WAR-TIME REMUNERATION. (Hansard, 5 October 1939)

§ Brigadier-General Sir Ernest Makins

I do not think I need apologise if I detain the House for a few minutes on a very important subject, namely, the flagrant disparity between the pay of the Defence Forces and of those engaged in war work at home. It is difficult to raise this question at any other time. It must be evident to all that this country must, by some means or other, raise a fabulous amount of money to prosecute the war, and bring it to a successful conclusion. We start this war in a very different position from that in which we started the last war in 1914. We have an enormous National Debt. We have been enduring practically war taxation for many years. It has been lowered several times, and then increased, but it has been kept more or less at a crippling scale. We start the 2194 war with Income Tax is. 6d. higher than it was when we ended the war in 1918.

We are facing a war which may last indefinitely. We have been told to prepare for a war which may last at least three years. How are we going to pay for it? If the war does not extend to other areas, we may see a stalemate on 200 miles between Luxembourg and Switzerland for an indefinite time; and we may have to be on a war footing for a good many years. In fact, I do not see us being on a peace footing in my lifetime, unless we beat our opponents to their knees. Whatever time it lasts, we have to go on and win. As I said, we start with a gigantic National Debt, and many sources of revenue will shrink and dry up. Therefore, we must organise our national defences on as economical a basis as possible, and not on the extravagant precedents of the last war. I am not confident that there is not in many directions the same extravagance as occurred in the last war.

I remember that in the last war the trooper or private soldier faced death every day and every hour for something under 10s. a week, and when he came on leave he found his friends earning 10, 20, 30 or 40 times as much at home. He saw that they had money to burn, and that, as far as they were concerned, the war might go on for ever, and the happier they would be. The opinion of the Army—I speak for the Army—was that if ever we waged war again, every man at home or abroad should be treated alike, and all should be, so to speak, in khaki. It was thought wrong that men should face death every day and every hour, and that others in safety at home should be earning more money. It is not right and, in my opinion, it is impossible to justify the topsy-turvy arrangement under which a man is paid so much more for selling his labour in comparative security at home than another man is paid for selling his life for his country. It should be the other way about. I use the term "comparative safety" because it may not be as safe here as it was in the last war, but the odds against death from the air in England are infinitesimal compared with the risk of charging the Siegfried Line or fighting in the air or braving the dangers of the sea.

I have spoken to many Members of this House, and I think they all agree that it is impossible to justify this disparity. I 2195 have spoken to Members on the other side of the House, and they agreed with me that it is a very difficult question. I have asked one or two of them what they suggest as a remedy, and the answer they gave was that they feel sure that no progress could be made towards imposing the same conditions all round unless the businesses and factories were taken over by the Government for the duration of the war. There would not be the profiteering which was so rife in the last war. In order to carry out this plan the Government would have to see that all businesses were organised, as regards pay, on the lines of the Army. The big industrial magnates would be graded as generals, the managing-directors as major-generals, and so down to the lower grades. All would receive the same pay, emoluments and allowances, etc., as the fighting forces. There are some of those so-called super-men and managing directors drawing at least three and four times what an army commander drew in the last war. Everybody would then be paid according to rank; the men in security at home and in the fighting forces at home or overseas would all be on the same plane.

I believe that if some plan of this sort were put into force plainly, honestly and courageously by the Government, they would get some sort of general agreement. It is the only fair way in which to deal with the situation. It would enable us to carry on the war in a very much more economical way. I know that this might be called the height of bureaucracy, and we suffer too much from bureaucracy at the present time with all these jacks-in-office who come down to our houses on various occasions. It may be said that it would penalise the incentive to individual effort. What about the soldier? Does it penalise his effort in fighting on the wage that he receives? Income Tax returns might be reduced, but the saving in expenditure would be ever so much greater. Better have less revenue and spend less, than get more revenue and spend extravagantly. There might be certain questions about Surtax paid by men who had had a large income and then received a smaller income, but that could be adjusted in some manner or other. What is more, that happens already. I was told only the other day of a well-known surgeon who was draw- 2196 ing £7,000 or £8,000 a year but who is now doing a job for £800. He is wondering how on earth he is going to pay his Surtax for last year.

I put forward these proposals, in spite of all the objections, as some scheme of this kind would ameliorate enormously our financial difficulties and enable us to carry on the war longer than we otherwise would be able to do, and at the same time bring about equity and equality between the home front and the fighting forces. Many with the fighting forces have given up their careers and businesses to fight, and, to add insult to injury, if they fall in their country's service their estates will have to pay Estate Duty. I do not think that I shall get much of an answer to this.

§ Captain Crookshank

My hon. and gallant Friend has raised a very interesting general proposition in the speech which he has made to us. I must congratulate him at the outset on having completely out-manoeuvred the hon. and gallant Member for North Portsmouth (Sir R. Keyes), who tried to raise this issue last week, but this time the Army has won, the Admiral is not here, and the proposals which he wanted to make have been successfully put before the House. But I am afraid that I can only very unsuccessfully answer them, and to adopt any such plan as this would involve a discussion of legislative proposals which would be out of order on an Adjournment Motion.

The particular point about which the hon. and gallant Gentleman was really asking me, in so far as I am concerned with this matter at all, arose out of a question which he put to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Tuesday, when he asked him whether he would consider bringing the remuneration of civilians engaged in purely war work more into line with the remuneration of the serving soldiers at the front. 2197 My right hon. Friend referred him to a reply which I had given the week before, and that is all he said. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said:

I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the answer given on 27th September to the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough (Mr. A. Edwards."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd October, 1939; cols. 1811–12, Vol. 351.] My hon. and gallant friend said that that was an unsatisfactory reply. I went back to look at what the answer was to which he had been referred, and which he had in mind at that moment. His reference was to a question about something which is a responsibility of mine. The question was put by an hon. Gentleman opposite, who asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will arrange that no paid appointments in this country shall carry a higher rate of remuneration than is allowed in the Fighting Forces for a corresponding standard of service? "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th September, 1939; col. 1348, Vol. 351.] That question I took as referring to the rates of pay of the Civil Service, for which I reply in this House. The reply which by inference is the one which the hon, and gallant Member finds so unsatisfactory was that it is not easy to attempt the comparison suggested but—and this is the point I want to make—if the hon. and gallant Member has particularly in mind the temporary civilian appointments in the Government service, my right hon. Friend is satisfied that the remuneration in these cases is not out of scale with the remuneration in the armed forces. It is almost impossible in any particular instance to take the instance of one man doing a job and say that he has got or has not got exactly the same conditions of remuneration as somebody else who is doing an entirely different job. This is true of industry and the Civil Service and the armed forces. For it has to be remembered that when you are dealing with the troops at the front, you have to take into account clothing, food, housing and that sort of consideration which is not part of the actual pay rate; the distinction is that the civil servant has his remuneration in cash only, whereas in the other case payment is given in kind as well as in cash. Therefore it is difficult, and almost impossible, to try and make exact comparisons.

Broadly speaking, however, over the whole field, temporary civilian appointments are not out of scale with the corre- 2198 sponding remuneration in the armed forces. I have said that because these were the real questions upon which my hon. and gallant Friend was so dissatisfied and on which he founded his speech. Of course I know just as well as he does the sort of feeling he was describing to the House which was felt by men when there was a war going on in France in difficult conditions and in a situation of hourly danger. One did feel envious of those who were not there at all, whatever their rates of wages were. I am sure many soldiers would have been ready to get back even without any wages, hence the phrase, "Take me back to dear old Blighty." Yet while all that is true I do not see how it can be dealt with without legislation, and I certainly cannot hold out any hope that any legislation of this kind will be introduced. We recognise that there are these feelings, but it is also true, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman said, that we must not necessarily assume that everybody in this country is going to be perfectly safe throughout the war. It may be that as a result of the great preparations we have made it might turn out that the civilian is safe, but from what has happened elsewhere one cannot say that every civilian working in a munition factory may not be within the danger zone. We are not in the same position as we were 25 years ago on that point.

It was interesting to hear my hon. and gallant Friend suggesting that we should take over all businesses and factories, but those are not quite the sentiments I should have expected from that bench. It is interesting to find the minds of hon. Friends working along those lines and raising these discussions, but considering that we are meeting in war-time, and it is getting late, I cannot promise anything to my hon. and gallant Friend. In fact, I am certain that he did not expect me to do so. I would, however, repeat that on the original question about which this discussion was raised I am satisfied that, by and large, there is, as far as comparisons can be made, something approximating to equal remuneration. I would remind my hon. and gallant Friend that having started this war with a Military Service Act the obligations which fall upon the younger age groups of this country are going to fall upon them in a way quite different from that in the early years of the last war.