more conveniently and less expensively, but, as we believe, in most cases equally successfully, by renovation and enlargement, as by demolition and rebuilding.
    The manuscript Amendment indicates as a reason for not passing the Third Reading that not all the houses so repaired would approximate to modern standards, and one or two questions have been put to me in regard to the kind of standards which will be enforced administratively under the existing Act as prolonged by this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that he asked a similar question on the Second Reading of the Bill, to which I replied at some length, giving various figures for Scotland. I also read out the substance of a circular which the English Minister was then considering, and I had occasion to deal with the same subject again on one of the Amendments in the Com-
    952
    mittee stage. I have already covered the questions which were asked by my hon. Friend the Member for East Fife (Mr. Henderson Stewart), but I will give him some figures more recent than those which I was able to give in the Second Reading Debate. My hon. Friend wanted to know what had been the effect of the circular that was sent out last July—that is, the circular laying down that in future all schemes for reconditioning must be submitted to the Department. Speaking from memory, the figures that I gave were that about 460 statements had been submitted and that all but 5o of these had been approved, some of them with variations, but I have some more recent figures here.
    The number of applications that have been submitted since 1st January, 1938, is 609. Of these, 500 have been approved by the Department. My hon. Friend is already aware of the conditions which must be fulfilled before we approve the statements. As I say, 500 cases have been approved, in 104 of which variations were suggested by us. Of the remainder, two were withdrawn and 38 are still under consideration. That leaves 69 which have not been approved, and of that number 17 were turned down, not for any defect in regard to the houses, but because it was proposed to put tenants into them whose economic status was not, in our view, similar to that of an agricultural labourer. Fifty-two cases were refused on structural grounds. In 21 cases the reason for refusal was that the number or size of the rooms was inadequate, in nine cases that the site or the structure was unsatisfactory, and in 22 cases that the reconstruction would not have provided conveniences such as bath, water closet, etc. I think these figures will show that in the great majority of cases the applications which we are receiving do come up to the standards laid down in the circular, because those houses which do not come up to the standards are not approved.
    Mr. Henderson Stewart: In the same circular, my hon. Friend will recall, the right hon. Gentleman made it plain that he did not desire, in making these further regulations, to delay the county councils in this work. Would my hon. Friend assure us that these further regulations have not in fact held up work under these Acts?
    Mr. Wedderburn: I do not know, but I think that they very probably have. I think that the average annual number of houses dealt with has been about 3,000. The figures I have given are for the first three or four months of the year, and a rough mental calculation does not show that the number this year will be much below that of last year. My right hon. Friend, having despatched one circular to Scotland, will have the duty of despatching to England one in which he will emphasise the following points: first, the importance of securing the inclusion of such substantial works as will make the house not merely of a minimum standard of fitness, but also of a good standard; secondly, the advantages which may be secured by the inclusion of such domestic conveniences as sinks, water closets, indoor water supply, modern cooking ranges and bathrooms; thirdly, the importance of a good standard in the actual execution of approved works; and, fourthly, the benefits which can be secured by the use of the provision for joint works, such as those of water supply and drainage.
    I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) is not here. He was good enough to accept with some appreciation the various concessions which my right hon. Friend has made, and he acknowledged that Scotsmen were open to reason,
    but not very much. He seemed to say that with some feeling, and one perhaps detected the ultimate cause of it when he told us later that his support of this Measure in 1931 was due only to his loyalty to a colleague. On that occasion he obviously did not find his Scottish colleague very much open to reason. I do not think that the unreasonableness is all on the side of Scotsmen, because I remember that last year at the Naval Review, on board the ship where many of us were, I spent most of an evening unsuccessfully endeavouring to persuade the right hon. Member for Wakefield to dance a reel. He was adamant in his refusal to listen to reason. I suppose that he is gradually becoming accustomed to resisting the arguments of his Scottish colleagues, and I am sorry that on this occasion—perhaps I am wrong in my surmise —he may perhaps have been adamant in resisting the suggestions of at least some of his Scottish colleagues on the other side of the House that he should not pursue his intention of voting against this Bill.
    Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    The House divided: Ayes, 186; Noes,111.

  AIR NAVIGATION (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]

  AIR NAVIGATION (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) BILL.

    CLAUSE 1.—(Increase of subsidies for air transport, 26 Geo. 5 & 1 Edw. 8, c. 44, 20 & 21 Geo. 5, C. 30.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    9.11 p.m.
    Mr. Montague: The Measure under consideration consists of two Clauses in the main, and the first Clause is the one on which there is controversy. May I commence by giving somewhat belated congratulations to the Under-Secretary upon his appointment to a Front Bench position and to his new office, and to express the hope that he will not ruin his departmental digestion by absorbing
    958
    too many prototypes. I do not intend to take up very much time, because we have already expressed our views upon the general principle of this Measure, and the House knows that we object entirely to the idea of State subsidies being given to private firms in the aircraft industry or any other industry; but I should like to draw attention to the statement of the Secretary of State on Second Reading as to the manner in which the subsidies are to be distributed. He said:
    "The additional financial assistance to be given upon the routes outside Europe will be approximately £1,000,000 "
    and that he hoped for a speeding up by
    "improved aircraft, in conjunction with companies of the Dominions, by extra services to Canada and by the development of the Australia-New Zealand services."
    Then he spoke about the services which should be established between London and the principal capitals of Europe, and said it was proposed to devote £400,000 to those services. Finally, he referred to £100,000 to be devoted to the inland services and hoped thus to
    "help those companies which are suffering losses to establish themselves on a sound commercial footing."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th May, 1938; cols. 427–8, Vol. 336.]
    The one thing we are entitled to know is what is to be done in distributing these subsidies. The general statements of the Minister are not sufficient. This is a Measure which is operated by means of Orders, and it is a comparatively new departure in Parliamentary practice for money to be spent in this way without a preliminary investigation by Parliament of what is to be done with the money. We are told that the amount of the subsidies will depend upon such conditions as the number of approved British aircraft employed, and the efficiency of the services operated on routes licensed by the licensing authority and approved for subsidy by the Air Ministry. The Minister also spoke about internal services which would be competing with one another.
    We had from the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Garro Jones) a brief resume of the development of civil aviation in this country, and he drew attention to the fact that at the beginning, as a result of the report of the Hambling Committee, a number of companies were brought in to form Imperial Airways. We wonder why the same principle is not adopted now, and why there should be

    959
    subsidies to what the Minister described as competing companies. If it is necessary to increase the subsidies and to expand the service in the way proposed, there is no reason why the same principle of conglomeration of existing air companies should not be adopted.
    What of the conditions of the subsidy? The right hon. Gentleman said:
    "We propose to devote some Zroo,000 to the inland services, and we hope thus to help those companies which are suffering losses to establish themselves on a sound commercial footing.''—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th May, 1938; col. 429, Vol. 336.]
    We ought to know what companies they are which are suffering losses. One or two of the companies which it is anticipated will receive subsidies have been operating fairly successfully for some time. In what way will they pass the examination, this means test, and be regarded as having suffered losses? One could understand a proposal to give a subsidy for expansion, but this is a case in which we should know the financial necessities of the companies and the reason for subsidising them for these competitive purposes. One of the conditions imposed is that they should agree to representatives of the Government upon their boards, but when we look at another part of the speech of the Under-Secretary we find that each company receiving the new subsidy is to have one Government representative upon its board. Does the Under-Secretary think that one representative of the Government upon each board is sufficient in the circumstances?
    One of the statements made is that companies who receive subsidies must understand that it is only temporary and that they have to put themselves upon a substantial basis. So far as they are concerned, aviation must fly by itself. We were told the same thing 14 or 15 years ago, in reference to Imperial Airways. We were told that the subsidies would not last for ever but would gradually diminish and eventually would be wiped out altogether. That has not been realised; in fact, the subsidies have been extended and have reached the gigantic figure, together with the other services and companies, of possibly £3,000,000 in the course of a year. What guarantee is there from the Government that the necessity for continuing the subsidies will not arise anew as it has arisen year by year in times past?
    960
    A question about which I feel strongly —I will not apologise for referring to it again because since reading the last Debate I have made personal inquiries about the matter—is the dismissed pilots. We were not at all satisfied with the reply of the Government. The Under-Secretary replied on that subject, and I am not charging him with replying with his tongue in his cheek; but, so far as he was briefed he was wrongly briefed. The true facts were not told to this House about the dismissal of the pilots. Perhaps I might recount the facts by way of introducing new facts that have not yet been told but which ought to be told about these dismissed pilots. There were either nine or ten pilots dismissed summarily by Imperial Airways, at the time when the Union, the Air Line Pilots' Association, was formed. They were dismissed upon the ground of redundancy; that is what we were told. I understand that the Air Line Pilots' Association are concentrating upon three of the pilots who are of greater importance from the navigational point of view. There is some point that they understand those matters better than others. It is a coincidence that they were all dismissed upon the ground of redundancy at the time that the Air Line Pilots' Association was formed.
    All the men were members, and the three pilots I have referred to were officials of the organisation. So far as I understand, no other reason has ever been given to the dismissed pilots. All three of those pilots are long-service, capable navigational officers. I stated in the course of my Second Reading speech that one of them was one of the two men in the world possessing the two certificates for land and marine navigation. That pilot was dismissed on the ground of redundancy; yet, in the week following, another pilot was taken upon a flying boat expedition —which crashed, I believe, at Athens—who had been only once in a flying boat. The other pilots were dismissed upon the same grounds at the same time, although Imperial Airways were employing and promoting other pilots to these responsible positions in their places.
    The Under-Secretary told us that two of the three pilots were dismissed but that the other one was simply not taken on again. One of them was to have a position given to him. The other two were

    961
    dismissed, with the proviso that Imperial Airways would not stand in their way for other engagements; in other words, that they would be given good references. If that is so, may I point out that after the speech made by the Under-Secretary of State in reply the commercial position of the pilots was much more unfavourable than before? He made it clearly evident that it was not merely a question of redundancy but of some dissatisfaction with these officers. We know what we think about that dissatisfaction. We are sure that it was dissatisfaction that they were responsible for the activities leading to the foundation of a union of pilots distinct from the well-known organisation the Guild of Air Pilots. It was obvious from the Under-Secretary's reply that it was not simply a question of redundancy.
    Let us consider the one who was not re-engaged. He is not going to be engaged by Imperial Airways, but by the new company that has been formed for flying upon the Paris route. Although it has been stated in this House that that man is upon the stocks, as it were, for re-engagement, he will not get a job until June of next year. The explanation which was given to the House is not satisfactory, and this is not a satisfactory way of dealing with long-service officers, who, if they have done any wrong ought to be given the opportunity of knowing what it was. They ought not to be put off with talk of redundancy. They should be able to make their answer to any charges that might be levelled at them. I hope that the Under-Secretary will give a better reply to-day than he did before, in the light of the fact that he said that the pilot was going to get a job—the pilot who was not dismissed but not re-engaged—and in view of the fact that the re-engagement will not be with Imperial Airways, but with the new company to be formed by Imperial Airways in conjunction with British Airways some time in the future.
    I again express on behalf of the Labour party one strong objection to this consistent policy of subsidies without any guarantee that they are necessary without any idea as to how they are going to be used but with power in the hands of the Government to play with public money as it chooses without any real reference to debate in the House. We object to that policy very strongly. We
    962
    do not propose to divide at this stage of the Bill but our strong objection is upon record.
    The Chairman: I think I could perhaps have ruled the hon. Gentleman out of order some time ago. I must say I do not think we can engage in a debate on this question on this Clause. I propose to treat what he said as in effect merely asking a question and I can permit a reply to it. That is not unusual. But I do not think this a proper subject for a long debate on this Clause.
    Mr. Kelly: On a point of Order. We are being asked in this Clause to vote a sum of money to particular individuals and it is assumed that they are going to use it as the House would desire.
    The Chairman: No, the hon. Member is mistaken. If he looks at the Clause, that is not the way it goes. I do not propose to discuss this. I (lid not stop the hon. Gentleman in his speech, I merely give a warning and I intend to stick to it.
    Mr. Wedgwood Benn: Do we understand that at no stage of the Bill will it be competent for anyone to raise the question of the position of these pilots?
    The Chairman: I did not say so. I have in fact allowed it to be raised, but I have said I could not allow the Clause to be treated as an occasion for a debate on the question.
    Mr. Benn: Would you be good enough to indicate say on which Clause the matter can be discussed?
    The Chairman: I do not think it could be discussed at great length on either of the Clauses.
    Mr. Benn: This is a subsidy to a private company and public money is being voted to it.
    The Chairman: No, the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken again. The Clause is merely one to enable the aggregate amount of certain subsidies which come under another Act of Parliament altogether to be increased.
    Mr. Benn: Atlhough it is true that the original power lies in another Act, this is a preliminary to a grant of £1,500,000 of public money to a company which is expanding and employing more personnel.

    963
    In the circumstances there must be some stage at which we can raise the question of the conditions under which the personnel are to be employed.
    The Chairman: The right hon. Gentleman might try but I see no reason for his argument. I have expressed an opinion to which I intend to adhere. I have not stopped any one.
    Mr. Montague: In his speech introducing the Second Reading the Minister concerned made a long statement as to how the money was to be spent in general, that is to say, in respect of the different types of service. If it would be out of order at any subsequent stage of the Bills' progress through the House, would it not be out of order at that time?
    The Chairman: Not necessarily. The Second Reading is quite a different matter to the question in Committee that Clause 1 stand part.
    9.30 p.m.
    Mr. Mander: I wish to say a few words on the subject of these pilots. I shall bear in mind the observations that you, Sir Dennis, have made in regard to Order, but I think it is clear that we can ask certain questions with regard to the organisation that is going to spend this largely increased sum before making that grant and one will be guided by the reply one gets as to whether it is a suitable organisation to which to make further grants. I do not want to use language with regard to these discharges which will stir up the troubles of the past and renew animosities and perhaps make things more difficult. We have some very gallant pilots who have rendered great service. There is really nothing against them at all, whatever the circumstances may have been in which their services were brought to a termination. Would it not be the right and proper thing now to go back and give them the opportunity to take up their old task which they carried out so well? Surely it would be in the public interest to do that. I understand that the position taken up by the Government is that the directors have looked into it and would be glad if it could be done. But we want something more than that. We want an assurance from the Government that they are through their directors going to put the greatest possible pressure on their colleagues on the board
    964
    and to use all the influence that they possess. We cannot ask for more. It is not under the direct control of the Government.
    With regard to the question of recognition of collective representation, we ought not to grant money to any firm which does not permit it to the fullest extent. I understand that a ballot is taking place now. Can we have an assurance that, if the employes show themselves in favour of collective organisation, there will be no further delay and that all negotiations will take place direct with the Air Line Pilots' Association just as would happen with any other trade union? There has been far too much delay over it, and I hope we can be assured that it is going to end now.
    9.33 P.m.
    Mr. Perkins: This matter was first raised by an hon. Member on the Liberal benches. I took it up a few days later and was greatly helped by the official Opposition. It has, therefore, become a non-party matter. Members in all sections of the House want to see justice done to these men. The injustice, if there was one, was done several months ago. Surely it is time that the parties engaged in the dispute forgot the past and buried the hatchet and that some of these men were reinstated. We now have the statement of the Under-Secretary to the effect that the Government directors have recommended that two of these men should be reinstated at some future time. Surely the right thing now is for the company in view of the fact that they are getting their subsidy practically doubled, to reinstate these two men and let us forget about the other eight. We ought to concentrate on the things that matter.
    The Chairman: I think the hon. Member is now getting into arguments which are out of order. The matter can be referred to and a question asked as a reason for passing or not passing a particular Clause, but the hon. Member is going beyond what I consider the limit.
    Mr. Perkins: I will only repeat the appeal I have made to my hon. and gallant Friend that the Government directors should definitely recommend the reinstatement of these pilots, and that he should do his best to get them reinstated at the earliest possible moment.
    9.35 P.m.
    Mr. Kelly: I hope, Captain Bourne, that I shall be able to keep well within the Ruling that has been given, but I must call attention to the fact that we are going to hand over £3,000,000 to this company, as against £1,500,000 which it has been receiving as a subsidy in the past, and we have a right to consider whether or not the people to whom we are handing public money in this way are people who can be entrusted to deal with it in a way that will satisfy the House of Commons. Up to the present one cannot say that they have shown, on their managerial side, a capacity for dealing properly and humanly with those who have rendered excellent service to them, which means that in that respect they have spent the £1,500,000 badly. We are now asked to hand over, if this Clause is passed, £3,000,000 to people who have not been able to deal in a good managerial fashion with the pilots in their employ. The position to-day is worse than it was when the matter was originally raised. They have now condemned a certain number of the men in the eyes of all employers throughout the country. They have said, in effect, that not one of these men is fit to come back into the employ of the company, which is subsidised by His Majesty's Government, but that, in view of the agitation which has been raised, and in view of the fear that they have been found out, they are prepared, not to employ any one of them, but to recommend that some other people may employ a couple of them. They have withdrawn the condemnation, they have withdrawn the victimization—because that is the only word—
    The Deputy-Chairman (Captain Bourne): The hon. Gentleman is now getting beyond what it is in order to raise on the Committee stage of this Bill.
    Mr. Kelly: Here are people who are going to utilise the money of the public of this country, and we expect that whoever expends that money will treat the people in the service in a way that we can justify to the whole country. In examining that question, I have to examine how they have treated the people in their employ when we gave them the £1,500,000, and I am wondering whether one can trust them with this money. As matters stand at present, I cannot trust Imperial Airways with this £3,000,000,
    966
    because the directors are not fitted to have the control of pilots, and therefore are not fitted to have this £3,000,000.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I must point out to the hon. Member that there is no suggestion in the Clause that either Imperial Airways or anyone else gets the money.
    Mr. Kelly: No, Sir, but it is to be used for the purposes of the Air Navigation Act, and they will receive part of it for the purpose of carrying out all that is in the Act. In fact, they have victimised eight men. What employer is going to employ them? They will be told, "Imperial Airways have not only refused to employ you, but have refused to recommend you with the other two." Therefore, these eight men, who have rendered excellent service, are being victimised before the whole country, indeed, before the whole world, because the work of an air pilot is not only a national matter, but an international matter, and it is well known throughout the world that these men have been stated to be unfit for work which they have proved themselves capable of performing in an excellent way in the past. I have been dealing with employers for many years now—
    The Deputy-Chairman: I really cannot allow the hon. Gentleman to pursue that argument. This is a lump sum for civil aviation, and there is nothing in the Bill to say that this sum is to be paid to any company.
    Mr. Benn: On that point of Order, may I draw your attention to the words which describe this as a sum to supplement a sum granted under the Air Transport (Subsidy Agreement) Act, 1930? If I mistake not, the Air Transport (Subsidy Agreement) Act, 1930, was an Act to subsidise Imperial Airways.
    The Deputy-Chairman: It does not say that any of this sum is to go to Imperial Airways.
    Mr. Kelly: While they are not mentioned here, we are dealing with the people who are carrying on this work of air navigation, and we know who is intended and whom the Government have in mind at this moment. I say at once that, if it is intended by the Government that any portion of this £3,000,000 is to go to these people, I hope the Government will think, not only once, but many

    967
    times, before they entrust them with money, in view of the way in which they have victimised these pilots, who ought now to be in the service of this company and of our air navigation, instead of being condemned as they are at this moment.
    9.43 p.m.
    Miss Wilkinson: I do not want to go into details with regard to any particular company, as that has been ruled out of order, but I want to deal with that section of the Bill which says that the members of any licensing authority—
    The Deputy-Chairman: The hon. Lady can raise that question on Clause 2.
    Miss Wilkinson: It is a general issue that I want to raise, and I want to raise it in this way. I presume it is expected by the Government that this £3,000,000 will not be paid as a subsidy every year for ever and ever, but that it is hoped that the company or companies concerned will in due time be able to earn sufficient in the ordinary course of civil aviation to do without a subsidy. It is, therefore, extremely important, especially in view of the report which we have in our minds, though we are not raising it to-night, that something should be done by the Minister to re-establish in the minds of the public confidence in British civil aviation as a reliable service. The Minister does not perhaps realise how deep has been the suspicion of ramp and of inefficiency in British civil aviation, and, therefore, I suggest that the new Ministry, in taking this matter over, will do well to consider in what way public confidence can best be established.
    A large number of people like myself, connected with the trade union movement, travel wherever we can by air, being very busy people with very little time to spend on travelling. People of that kind use civil aviation as much as anybody, and there is a very large number of them. One thing about which we are concerned is that, so far as it lies in our power, we will not use non-trade union labour, and will not be served by non-trade union labour. I have not made one journey by Imperial Airways since these men have been dismissed, nor will I. I insist on travelling by a trade union line. I am assured that the French
    968
    pilots are all members of their appropriate trade union organisation. Therefore, I use their services; and, as far as it lies within the power of not only myself and the officials of my union, but of other members of the Trades Union Congress and the National Executive of the Labour party, we shall not, if we can avoid it, be served by non-union labour. I suggest that this is a point that the new Minister ought to take into account. The company have already lost a considerable amount of traffic in this way, and they will lose more if they are going to take this attitude. These men, as we believe—and we have seen nothing to disabuse us of that opinion—have been victimised for starting to organise.
    It is not the fault of the Under-Secretary, nor is it the fault of the Minister. They come to this matter with clean hands, and, I hope, pure hearts. The Minister himself, while at the Ministry of Health, has been continually dealing with trade union delegations, and understands how necessary this attitude is in the modern world. I suggest that it would be, even from their own point of view, not only a gracious but a businesslike attitude if they said, "We realise that there has been this dispute; let us start again, and, as there is nothing against these men except their desire to organise, we will insist on their reinstatement." If the Minister does that, he will do a great deal towards restoring public confidence, and if he does not, he will soon realise that responsible people in this country put trade union principles first.
    9.48 p.m.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Captain Harold Balfour): I hope that I shall keep within the Ruling of the Chair in endeavouring to answer some of the questions which have been put to me, and that, in doing so, I shall be allowed the latitude which hon. Members opposite hoped I should be given in order that they might receive the replies which I think they were quite entitled to have to their questions. The hon. Member for West Islington (Mr. Montague) asked me various questions as to how the subsidy was to be expended in respect of external and internal lines. I would point out that Parliament is not losing control of the money which is being voted, because all that we are doing is to authorise the increase of the maximum subsidy to

    969
    £3,000,000, and each subsidy allotted to any particular service is to be the subject of a special agreement, to be set out in the form of a White Paper which will be laid before Parliament. To that extent we can say that we are not losing control of this money. As to the question of how the internal lines subsidy is to be administered, I cannot give any more information, because that must essentially depend on the outcome of applications for licences to the licensing authority for internal air lines which is being set up by this Bill. Obviously, it will be those companies which are successful in fulfilling the conditions laid down for the grant of licences which will then be able to apply for and obtain some portion of this subsidy.
    Mr. Montague: Does that mean that every company that seeks and obtains a licence gets a subsidy?
    Captain Balfour: It means that every company that seeks and obtains a licence will be eligible to apply for the subsidy; but I cannot say at this moment who will get it, because there are certain conditions laid down by the Government as to eligibility for this subsidy. The hon. Gentleman asked whether companies which are doing well would have the same advantages as those that are sustaining losses at the present time, in applying for subsidies. I do not think that the financial state of the company should be the determining factor in regard to the grant of the subsidy, but rather the financial result which is the outcome of operating any particular service. It might well be that a company of financial strength will he running an uneconomic line from A to B and, because they are running that line, they might be granted the subsidy; whereas there might be a company in not so strong a financial position which was running a very paying line from C to D, and they would not be eligible for the subsidy because the line C to D would be a paying line, whereas A to B would be a losing line.
    Mr. Benn: Is it contemplated, therefore, that A to B would be a permanently subsidised line?
    Captain Balfour: No, Sir. I was trying to put forward that the criterion for granting subsidies should not be the balance-sheet of the company, but rather the
    970
    economic results of the line that the company are trying to undertake. The subsidy is to be a diminishing one. That applies to all subsidies, external and internal. I must join issue with the hon. Gentleman on the point that he made, that although many Governments in the past have adopted the attitude that civil aviation should fly by iself, to-day the subsidy is increased for external services. That is not quite fair, unless you also take into account the task which is being undertaken in return for the subsidy; and if you work out the task which is being undertaken now under the Empire Air Mail scheme, you will find that, although the subsidy granted in total is greater now than in the past, the subsidy per tonmile—and that is the important consideration—is some 5o per cent. less under the new Empire Air Mail agreement than under any air transport agreement in the past. The proposals for the granting of the increased subsidy which may be the outcome of the increased sums we are now asking Parliament to authorise are now unsettled; but we aim at the subsidy being a diminishing sum in relation to the task set, although, let me repeat, the total may be greater because the tasks are greater. The hon. Gentleman then went on to the vexed question of pilots. I should like to be allowed to answer the question he put. He said that I spoke on the Second Reading of the Bill with my tongue in my cheek, and that I was briefed wrongly.
    Mr. Montague: I said that the hon. and gallant Gentleman was briefed wrongly, but that he could not have been speaking with his tongue in his cheek because he has just come to that Bench.
    Captain Balfour: I was not speaking with my tongue in my cheek, nor do I consider that I was briefed wrongly. It is difficult for me to go into the matter in any detail. I gave certain facts on the Second Reading of the Bill. The facts are that the pilots were dismissed by the company and that, at the request of the Government, the Government directors went into the question as to the reasons for the dismissal and the justification or otherwise for that dismissal. They interviewed five pilots, and I shall not prove to be wrong, because I saw the Government directors' report myself. The Government directors found that the dismissals were justified, and they secondly found—
    Mr. Kelly: On what grounds?
    Captain Balfour: I do not know, and I submit that no one in this Committee, either a Member of the Government or anyone else, is entitled to ask for the full private domestic reasons as recorded in the minutes of the board of the company.
    Mr. S. O. Davies: Do we understand the hon. and gallant Gentleman to tell the Committee that he personally saw the report, and that he knew of the grounds upon which these pilots had been dismissed?
    Captain Balfour: I never said I knew. I will be perfectly frank with the Committee and give them the full knowledge I have got. I have seen the Government Directors' report to my right hon. Friend's predecessor, which says that the Government Directors investigated the circumstances of the dismissals and found that the dismissals were justified.
    Mr. Montague: These pilots were told at the time—and they have been told nothing else since—that they were dismissed on grounds of redundancy. Were these the grounds?
    Captain Balfour: I do not know.
    Miss Wilkinson: You ought to know.
    Captain Balfour: We asked the Government directors to investigate the circumstances of the dismissal of these pilots, and they reported to us that the dismissal was justified, and, secondly, that it had nothing at all to do with membership of the Air Line Pilots' Association.
    Mr. Benn: On a point of Order, Captain Bourne. I believe that it is the practice in this House that if a Minister makes substantial reference to some document the House is entitled to have the document laid, and may I ask you whether the reference made by the Under-Secretary in this case comes under that Ruling?
    The Deputy-Chairman: It is an old rule of the House that if a Minister quotes from a document—
    Mr. Benn: No, makes "substantial reference."
    The Deputy-Chairman: —the House is entitled to have the document laid on the Table. The right hon. Gentleman will realise that I am myself at a disadvantage
    972
    in that I have not seen the document, and I am unable to say whether the Under-Secretary has or has not quoted substantially from it, but I am sure that if he has, he will conform to the ordinary rules of the House.
    Miss Wilkinson: Is not the position rather serious and the necessity for the document being laid still greater when the effect of the Minister's speech is to take away the characters of these men by unconfirmed charges of which the men themselves have not been told and to which, therefore, they have never been able to reply?
    The Deputy-Chairman: That does not appear to me to be a point of Order.
    Captain Balfour: I have given the Committee the gist of what the Government directors have told my right hon. Friend.
    Mr. Benn: On a point of Order, Captain Bourne. May I call your attention to the words which have just been used by the Minister saying that he has given us the gist of the report of the Government directors? I submit, not for your immediate decision, but for your further consideration, that the words "the gist" of the Government directors' report constitute what, under the Standing Order, would be covered by "substantial reference" to the document.
    Sir Ronald Ross: Does that involve a written or a verbal report?
    The Deputy-Chairman: With regard to the point raised by the hon. Member, as I stated earlier, I have not seen the report, and I have no idea whether it is oral or in writing, and I can give no decision. With regard to the "gist of the report," the words in the Manual of Procedure are as follows:
    "If a Minister of the Crown quotes to the House from a document which has not been presented to the House, it ought to be laid on the Table."
    I do not find there the words "the gist" of the report. Whether the Minister has quoted from the report or not, which, as I stated before, I have not seen, I have not the means to decide, and I am certain that if he has quoted from it he ought to follow the ordinary rules of the House.
    Captain Balfour: I have not quoted. I have not the document here, so it would

    973
    be quite impossible for me to quote from the document. I have given the Committee the general effect of the report and, furthermore, I submit to you, Captain Bourne, that it is not a State paper, but a private commercial paper. I would ask your Ruling whether this document—a private report from the Government directors—would come within the scope of even a State paper?
    The Deputy-Chairman: On that point I am not prepared at this moment without consideration to express an opinion, but the words I have read from Erskine May say, "read or quote."
    Mr. Benn: I am not asking for an immediate Ruling. Time should be given, but my recollection is that Erskine May describes the meaning of that Clause as being a substantial reference. My recollection is that the words are "substantial reference," and I ask you to take that into consideration when giving a Ruling on this point.
    Miss Wilkinson: Is it not the fact that any Minister could get out of that Standing Order by not quoting the actual words, and yet give, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton (Mr. Benn) said, the gist of it? Therefore, is not the Committee entitled to have it laid?
    The Deputy-Chairman: At the moment I have not had an opportunity of consulting Erskine May to know whether it was an actual quotation and not the gist, but I do not want to tie myself because I have not looked at Erskine May.
    Mr. Benn: Will you be prepared at a suitable moment to yourself to give a Ruling on the point?
    The Deputy-Chairman: I will certainly look into the question, but I am not prepared to give a Ruling now.
    Mr. J. J. Davidson: May I submit this point of Order. This question with reference to pilots was raised in the House of Commons and as a consequence the Under-Secretary has referred to this report. Therefore, is it not the right and privilege of Members who desire this investigation to have this report submitted?
    The Deputy-Chairman: No, certainly not. There is no rule of that kind. A report may be of a confidential nature or
    974
    otherwise, but it may be impossible to discuss it or to have it laid.
    Miss Wilkinson: Surely, the Committee is entitled to know the charges to which the Minister has referred and which he tells the Committee he has not seen, when the livelihood of these men is at stake.
    The Deputy-Chairman: That is not a point for me to decide.
    Captain Balfour: I am producing no charges at all against anybody.
    Mr. G. Griffiths: On a point of Order. When the Minister states that the Government directors have made investigations and were satisfied that there was justification for the dismissal of these men, was he quoting actually what they said?
    Captain Balfour: The Government directors have reported to my right hon. Friend's predecessor that they have investigated the circumstances of the dismissals and they have found, first, that the dismissals were, in their opinion, justified; and, secondly, that those dismissals had nothing to do with the Air Line Pilots' Association.
    Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order. I want to know whether the Under-Secretary is giving his own opinion of what the directors found, or is he quoting from the directors' report?
    The Deputy-Chairman: That is not a point of Order.
    Captain Balfour: I am endeavouring to be quite frank with the Committee. I am stating that the Government directors reported to my right hon. Friend's predecessor that, in their opinion, the dismissals were justified and that those dismissals had nothing to do with the Air Line Pilots' Association.
    Miss Wilkinson: With what had they to do?
    Captain Balfour: I cannot tell the hon. Lady, because I have not asked and I do not know. There comes a time when the domestic affairs of a company have to be ruled by the company's directors who are responsible for the administration of that company, even when you have on that company's hoard two Government

    975
    directors of whom we can ask questions and to whom we can refer matters. [Interruption.]
    The Deputy-Chairman: I think we should get on better if the Minister were allowed to make his own statement.
    Miss Wilkinson: On a point of Order. We are facing to-day a most serious charge against honoured servants of this company, and we cannot learn from the Minister why these men have been dismissed. We get more and more vague charges, and I suggest to you that when charge after charge is made the Minister ought to say what are the grounds; if not, we ought to report Progress until we can find out.
    The Deputy-Chairman: That is not a point of Order.
    Captain Balfour: May I repeat, that I am making no charges against these pilots and that to the best of my knowledge no charge has been formulated against them which has been made public and which has affected their reputation? All that has happened is that they have been dismissed and that in the opinion of the Government directors those dismissals were justified.
    Mr. Benn: On a point of Order. This is a very important matter. When the Under-Secretary says that in the opinion of the Government directors these dismissals were justified, is he using the words which the Government directors used in their report?
    Captain Balfour: I would not say that I am using the exact words which the Government directors used in their report. I am trying to be frank with the Committee and giving them a gist of the information which my right hon. Friend's predecessor received from the two Government directors who, at his request, looked into the question of these dismissals. They found, first, that the dismissals were justified—
    Miss Wilkinson: On what were they justified?
    Captain Balfour: I presume that they were justified because the internal administration of the company made the dismissals necessary. In order that it should be made doubly sure, the matter was investigated by the Government directors,
    976
    who endorsed the decision of the board of directors which had been previously arrived at. In order to deal with questions which had been asked in this House, perfectly justifiably asked, as to whether there was any victimisation, the Government directors have specifically given the opinion that the dismissals had nothing whatever to do with the Air Line Pilots' Association.
    Miss Wilkinson: On a point of Order. The Minister has repeated four times what he has just told us, but he has not made any attempt to answer the point we have raised that—
    Mr. Boothby: On a further point of Order.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I think we had better deal with one point of Order at a time.
    Miss Wilkinson: These men were told that they were redundant. They were not told any other charge, and now the Minister says that they were dismissed on some other ground which had nothing whatever to do with their having joined the Air Line Pilots' Association. Are we not as a Committee, before we vote £3,000,000 of public money, entitled to know why these men were dismissed?
    The Deputy-Chairman: The Committee is not entitled to know. That may be a reason for turning down this Clause, but the Committee cannot get information from the Minister which the Minister does not possess.
    Captain Balfour: The hon. Lady complains that I have repeated myself three or four times. It is true that I have repeated myself, because she asked me the same question three or four times, and there is only one reply, which is the straight and honest one which I have given. I do not know, and I have not asked for the full reasons, the domestic and internal reasons, why the company took this action. We asked the Government directors whether the dismissals were justified, and they informed my right hon. Friend's predecessor that in their opinion they were justified. There is no charge being made against these men by me, and I do not intend to go any further than that to-night. Two of the five pilots whose cases were investigated by the Government directors were made the subject of favourable

    977
    recommendations, one for reinstatement and the other that he should be given employment in some future London-Paris concern when that comes about.
    As regards the second pilot, who is recommended for re-employment at some future date if Imperial Airways have any participation, major or minor, in such a joint enterprise as may be set up, the fact that he was one of the five dismissed pilots is not in any way to count against his employment. As regards the other pilot who was recommended for reinstatement, his case has been referred to the technical advisers of the company, who, for technical reasons, do not recommend his reinstatement, on grounds which, as far as I know, may be entirely different from those of the original dismissal, the reasons for which I have not asked. I submit to the Committee that the directors of a company who have technical advisers responsible to the company for the safety of passengers would be in an impossible position if they went against the advice of those technical advisers. If any unfortunate event ever happened there would always be the fact that the advice of the technical advisers had been ignored.
    Mr. S. O. Davies: Is not that by implication a charge of inefficiency against the pilot referred to? Nothing else can be read into it.
    Captain Balfour: The hon. Member is referring to pilots. I am referring to one specific pilot. The hon. Member for West Islington (Mr. Montague) has said that the commercial position of these five pilots has been worsened. I submit to the Committee that the remarks we have heard from the Opposition as regard charges which have never been made by me or anyone else is the worst turn that could be done to these pilots. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton East (Mr. Mander) asked whether there was going to be recognition of collective representation and whether I could give an assurance that the ballot which is now taking place in Imperial Airways as to the way in which the pilots desire to be represented, whether by a domestic committee elected by themselves or by the Air Line Pilots' Association, was being conducted scrupulously fairly. I can give him that
    978
    assurance. In reply to a question to-day I said that I have arranged that a copy of the ballot paper, and the covering letter which goes with it, shall be available for hon. Members in the Library. The conditions are scrupulously fair, and will, I believe, satisfy everyone who wishes this matter to be settled in a fair and open manner.
    Mr. Mander: Will the decision when taken be carried out without delay, whatever it is?
    Captain Balfour: Yes, Sir. The company have every wish to fall in with the majority view as to the way in which the pilots wish to be represented and are wining to assist and co-operate with the pilots in setting up the machinery forthwith. I have endeavoured to answer the points which have been put to me in the course of the discussion, and in conclusion may I say that I have tried to let no hasty words fall from me which may damage the reputation of these pilots and against whom no charges have been made from this side of the House, but I would appeal to hon. Members opposite to remember that in dealing with this matter they likewise have responsibilities almost, if not as great, as we have.
    Mr. Montague: Will the Government agree to postpone further consideration of this Measure until the Chairman has had an opportunity of considering the question raised with regard to procedure in reference to papers quoted?
    Captain Balfour: I have never admitted that I have quoted any paper; I have no papers with me from which to quote. The answer to the hon. Member is "No."
    Mr. Montague: In view of that decisive answer, and in view of the extreme dissatisfaction that is felt in regard to the reply of the Minister, I beg to move, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."
    Question put, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."
    The Committee divided: Ayes, 86; Noes, 145.

    Division No. 216.]

    AYES.

    [9.0 p.m.

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

    Crooke, Sir J. S.

    Grimston, R. V.

    Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.

    Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.

    Guinness, T. L. E. B.

    Allan, Col. J. Sandeman (B'knhead)

    Croom-Johnson, R. P.

    Gunston, Capt. Sir D. W.

    Amery, Rt. Hon. L. C. M. S.

    Crossley, A, C-

    Hambro, A. V.

    Aske, Sir R. W.

    Crowdar, J. F. E.

    Hannah, I. C.

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

    Culverwell, C. T.

    Hannon, Sir P. J. H

    Barelay-Harvay, Sir C. M.

    Davidson, Viscountess

    Harbord, A.

    Beamish, Roar-Admiral T. P. H.

    Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)

    Harris, Sir P. A.

    Birchall, Sir J. D.

    Davison, Sir W. H.

    Haslam, Henry (Horncastle)

    Blair, Sir R.

    Dawson, Sir P.

    Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)

    Boothby, R. J. G.

    Denman, Hon. R. D.

    Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.

    Braithwaite, Major A. N.

    Doland, G. F.

    Haly-Hutchinson, M. R.

    Brass, Sir W.

    Dower, Major A. V. G.

    Hepworth, J.

    Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

    Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)

    Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)

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

    Dugdale, Captain T. L.

    Holmes, J. S.

    Bull, B. B.

    Duncan, J. A. L.

    Hops, Captain Hon. A. O. J.

    Burgin, Rt. Hon. E. L.

    Dunglass, Lord

    Hopkinson, A.

    Butcher, H. W.

    Eastwood, J. F.

    Horsbrugh, Florence

    Campbell, Sir E. T.

    Edmondson, Major Sir J.

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

    Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)

    Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.

    Hunter. T.

    Channon, H.

    Ellis, Sir G.

    Hutchinson, G. C.

    Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)

    Emrys-Evans, P. V.

    James, Wing-Commander A. W. H.

    Clarke, Colonel R. S. (E. Grinstead)

    Erskine-Hill, A. G.

    Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k N'w'gt'n)

    Clarry, Sir Reginald

    Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)

    Jones, Sir H. Haydn (Merioneth)

    Cobb, Captain E. C. (Preston)

    Fleming, E. L.

    Jones, L. (Swansea W.)

    Colfox, Major W. P.

    Fremantle, Sir F. E.

    Keeling, E. H.

    Conant, Captain R. J. E.

    George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)

    Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)

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

    Gluckstein, L. H.

    Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

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

    Gower, Sir R. V.

    Kimball, L.

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

    Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)

    Latham, Sir P.

    Courtauld, Major J. S.

    Gridley, Sir A. B.

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

    Craven-Ellis, W.

    Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)

    Leech, Sir J. W.

    Lewis, O.

    Proeter, Major H. A.

    Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h)

    Liddall, W. S.

    Radford, E. A.

    Tasker, Sir R. I.

    Little, Sir E. Graham-

    Ramsay, Captain A. H. M

    Tate, Mavis C.

    Liewellin, Colonel J. J.

    Ramsbotham, H.

    Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)

    Mabane, W. (Huddersfield)

    Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)

    Thomas, J. P. L.

    McCorquodale, M. S.

    Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

    Thomson, Sir J. D. W.

    Macdonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)

    Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

    Touche, G. C.

    Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)

    Remer, J. R.

    Tufnall, Lieut.-Commander R. L.

    Macquisten, F. A.

    Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)

    Turton, R. H.

    Magnay, T.

    Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)

    Wakefield, W. W.

    Maitland, A.

    Ropner- Colonel L.

    Walker-Smith, Sir J.

    Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.

    Ross, Major Sir R. D. (Londonderry)

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

    Manningham-Buller, Sir M.

    Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)

    Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)

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

    Rowlands, G.

    Waterhouse, Captain C.

    Markham, S. F.

    Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.

    Wayland, Sir W. A

    Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

    Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.

    Wedderburn, H. J. S.

    Meller, Sir R. J. (Mitcham)

    Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)

    Wells, S. R.

    Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)

    Salmon, Sir I.

    White, H. Graham

    Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

    Salt, E. W.

    Whiteley, Major J. P. (Buckingham)

    Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)

    Samuel, M. R. A.

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

    Morgan, R. H.

    Seely, Sir H. M.

    Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)

    Morris, J. P. (Salford, N.)

    Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)

    Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G-

    Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.

    Shepperson, Sir E. W.

    Wise, A. R.

    Munre, P.

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

    Womersloy, Sir W. J.

    Nicolson, Hon. H. G.

    Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.

    Wood, Hon. C. I. C.

    O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh

    Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

    Wragg, H.

    Perkins, W. R. D.

    Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)

    Wright, Wing-Commander J. A. C.

    Petherick, M.

    Spans, W. P.

    Young, A. S. L. (Partick)

    Pilkthorn, K. W. M.

    Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)

    Pilkington, R.

    Strauss, E A. (Southwark, N.)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    Ponsonby, Col. C. E.

    Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)

    Lieut.-Colonel Kerr and Major Harvie Watt.

    NOES.

    Adams, D. (Consett)

    Hayday, A.

    Pethick-Lawrence, Rt. Hon. F. W.

    Adamson, W. M.

    Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

    Price, M. P.

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

    Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

    Pritt, D. N.

    Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

    Henderson, T. (Tradeston)

    Quibell, D. J. K.

    Banfield, J. W.

    Hills, A. (Pontefract)

    Richards, R. (Wrexham)

    Barnes, A. J.

    Hopkin, D.

    Ritson, J.

    Barr, J.

    Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

    Salter, Dr. A. (Bermondsey)

    Batey, J.

    John, W.

    Sexton. T. M.

    Bellenger, F. J.

    Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.

    Shinwell, E.

    Benn, Rt. Hon. W. W.

    Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)

    Silkin, L.

    Benson, G.

    Kelly, W. T.

    Silverman, S. S.

    Broad, F. A.

    Kirby, B. V.

    Smith, E. (Stoke)

    Bromfield, W.

    Kirkwood, D.

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

    Brown, C. (Mansfield)

    Lawson, J. J.

    Smith, T. (Normanton)

    Burke, W. A.

    Leach, W.

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Chater, D.

    Lee, F-

    Stephen, C.

    Cluse, W. S.

    Leonard, W.

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

    Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.

    Leslie, J. R.

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

    Cooke, F. S.

    Lunn, W.

    Summerskill, Edith

    Cove, W. G.

    Macdonald, G. (Ince)

    Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

    Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford

    McEntee, V. La T.

    Thurtle, E.

    Daggar, G.

    McGhee, H. G.

    Tinker, J. J.

    Dalton, H.

    Maclean, N.

    Tomlinson, G.

    Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)

    Mander. G. le M.

    Walker, J.

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Marshall, F.

    Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. J. C.

    Dobbie, W.

    Maxton, J.

    Welsh, J. C.

    Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

    Messer, F.

    Westwood, J.

    Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

    Milner, Major J.

    Whiteley, W. (Blaydon)

    Frankel, D.

    Montague, F.

    Wilkinson, Ellen

    Gallacher, W.

    Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Hackney, S.)

    Williams, D. (Swansea, E.)

    Gardner, B. W.

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

    Williams, E J. (Ogmore)

    Gibson, R. (Greenock)

    Muff, G.

    Williams, T. (Don Valley)

    Green, W. H. (Deptford)

    Naylor, T. E.

    Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)

    Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.

    Noel-Baker, P. J.

    Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

    Grenfell, D. R.

    Oliver, G. H.

    Young, Sir R. (Newton)

    Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

    Paling, W.

    Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

    Parker, J.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

    Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)

    Pearson, A.

    Mr. Charleton and Mr. Groves.

    Question put, and agreed to.

    Division No. 217.]

    AYES.

    [10.20 p.m.

    Adams, D. (Consett)

    Grenfell, D. R.

    Pritt, D. N.

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

    Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)

    Quibell, D. J. K.

    Amman, C. G.

    Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)

    Riley, B.

    Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.

    Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)

    Ritson, J.

    Barnes, A. J.

    Harris, Sir P. A.

    Seely, Sir H. M.

    Barr, J.

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

    Sexton, T. M.

    Batey, J.

    Henderson, J. (Ardwick)

    Silverman, S. S.

    Benn, Rt. Hon. W. W.

    Hills, A. (Pontefract)

    Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)

    Bromfield, W.

    Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)

    Smith, E. (Stoke)

    Burke, W. A.

    Johnston, Rt. Hon. T.

    Smith, T. (Normanton)

    Charleton, H. C.

    Jones, Sir H. Haydn (Merioneth)

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

    Cluse, W. S.

    Kelly, W. T.

    Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

    Cooks, F. S.

    Kirby, B. V.

    Tinker, J. J.

    Cove, W. G.

    Kirkwood, D.

    Tomlinson, G.

    Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford

    Lawson, J. J.

    Walkden, A. G.

    Daggar, G.

    Lea, F.

    Walker, J.

    Dalton, H.

    Lunn, W.

    Welsh, J. C.

    Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)

    Maclean, N.

    Westwood, J.

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Mander, G. le M.

    White, H. Graham

    Day, H.

    Marshall, F.

    Wilkinson, Ellen

    Dobbie, W.

    Messer, F.

    Williams, D. (Swansea, E.)

    Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)

    Milner, Major J.

    Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)

    Edwards. A. (Middlesbrough E.)

    Montague, F.

    Williams, T. (Don Valley)

    Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)

    Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Hackney, S.)

    Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)

    Evans D. O. (Cardigan)

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

    Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)

    Gallacher, W.

    Oliver, G. H.

    Young, Sir R. (Newton)

    Gardner, B. W.

    Paling, W.

    George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)

    Parker, J.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—

    Gibson, R. (Greenock)

    Pearson, A.

    Mr. Whiteley and Mr. John.

    Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.

    Price, M. P.

    NOES

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

    Gower, Sir R. V.

    O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh

    Agnew, Lieut.-Comdr. P. G.

    Graham, Captain A. C. (Wirral)

    Petherick, M.

    Albery, Sir Irving

    Gridley, Sir A. B.

    Pilkington, R.

    Allen, Col. J. Sandeman (B'knhead)

    Grimston, R. V.

    Ponsonby. Col. C. E.

    Anstruther-Gray, W. J.

    Gunston, Capt. Sir D. W.

    Procter, Major H. A.

    Aske, Sir R. W.

    Hambro, A. V.

    Radford. E. A.

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

    Hannah, I. C.

    Ramsbotham, H.

    Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M.

    Hannon, Sir P. J. H.

    Reed, A. C. (Exeter)

    Beamish, Rear Admiral T. P. H.

    Harberd, A.

    Reid, W. Allan (Derby)

    Birchall, Sir J. D.

    Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)

    Remer, J. R.

    Boothby, R. J. G.

    Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.

    Rickards, G W. (Skipton)

    Braithwaite, Major A. N.

    Hely-Hutchinson, M. R.

    Ropner, Colonel L.

    Brass, Sir W.

    Hepworth, J.

    Ross, Major Sir R. D. (Londonderry)

    Briscoe, Capt. R. G.

    Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)

    Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)

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

    Holmes, J. S.

    Rowlands, G.

    Butcher, H. W.

    Hopkinson, A.

    Royds, Admiral Sir P. M. R.

    Campbell, Sir E. T.

    Horsbrugh, Florence

    Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.

    Cayzer, Sir H. R. (Portsmouth, S.)

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

    Shepperson, Sir E. W.

    Channon, H.

    Hunter, T.

    Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.

    Chapman. A. (Rut her glen)

    Hutchinson, G. C.

    Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)

    Clarke, Colonel R. S. (E. Grinstead)

    Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k N'w'gt'n)

    Spens, W. P.

    Cobb. Cantata E. C. (Preston)

    Jones, L. (Swansea W.)

    Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)

    Colman, N. C. D.

    Keeling. E. H.

    Storey, S.

    Conant, Captain R. J. E.

    Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)

    Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)

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

    Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)

    Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)

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

    Kimball, L.

    Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h)

    Courtauld, Major J. S.

    Latham, Sir P.

    Tasker. Sir R. I.

    Craven-Ellis, W.

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

    Thomas, J. P. L.

    Crooke, Sir J. S.

    Leech, Sir J. W.

    Thomson, Sir J. D. W.

    Croom-Johnson, R. P.

    Leighton, Major B. E. P.

    Touche, G. C.

    Crowder. J. F. E.

    Liddall. W. S.

    Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.

    Davies, C. (Montgomery)

    Little, Sir E. Graham.

    Wakefield, W. W.

    Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)

    Llewellin, Colonel J. J.

    Walker-Smith, Sir J.

    Dawson. Sir P.

    Locker-Lampson, Comdr. O. S.

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

    Dower, Major A. V. G.

    McKie, J. H.

    Ward, Irene M. B. (Wallsend)

    Duckworth. W. R. (Moss Side)

    Macquisten, F. A.

    Waterhouse, Captain C.

    Dugdale, Captain T. L.

    Magnay, T.

    Watt, Major G. S. Harvie

    Duncan, J. A. L.

    Manningham-Buller, Sir M,

    Wedderburn, H. J. S.

    Eckersley, P. T.

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

    Wells, S. R.

    Ellis, Sir G.

    Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.

    Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.

    Elmley, Viscount

    Meller, Sir R. J. (Mitcham)

    Wise, A. R.

    Emery. J. F.

    Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)

    Womersley, Sir W. J.

    Emrys-Evans, P. V.

    Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)

    Wragg, H.

    Erskine-Hill. A. G.

    Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)

    Wright, Wing-Commander J. A. C.

    Evans, Capt. A. (Cardiff, S.)

    Moore, Lieut.-Colonel Sir T. C. R.

    Young, A. S. L. (Partick)

    Fleming, E. L.

    Morgan, R. H.

    Fremantle, Sir F. E.

    Morris, J. P. (Salford, N.)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—

    Fyfe. D. P. M.

    Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.

    Captain Hone and Major Sir

    Gluckstein, L. H.

    Munro, P.

    James Edmondson.

    Goldie, N. B.

    Nail, Sir J.

    Question again proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    10.28 p.m.
    Mr. Paling: When this matter was discussed on the Second Reading of the Bill, I think the House generally was dissatisfied with the answer that was given. It left rather a nasty flavour. In view of the appeals which were made on the Second Reading, and in view of the appeals which have been made to-night, not by Members of one party alone, we hoped that it would have been found possible to have given a very different answer to this question from that which we have received. We hoped that it would be found possible to wipe the slate clean, as far as any crime that has been committed by these men is concerned—although I cannot find that they have been guilty of any crime. But in any case, in view of the fact that we are, as it were making a new start in this matter and that this Bill gives more money we hoped that the Government would find it possible to wipe the slate clean, as I say, to reinstate these pilots and to start afresh. I think that hope was shared by almost everybody. We regret that the Government have not found it possible to do what we had hoped for and that even what they have done, has been done in such a very bad manner. It has been done meanly and grudgingly, and on conditions which almost make it impossible for those concerned to accept even what is offered to them. I was hoping that the new Under-Secretary of State and the new Minister for Air would have tackled that position and tried to bring a satisfactory solution to the Committee, but they have not done so and I am very sorry indeed.
    I do not want to rake up the whole business, but we are suspicious of it. These people were sacked because of redundancy, we understood, but it happened that they were found redundant at the same time that they had become members of a trade union, and we find it hard to believe that there was no association between the two matters. If they were sacked for redundancy, is that the charge that the Government directors have found proved against them? The Government directors have found that the company were justified in sacking these men. What is the charge? Is it still that of redundancy, and if it was, why are these conditions as to their re-employment
    982
    laid down? The whole thing will not bear examination, and we suspect that it is an apology, that they do not want to set these men on, and that they have got out of it as best they could with a kind of apologetic statement. I hope the Minister and the Under-Secretary of State will look again into this business in view of the disquiet that reigns in this Committee about it.
    If these men have committed a crime—and we do not admit it—they are not the only ones. This company, which has sacked them, has itself stood in the dock. There has been a Cadman Committee appointed, which has gone into the whole business and put this company in the dock, and it has been found guilty. If this Committee were as ungenerous to Imperial Airways, who have been found guilty, as Imperial Airways have been ungenerous to these pilots, who have not been found guilty, instead of giving the company £1,500,000 subsidy on top of what they are already getting, we should have taken the sum they are already getting away from them and sent them on their way. I ask the Minister, when he discusses the question of these pilots again, as he must—the Committee is very dissatisfied—that he should try to do better. This Committee has been exceedingly generous to this company, particularly in view of the Cadman Repori, and we say that the least that the company can do is to show the same generosity to these pilots, particularly in view of the fact that they have not been found guilty of anything.
    10.33 P-m.
    Mr. Boothby: I do not want to go into the merits of the question of these pilots, and I do not think the right hon. Member for Gorton (Mr. Benn), who raised the point of Order, will be able to substantiate the case that he has made, that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State quoted substantially from a document which he admits is not even in his possession. Without, of course, attempting to anticipate your Ruling, Captain Bourne, I may say that I do not think you will be able to rule that that document has to be laid.
    What I want to raise with my hon. Friend is one point which has a direct bearing on the present and on the future in these days of Government subsidies. My hon. Friend seemed to me to lay down

    983
    a proposition that the Government have no right in any circumstances to require the Government directors of a company which is subsidised by the Government to furnish details or reasons for action taken by the board of that company. I do not think that on reflection that is a proposition which can possibly be sustained by my hon. Friend, and I am sure it is not a proposition which on reflection the House of Commons would ever sustain. If the Government of this country subsidise a company and appoint two Government directors on it, should it be laid down that the Government are unable to require those directors to furnish details and reasons for any action taken by the company of which the Government may approve or disapprove?
    I am sure my hon. Friend will realise, on reflection, that it is an impossible position to take up as a matter of principle. And look at the difficulty in which it has already landed him. My hon. and gallant Friend started by saying that the Government directors said these dismissals were justified. He said he presumed they were justified.
    Captain Balfour Captain Balfour indicated dissent.
    Mr. Boothby: That must be so, for he went on to say that he had not taken steps to find out from the Government directors why they were justified. When pressed he said that the Government had no right to ask the Government directors of this company to furnish the reasons why the men were dismissed. I do not think the Government are under any obligation to publish the facts, but to lay down the proposition that the Government are not entitled to require its own directors on the board of a Government subsidised company to furnish the Government with a reason for any action taken would be a dangerous precedent to set. I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will say that he did not intend to lay it down as a precedent for the future. This is not a mere party point because hon. Members know that we are coming to an era when this House will subsidise many companies and there will be many Government directors. If it is laid down that the Government cannot ask the Government directors to furnish reasons for any action that is taken by the Government, we shall be setting a precedent that may be disastrous in the future.
    10.37 p.m.
    Mr. Gallacher: I do not like the Clause, I do not like the subsidy, and I do not like the Government. When the Minister gets up and makes such a speech as we have heard this evening and gets into such a muddle about such a simple question, and then tries to throw the responsibility on this side of the House, it is time a protest is made. The Minister has made no charge against these men except that their dismissal was justified. What more is wanted against them? If a skilled tradesman is thrown out of his job and it is said that his dismissal is justified, there is no need to say anything more against him. When the Minister refuses to give a reason, then there is the suspicion that there is something sinister behind it. The reason is not redundancy. If it were only that the men would be taken back. Is the reason drunkenness? It is not. Is it incapability That cannot be because Imperial Airways have decided to take one man back and to recommend another for employment on another line. It is not bad conduct in the ordinary sense, because the company would not have made this recommendation.
    The only reason left for the dismissal is a political reason, and it is the fact that the men were in a trade union. If the Government directors had a reason other than trade unionism, they would have had no hesitation in stating it. If these men had been incapable or dissolute and badly behaved there would have been no hesitation in stating it. The Minister did not make the statement to which the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) took exception because he had any thought of laying down a principle or because he had any thought of what he was saying. He had no thought of what he was saying; he was not aware of what he was saying. He made the statement that the Government have no right to ask for the reasons because he knows, and the other Members of the Government know, that no reasons can be given. That is the decisive factor. If there had been a possibility of giving a reason of course we should have had it.
    We are asked to vote £3,000,000. It is so easy to get the millions for this purpose. No Member opposite questions where the money is to come from, but if we suggest increasing old age pensions the cry is, "Oh, the country cannot

    985
    afford it." £3,000,000 is to be voted, and this Imperial Airways gang are to get their share of it. As the hon. Member on the Front Bench said, instead of getting the subsidy according to the Cadman Report they ought to go to gaol—or if he did not say it was what he ought to have said. We are voting £3,000,000 for these people, and in the face of that we are met by a statement from the Minister—and I want this to go on record, so that the Minister cannot get away from it—that these men have been thrown out of their jobs and that no reason can be given why they were thrown out. It is admitted by the Minister that the men are capable and two of them have been selected for further employment—one for employment by Imperial Airways, and another for employment in another air service. They are men of good character, there is nothing against one of them. But they are thrown out, and no reason can be given.
    I ask hon. Members opposite, if they have any sense of decency—I am not sure that they have; my opinions are all the other way—whether there are not one or two among them who will stand up for these men? Even in Sodom there was one just man, but out of the Gomorrah on the other side it is not possible to find one who will stand up for British rights. I am told there is one just man, the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Perkins). We welcome him because he stands out distinct from the great mass of those who, while they have always claimed to stand up for British rights, independence, initiative and all the rest of it, will do nothing in this case. We are encouraged by the fact that we have been able to snatch one brand from the burning, and we ask Members on the benches opposite whether there are not some others who are prepared to take their stand for justice for a group of men who had the ability, the courage and the initiative to take up this employment. How often do we hear talk of the lack of pilots in this country? One of the most essential things for the air service is pilots. Here you are, in the process of destroying pilots, or allowing a company to whom you are supplying money to do so.
    I ask hon. Members on the other side to be prepared to support us in order to get a statement from the Minister that this matter will be taken up in such a way
    986
    as will ensure that Imperial Airways will be forced to withdraw the ban upon these men and to give them an opportunity of returning to their employment and to the service in which they have shown themselves capable in every way; and of giving their best attention to this matter, because there is nothing against these men other than the fact that they were associated with, and were officials of, a trade union movement.
    10.46 p.m.
    Captain Arthur Evans: I am afraid that I cannot associate myself with this new Scottish front populaire to which we have just listened, between my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) and the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher). The statement made to-night by my hon. and gallant Friend the Under-Secretary of State must be taken in conjunction with the responsible statements which have been made from time to time on this matter by his predecessor in office.
    Mr. G. Griffiths: Were you here when he made it?
    Captain Evans: As I understand the position, the late Under-Secretary of State explained carefully to the House that although the Government had two responsible representatives on the board of directors of this company who en-devoured to the best of their ability to represent to their colleagues on the board the views of His Majesty's Government in connection with the conduct of the affairs of the company, they were only a minority. They could only represent the view of the Government, and could not insist upon that view being put into effect. What is the position? An hon. Friend behind me says that the Under-Secretary of State laid down a new principle tonight. I failed to appreciate that from the speech of the Under-Secretary. He made it clear that the Government directors had responsibility, but no power, being a minority, to determine entirely the future policy or administration of the company.
    Mr. G. Griffiths: You were not in the House when he made the statement.
    Captain Evans: What is the position with which we are faced to-night?
    Mr. Boothby: I did not suggest at any moment that the two Government

    987
    directors had the power to affect the policy of the board, or were responsible. What I intended to say was that if the Government required their own directors to furnish information, the said directors should not be precluded from doing so. It should not be laid down that the Government could not ask the directors to give an explanation.
    Captain Evans: I should not say that the Under-Secretary suggested to the Committee, in actual terms—[HON. MEMBERS: "You were not here."]—that the directors should be precluded from reporting to the Government the views that they expressed to the board on any particular point. If I may pass from that point to another material one, it is the refusal of the company to reemploy the pilots in question. Hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House are not justified in maintaining and continuing to repeat that the pilots were dismissed and that refusal to re-employ them is based upon the fact that they are members of a trade union or were responsible, in the initial stages, for bringing about a trade union among the pilots in this country.
    Mr. Gallacher: What was the reason?
    Captain Evans: The position is illustrated by the decision of the company to do everything in their power to encourage the establishment of this union and, as my hon. Friend said to-night, the ballot papers are to be laid on the Table of the House in order to satisfy hon. Members on the point. From the practical aspect of the matter, we are concerned with a company which receives a subsidy from the taxpayers. Surely no responsible trade union leader or director of any public company would suggest that it would be practical politics to explain in detail to the shareholders of their company the reasons why highly-paid members of their staff were dismissed. If that were the case, it would be impossible to conduct the affairs of any public company, let alone Imperial Airways.
    It is obvious that, at a time when Imperial Airways in their new organisation are about to extend their activities in Europe and other parts of the world, they would not refuse to re-employ pilots unless there were extraordinary good reasons why they should not be re-
    988
    employed. It is not only impractical, but it is unfair to the Government of the day to ask them to give chapter and verse for executive decisions for which they are prepared to take the responsibility not only in the House but before the electors when the time comes. There are certain matters of administration in connection with public companies, subsidised or not, or in connection with Cabinet policy, on which it is not desirable in the publc interest that chapter and verse should be given to the country through the medium of the House. I think this comes down to no less than a question of confidence, not only in the Government but in the administration of the Air Ministry and, in view of the changes which have recently been made, we should seek this opportunity of proving to the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary that we are prepared to give them a fair trial and an opportunity of justifying their policy at a later stage.
    Mr. Montague: In view of the fact that it has been agreed that the Third Reading shall not be taken to-night, might I ask when you, Captain Bourne, will be in a position to give a Ruling as to the laying of the report referred to by the Under-Secretary?
    The Deputy-Chairman: I do not know that I am going to have a further opportunity. It is laid down that a Minister who merely gives a summary of a document is not bound to lay it. I have not had an opportunity of looking further into the Ruling but, if a question is put to me or to the Chairman on some suitable occasion, a general Ruling may be given on the subject.
    Mr. Benn: While a general ruling would be of great value, the votes of Members on the Third Reading may be affected by the production and perusal of this document. May's Parliamentary Practice on page 329, says:
    "a document which has been cited ought to be laid upon the Table of the House, if it can be done without injury to the public interests,"
    and many examples are given dating from 1908. The words:
    "a document which has been cited ought to be laid upon the Table of the House "
    cover the present case, and it would be a good thing if it were possible to find means of giving a ruling before the Third

    989
    Reading after considering the OFFICIAL REPORT of what the hon. Gentlemen said. I think that what will appear in the OFFICIAL REPORT will amount to a citation. If it is possible for you to give a specific ruling on the point before the Third Reading, it will assist Members on this side at least in casting their votes.
    The Deputy-Chairman: The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate the difficulty in which I am. I have looked at the passage he has quoted, but I should like to look at the actual Rulings, because necessarily the Statement in Erskine May is abbreviated. The difficulty that I see, so far as I am concerned—it is not a point on which I can give an answer—is that I am not in charge of the business of the House, and therefore cannot say on what occasion I might be able to give a considered Ruling. It hardly appears to me to be a matter that is in my hands. I should be perfectly willing to look the matter up, but whether I can get an opportunity of giving a Ruling appears to me to be a matter that is outside my control.
    Mr. Benn: I see the difficulty, too, but I am sure you will appreciate our difficulty, and our desire to have your Ruling on the matter. I do not know whether it is a possible suggestion, but to-morrow is a Supply day, and it may be that you will occupy the Chair during part of the proceedings. Would it be convenient for you on that occasion to give a Ruling on this matter, or, if not, on some other occasion when as Deputy-Chairman you are occupying the Chair, before the Third Reading is taken?
    The Deputy-Chairman: I am afraid it would be quite out of order to give a Ruling on this matter then. Whether there will be another opportunity is not a matter on which I can give an opinion at this moment. There is the difficulty that I am not in charge of the business of the House, and, moreover, the right hon. Gentleman will realise that this question goes back a rather long way, and possibly it will take a day or so to look up the Rulings, but without looking them up I should not like to commit myself.
    Mr. Benn: We shall be very grateful if you will try to find an opportunity of giving us the advantage of your Ruling.
    990
    I do not know whether I might suggest that possibly such a Ruling could be given in answer to a Parliamentary question? Erskine May does say that questions may be addressed to Members on matters concerning public business on which they are concerned, and that might possibly cover it, but, if you would try to find an opportunity, at some time before the Third Reading is taken, of giving us your decision, I feel that it would be of the very greatest assistance to the House.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I think the right hon. Gentleman, with his long experience of the House, will agree that the question whether a question of that sort should be addressed to me in my capacity of Deputy-Chairman is really a matter for Mr. Speaker, and not for me. If Mr. Speaker were prepared to agree, I, of course, should be willing, but it is not for me to decide.
    Mr. Benn: My hon. Friend agrees that the best thing will be for Mr. Speaker to be consulted on the matter through the usual channels.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I think the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion is obviously the right one. I could not possibly anticipate what Mr. Speaker might decide.
    10.58 p.m.
    Mr. Davidson: I desire to draw attention to some of the statements made by the Under-Secretary of State for Air. The Government will recognise that, in any legislation which they place before the House for the consideration of Members on this side of the House, the Bill cannot be considered separately from the statements of the Minister who represents the Government. Therefore, because of the statements of the Under-Secretary, and because of the position he has placed before us, I trust that every Member of the Opposition will oppose this Bill as ardently as he can. The hon. and gallant Member for Cardiff, South (Captain A. Evans) has said that no Government, or Department, or firm, could be expected to lay chapter and verse before the House of Commons on a question of their internal affairs. I agree. But where a firm is asking the taxpayers of this country to subsidise it to the extent of millions of pounds, where the Government have representatives on that board,

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    and where the representatives of the taxpayers in the House of Commons raise a question affecting that firm as a question of public importance, it is the duty of the Government or firm to lay a full report before the Members of the House. The Under-Secretary gave us some technical explanation—at least, he attempted to do so. I want to say to the Under-Secretary, as a man of about his own age, that he must not, in the newness of his position or the height of his glory, consider that he can stand at that Box and make flippant statements with regard to the dismissal of men and expect to get away with it. I can assure the Government that they have not been well served to-night, and that the Under-Secretary will have to change his tune and adopt a different tone to the Opposition if he wants to get on better in future than he has done to-night.
    We have had the argument that if a wealthy firm are entitled to the subsidy, we should not consider the finances of that particular firm. The Under-Secretary said that a wealthy firm may have one line running from A to B, which is a bad line, and that in order to improve this bad line that wealthy firm ought to be subsidised. Let us take "A" as standing for Ayr, and "B" for a small place in Scotland called Balfour. I suggest that any line running from Ayr to Balfour must be a bad line, and the House of Commons, as a result, would be asked by the Under-Secretary to agree that a firm which has much wealth and can expand their funds on their air lines should be subsidised at the expense of the people of this country. I know that many hon. Members on this side, with a very laudable desire to improve the air services of this country give much of their time and any assistance they can to that end. But is there any Member, even on the Government benches, who will agree that a wealthy firm should be entitled, because of one bad line, to be subsidised by the Government? Surely, it is the duty of the firm itself to see that the air lines of this country are kept in as strong a condition as possible having regard to the finances of the company. I think, therefore, that the Under-Secretary's argument is a bad argument: an argument that cannot be accepted by logical business men; and I trust that the Under-Secretary of State, if he is making appeals in future, will
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    make appeals for companies that require subsidies, companies that have bad lines because of lack of finances, and not for companies that are strong financially, that have bad lines because they desire that the Government should pay the subsidy.
    We had an air service in this country that was defended time and again by representatives of the Government, but because of the continual complaints, because of the question being raised in this House, because of the dismissal of pilots, there had to be a Government inquiry into its condition. The pilots who were dismissed, the Under-Secretary says—as the previous Under-Secretary said, and as many speeches made on behalf of the Government have indicated—are first-class pilots with first-class qualifications, some of whom had served, I think, 20 years without a flaw in their record, men who had taken part in improving the Empire service, who had given continued loyalty to that service, and who, merely because of their loyalty to the service and their desire to improve it, had taken certain action. What happened? They were dismissed. The Under-Secretary of State tells us to-night that the report stated that the dismissals were justified. He tells the newspapers and the people of this country that the dismissals were justified, and then says that the Government are placing no bar in the way of the re-employment of these pilots. Does the Under-Secretary expect other firms to accept his statement that the Government have nothing against these men? The Government have one thing against these pilots, that they tried to organise themselves in order to improve their conditions. Until the question of an inquiry was pressed in the House of Commons, the opinion in the Government was that these pilots had no right to organise and stick up for themselves.
    The Under-Secretary must realise that he is now a responsible statesman, although his statement to-night did not quite come up to expectations. I say to him quite plainly that there is not a Member of this Committee be he Tory, Liberal or Labour, who, acting in strict accordance with his mental capacity, will agree with him that, when he states that the Government directors found that the dismissals were justified he is placing no bar in the way of the future of these men. I do not want to over-state my case or

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    to use terms which may be called an exaggeration, but he is condemning these pilots in the face of every air service in the world. It is not right for any Minister, no matter how important he may be, to come to the House of Commons, and, dealing with the future of men who have given service such as these pilots have given, say that we must accept his statement that the Government directors were correct and must not ask for that statement to be substantiated. I maintain that the report of the Government directors, being made in consequence of the agitation against the dismissal of these pilots, should be the property of Members of the House of Commons. Unless that report is placed before the House, the House of Commons will not be satisfied with the bald statement of the new Under-Secretary of State for Air. The statement of the Under-Secretary has raised a feeling against the Bill which might quite well have been avoided. It is bad to give subsidies blindly to organisations when they do not require them. It is bad for a Government representative to say that, no matter whether a firm is wealthy or poor, they shall be entitled in certain circumstances to the subsidy. In every other phase of the social life of this country particularly in regard to the unemployed they impose a means test. This Government only depart from the means test when they are dealing with wealthy firms. I appeal to every member of the Opposition to vote against the proposal because of the unfair statement of the Under-Secretary, because of his attack upon the character and records of the pilots, because of his statement that their dismissal was justified, because of the generally bad Government statement and the fact that wealthy firms will benefit from this subsidy. I trust the proposal will be turned down by every fairminded person in the House.
    11.11 p.m.
    Colonel Ropner: The Committee will recollect that when my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Perkins) proposed an inquiry into civil aviation I opposed his Motion. I thought then and still think that Imperial Airways on the whole, is an exceptionally efficient Company; but I have listened during the last few weeks to many speeches with regard to the dismissal of Imperial Airways pilots, and I am bound to say that my mind is uneasy about this matter. I have
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    risen chiefly for the purpose of asking the Under-Secretary a question. If it is not within his province or the province of his chief to ask for information from the Government directors on the board of Imperial Airways, then what is the use of the Government appointing directors? We are on very difficult ground. This matter will be quoted as a precedent in the future. Although I think the House of Commons has no right to demand that they shall be given all the facts of the case, I feel that the Under-Secretary should be able to assure us that he knows the facts: not merely that he has been assured by the Government directors that the dismissals were justified, but that he has satisfied himself from information from the Government directors. I hope that when this Bill comes forward for Third Reading the Under-Secretary will he able to assure the House that he has investigated the matter and that he can give us his own opinion. I for one will accept his opinion.
    11.14 p.m.
    Captain Balfour: Much has been said to-night and many arguments which I endeavoured to put before the Committee have been repeated not in the manner in which I endeavoured to put them; but I do not make any complaint about that. In answer to the hon. and gallant Member for Barkston Ash (Colonel Ropner), who said that I had stated that the Government had no right to ask the Government directors questions in regard to the administration of the company, I would say that I never made any such statement. The fact that that is a travesty of what I said is borne out by my statement that we asked the Government directors to investigate the particular circumstances of these dismissals. That in itself is surely a contradiction of what the hon and gallant Member says. We have received their report.
    I would remind hon. Members that this is a commercial concern, on the board of which the Government have directors who take their part in the running of the company with their colleagues on the board. As regards this particular matter of the pilots, the Government asked the Government directors to look into it, and they reported to the then Secretary of State for Air to the effect that in their judgment the reasons for the dismissal were adequate.
    Mr. Montague: Does that mean that judgment on the matter was left to the Government representatives on the board? Does that mean that the Secretary of State does not know why these pilots were dismissed?
    Captain Balfour: I never said that. I said that the Government directors had investigated at the request of the then Secretary of State for Air the reasons for the dismissal, and that they reported to to the then Secretary of State that in their opinion they considered the executive action of the company was justified.
    Mr. Montague: Did they report at all to the Secretary of State why these pilots were dismissed? Did they or did they not?
    Captain Balfour: They informed the then Secretary of State, after investigation and after interviewing the pilots concerned, that they were of the opinion that the dismissals were justified.
    Mr. Montague: On what grounds?
    Mr. Benn: The Under-Secretary has said that he went down himself and saw them. What was the report?
    Captain Balfour: The right hon. Gentleman is not going to trap me into quoting from some document, of which I have given the House the general conclusions.
    Mr. Benn: The Under-Secretary has not answered my question. He said earlier that in order to influence the Debate he went down to the company and saw the report for himself. What is the report to which he has referred?
    Captain Balfour: I never said that I went to the company. I said that I had looked myself at the report given to my right hon. Friend's predecessor by the Government directors, the effect of which was (1) that there was no victimisation as regards Air Line Pilots, (2) that the dismissals were justified.
    Mr. Montague: On what grounds? Did the report say that?
    Captain Balfour: The report said the dismissals were justified.
    Mr. Montague: On what grounds? We must have them.
    Mr. Gallacher: Does the Secretary of State know the reasons why these men were dismissed?
    Captain Balfour: I very much doubt whether my right hon. Friend has had time to look at the very many documents which he will no doubt look at.
    Mr. Gallacher: Is there a document in the hands of the Secretary for Air which gives the reasons why these men were dismissed?
    11.19 p.m.
    Mr. James Griffiths: This is a matter on which many of us have had some experience. Quite frankly if I were a trade union officer dealing with such dismissals and received the kind of reply we have had to-night I should raise Cain. It is a scandal. It is the kind of thing no decent employer would attempt to do. If a man is dismissed by his employer we as trade union representatives ask why the man has been dismissed. The workman has a right to know why he has been dismissed. If he loses this elementary right it is impossible for him to be a man: he is a slave. I do not care who the employer is, whether a Government Department or anybody else. He should not be allowed to dismiss a man without giving reasons. It is adding insult to injury to say to those pilots afterwards, "You are dismissed, and we are satisfied that your dismissal is justified; we will not raise any bar to your future employment by any other companies." The Under-Secretary has said to-night that he is satisfied—and presumably the Cabinet is satisfied—that the dismissal of these men is justified. But if the Under-Secretary were a director charged with employing pilots for another company, would he employ a pilot who had been dismissed, and whose dismissal was said to have been justified? Surely, the dismissal in these circumstances is the committal of these people to permanent unemployment. This is a very serious matter. I am sorry that I was not able to be present during the whole of the Under-Secretary's speech, but I listened to the earlier part of it. All the time there has been in my mind the thought that this is a matter on which the miners, the railway workers, and other workers, would strike, and fight to the bitter end. This company has given an awful example to the employers, and this is a thing which we would not tolerate for a moment.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I thought the hon. Gentleman rose to ask a question. I would remind him that the Under-Secretary is in possession.
    Mr. Griffiths: I will put my question. Because of the row in the country and in the House, the Cabinet asked the Government directors to investigate the dismissal of these pilots. That means that, to begin with, the Government were not very easy about those dismissals, and had some suspicions. The Government directors agreed to investigate, and they reported back to the Cabinet that they were satisfied that the dismissals were justified. Did the Cabinet accept that reply of the Government directors without any other further explanation? If they did, it is time to censure the Cabinet as well. Did the Cabinet accept the mere assurance of the Government directors, or did they get definite reasons for the dismissal of the pilots?
    11.23 p.m.
    Captain Balfour Captain Balfour rose—
    Miss Wilkinson: Do not look like that.
    Captain Balfour: The hon. Lady makes a personal remark to me in order, I suppose, to try to put me into a state of anger, but I can undertake that she will fail in her efforts All I want to do is to try to give the Committee such information as I have. The hon. Gentleman asked me a question, and I can tell him this, that I saw the actual report written, stating, as I have already told the House, that the dismissals were justified, that there was no victimisation, and that proper notice had been given to the pilots Beyond that I cannot go; beyond that I do not intend to go.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: The hon. and gallant Gentleman has not replied to my question. The Cabinet instructed the Secretary of State for Air to make an investigation into this matter. Therefore, the Cabinet at least thought there was something to investigate. The Secretary of State for Air asked the Government directors to make an investigation. The Government directors reported that the dismissals were justified. Were the Cabinet, which instructed the. Secretary of State for Air to instruct the Government directors to make inquiries, satisfied with the reply, or did the Government directors give definite reasons as to why the dismissals were justified?
    Captain Balfour: The hon. Gentleman asks me a question with an assumption which I cannot accept, and which I do
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    not think he is entitled to make. He assumes that the Cabinet, apparently some few weeks ago, instructed my right hon. Friend's predecessor to take certain action. On what ground my right hon. Friend's predecessor, the then Secretary of State for Air, asked the Government directors to investigate, I do not know. I do not know whether it was on his own initiative or on the Cabinet's initiative, and what has happened since I cannot tell the right hon. Gentleman. All I can say is that I looked at the report of the Government directors and found those facts and broad conclusions which I have given to the Committee.
    Mr. Davidson: On a point of Order. The Under-Secretary has just pointed out that an inquiry was held by two Government directors of the company. That investigation was made because the House of Commons asked for it. Is it not in order for us to receive a report of an investigation which was asked for by the House of Commons?
    The Deputy-Chairman: Most certainly not in these circumstances. The House of Commons has no inherent right to compel the Government to lay papers dealing with an inquiry into a matter which is confidential.
    Mr. Davidson: I may have expressed myself badly, but I am not asking for your Ruling, Captain Bourne, on the question of the Government placing papers before the House of Commons. In view of the fact that it was the House of Commons which instituted this investigation, is it not right that we should have the reasons for the decision reached as a result of the investigation?
    The Deputy-Chairman: That is a matter on which I do not think I can answer. No doubt it is open to Members of the House to put down a motion asking for papers, but the fact that an inquiry has taken place following on a Debate in the House, does not, in itself, entitle the House to have the result of that inquiry laid before it. That, however, is not a matter of order, over which I have any control. Whether or not other methods are open to hon. Members for obtaining the result it is not for me to say.
    Mr. Davidson: Am I to understand then, that when the House of Commons itself institutes an investigation, it is out-

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    side the privilege of Members to ask for the reasons for the decision arrived at as a result of that investigation?
    The Deputy-Chairman: Obviously, if the House orders an investigation by Members of the House it is entitled to a report, but if the investigation is held by the Government as a result of Debate in this House, the House has no right, on that account, to receive a report.
    Mr. Davidson: Is it not a fact that the two Government directors on this board represent the House of Commons because of the fact that the House of Commons grants a subsidy?
    The Deputy-Chairman: That is a point on which I have no opinion. It is not a point of Order.
    Mr. Boothby: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has repeatedly said that he has read the report. There has been a report and my hon. Friend has read it, and he says that there are certain general conclusions but no specific reasons in it. He has on several occasions referred to the report and has based conclusions upon it. Are we not then entitled to demand it?
    The Deputy-Chairman: I have already given a Ruling on that point of which I would remind the hon. Member. Unless a Minister quotes from a report, he is not bound to lay it. In saying that, I do not wish to anticipate any Ruling which may be given later by Mr. Speaker on the specific point raised this evening. I am only quoting the general practice.
    Mr. Benn: May I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, or whoever is in charge, would it not be a great deal simpler, without waiting for Mr. Speaker's Ruling, to produce his report? What possible harm can it do? If the Under-Secretary would say now that he is prepared to produce the report to which he has made copious references, and on which he has based all his arguments, he would greatly ease matters for himself.
    11.30 p.m.
    Mr. Kelly: The case is much worse than was stated by the hon. Member. Not only have there been dismissals, stated by two Government directors to be justified, but there has developed since then a position which has worsened the case of the greater
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    number of these men, because the Government now say, "We are prepared to recommend two of them for employment elsewhere, but we refuse to agree to the others being employed." In fact, the Under-Secretary of State has made the position worse by giving the impression that these men are unfit for work, because he has stated that the technical adviser feels a great responsibility if any of these men should meet with an accident while flying or in the service of other people. The whole position is this, that not only should we have that Paper, but it looks as if the Government directors had themselves better be dismissed now. I hope that one of the results of this discussion will be that those people who are not prepared to face up to the position and give the House of Commons the reasons why these men were discharged, namely, these directors, will be removed from their position.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I do not think the question of the Government directors can possibly arise under this Clause.
    Mr. Kelly: These Government directors have been representing the Government in the disbursing of this £1,500,000 which has been given to Imperial Airways up to now, and it may be that part of this £3,000,000 will be given to Imperial Airways, and these two Government directors, who have not spent that money as they ought to have done and we demand that they should do, cannot be trusted to deal with the workpeople in spending the rest of this money in a way that is satisfactory to this Committee. I hope that those people, who have shown by the fact that they are not prepared to deal with these men properly, simply saying that their dismissal was justified—
    The Deputy-Chairman: I do not think the hon. Member can possibly raise the question of Government directors, either on Imperial Airways or on any other company, on this Clause.
    Mr. Kelly: Then I must ask that this document, which is supposed to be a secret one, shall be presented to the House, and if that report gives reasons for the dismissal of these people, then the House has a right to express itself upon them. Certainly we have no right to allow the position to remain where it is, a position in which these men, with one exception, are condemned as being unfit

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    to occupy the position of pilots, and I hope that the Committee will insist that these men shall be treated justly. I know well that if private employers—and I see one sitting on those benches with whose firm I have had to deal—had attempted to deal with their workpeople in the way in which these men have been dealt with, there would have been trouble in this country long before this.
    11.34 p.m.
    Mr. Montague: We have no desire to embarrass the Under-Secretary of State. We quite realise that he is new to his job, if I may put it in that way, but that is not my point, which is that he has spoken under instructions, and I want to put to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury whether this Committee is not entitled to the presence of a responsible Minister of the Crown.
    11.35 p.m.
    Captain Balfour: May I reply to the question of the right hon. Gentleman whether I would undertake to produce this report? It is obviously impossible for me to give any such undertaking irrespective of the results of the point of Order which has been put to the Chair, but I will do this. I will convey the request to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air, who will read the Debate to-morrow, and he will no doubt give a decision, empowered as he is to give such a decision.
    Mr. Montague: Is it or is it not possible for a Minister of State to be here?
    The Deputy-Chairman: We cannot discuss that on the Question "That the Clause stand part."
    Mr. Benn: Surely it is within the rights of the Committee to have some Member of the Cabinet present?
    The Deputy-Chairman: I am only pointing out that we cannot discuss that on the Question "That the Clause stand part."
    Mr. Benn: Will you accept a Motion to report Progress in order that some Member of the Cabinet may be present?
    The Deputy-Chairman: About an hour ago we had a Motion to report Progress, and there has been no further Question before the Committee.
    Mr. Attlee: This is an entirely new Question. The Committee has been left in a very difficult position because we have an Under-Secretary who is newly appointed, and there has been no responsible Cabinet Minister on the Bench, either of that Department or of any other Department. All we are asking is to get some light on the matter which the Under-Secretary, obviously, cannot give. As he said, he has not the power to give a decision. In these circumstances we ought to report Progress in order that we may have a responsible Minister who can take charge of this matter.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I merely pointed out that once a Motion to report Progress has been negatived another Motion to report Progress cannot be moved until a fresh Question has intervened. No fresh Question has intervened.
    11.38 p.m.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Margesson): I beg to move, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."
    Perhaps I may intervene to move this Motion on the ground, as the Under-Secretary has already stated, that he is prepared to ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State whether the document in question can or cannot be produced on some future occasion. The Committee will note how I make that statement—whether it can or cannot be produced. I am not saying whether it can or cannot. I am merely saying that I move this Motion so that the Under-Secretary shall have an opportunity of consulting his right hon. Friend. Further there is a point which has been put to him by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Gorton (Mr. Benn) as to whether a certain document should or should not be laid in accordance with the practice of the House. In these circumstances I believe it would be for the convenience of the Committee if this Motion were agreed to, and we resumed discussion on the subject on some future occasion.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I would again point out that this Motion is irregular, as no fresh Question has arisen, but there is a precedent for this Motion being moved by the Government in similar circumstances, and I am willing to accept the Motion on this occasion.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.
    The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
    It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
    Adjourned at Twenty Minutes before Twelve o'Clock.

  INCREASE OF RENT AND MORTGAGE INTEREST (RESTRICTIONS) BILL.
  Order for Consideration of Lords Amendment read.
  Question, "That the Lords Amendment be now considered," put, and agreed to.—[Mr. Elliot.]
  Lords Amendment considered accordingly.

  INCREASE OF RENT AND MORTGAGE INTEREST (RESTRICTIONS) BILL.

    CLAUSE 7.—(Miscellaneous Amendments.)
    Lords Amendment: In page 6, line 24, at the end, insert:
    "Provided that this Sub-section shall not come into operation with respect to any dwelling-house in England until the date on which a demand for the general rate in respect thereof is first made on or after the first day of October, nineteen hundred and thirty-eight, not being a demand for a sum which had already been demanded before that date."
    9.9 p.m.
    Mr. Elliot: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
    I do not think there is any difference of opinion in any part of the House in reference to this Amendment. It is merely to make sure that the Sub-section will operate from 1st October, 1938, and that will be for the convenience of all concerned.