MAN-POWER.

HC Deb 08 October 1941 vol 374 cc1011-88

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. James Stuart.]

Mr. Graham White (Birkenhead, East)

It is proposed to use this opportunity to consider the subject of man-power. I think it is the first time on which we have had a discussion on the subject of man-power generally. On occasions the House has directed its attention to various aspects of the problem of production, and has derived considerable advantage from such discussions, and it may seem a little odd, perhaps, that seeing man-power is the beginning and the end of our war effort, the House has not, up to the present, taken the subject into fuller consideration. As I am not a member of the Government, I may perhaps make a suggestion, which they might not wish to make, and that is I think that the fact that the House, which has not shown itself either unable or unwilling to criticise the national effort, has so far refrained from discussing the subject of man-power in general is due to the fact that Parliament has general confidence in the higher strategy which has been pursued by the Government in the use of manpower. There is no reason for us to-day to indulge in discussion of the matters of higher strategy which are involved in questions of man-power and the general allocation of man-power between the Army and industry. If we had that intention, the Debate would be of a different character and would have a different object.

Apart from this aspect of major policy, there is a variety of matters to which hon. Members might well devote themselves and on which they wish to ask for assurances. The object of our man-power policy is agreed. The targets are known, in general, but there are many questions as to whether we are making the best possible use of our men and whether we are proceeding towards those targets with the best possible speed. Surely our object must be to give every available citizen in the country, man or woman, the opportunity and the honour of carrying out the duty of trying to save civilisation from destruction, by working in that post for which he or she is most amply fitted at the earliest possible moment. That is the conception which I think we have of our man-power policy; from that point we proceed to make our inquiries into it. It would be good to have assurances from the Minister of National Service that he is satisfied that the processes of manufacture, from the assembly of the raw materials to the handing over of the finished product, are proceeding without interruption. Have regional organisations sufficient authority to hand out orders in such a way as to enable man-power to be used by the most economical method? A suggestion, by no means ill-founded, is that, owing to insufficient planning ahead, the sequence of orders has been disturbed, with the result that a great deal of time has been lost.

These are among the matters which may be raised. At Question time to-day, inquiries were made about the Royal Ordnance factories. Such questions are far too numerous. If there is controversy in the country on the subject of production and man-power, it should not be a matter for active dispute. It should be discussed promptly and dispassionately, and settled. The Minister has a heavy responsibility, but he is capable of shouldering it. He has to proceed with a firm hand in all these matters. I am sorry he is not here at the moment, because I should like to tell him that I think he will not lose anything in the conduct of affairs if his firm hand is sometimes clad in a velvet glove. It is well that matters of controversy should be settled, because they have an adverse effect on the tempo of operations and the development of production. In the first German war, the problem was to equip the men. In this war, the problem, as we understand it, is rather to produce and to man the equipment.

That is not the whole story or the whole truth, but there is a good deal of truth in it. We are faced with a substantial extension of industry into the Armed Forces. It is good to know from impartial sources of the success which has been achieved within the Forces themselves, and particularly within the Royal Air Force, in developing and training a mechanical staff and seeing that the skilled men are used with the maximum economy. I am bound to say, so far as the Army is concerned, that if I were in a position of responsibility, I should have very considerable doubt and hesitation in acceding to requests for further skilled men unless I could be assured by the Army authorities themselves that they knew exactly how many skilled men they had at their disposal. There is no commoner experience for Members of Parliament than to receive letters from all parts of the Army from men who claim that they are skilled craftsmen but are wasting their time in futile tasks. It is essential that the Army authorities should know exactly the numbers of skilled men they have and the use to which they are putting them, and especially that young men should no longer be employed at tasks which can be carried out by older men or women.

Warning has been given to the Government by the Beveridge Committee which they cannot neglect. On reflection I must withdraw that statement, because no one can deny that the capacity of Governments for neglecting warnings is almost unlimited. The Government have been told that there is a danger lest the maintenance of the machines on which the fighting men and the safety of the country depend may have to be entrusted to hands insufficiently skilled and without proper supervision. That is a challenge not merely to the Government but to the whole country and to both sides of organised industry, and the sooner the challenge is taken up, the better. It is also a challenge to the Minister himself and to his whole organisation to increase the tempo of the operations which they are carrying on in order to produce the men and women for these tasks It is a challenge to them to increase the tempo of their training schemes and all those other operations. If this warning is brought home to the people concerned, it may lead to the disappearance of many of those things which are standing in the way of maximum production at the present time. To mention only one of these, there is the disinclination of managements to release people for training, on the short-term view that this might, for the time being, reduce production, whereas, if they liberated those people for training it would certainly in a very short time lead to vastly increased production. These things have to be dealt with, and in these matters there must be no confusion between time and eternity—which is the impression one receives in examining the pace at which these administrative operations are being conducted.

We in this country proceed on a very different level and by very different methods from those which obtain in a totalitarian State. Where you have universal conscription for both the Armed Forces and industry, you can proceed with greater speed and flexibility. I need not go into that subject. Everybody knows how it is. Here we proceed by means of registration, by means of interviews, by persuasion, and by interview based, of course, upon the spirit of democracy. If we were prepared to adopt and could adopt German methods of organisation of the Armed Forces and of industry, we should not be fighting at all. But these matters are a final challenge to democracy whether it can, by voluntary methods, by force of example and leadership and by industry produce the same result, and produce that result before it is too late.

I am not one to condemn or to criticise unduly the right hon. Gentleman or his Ministry. The greatest transformation which has taken place in this war has been within the Ministry of Labour itself, and it was necessary. For 15 or 20 years it had concentrated its attention upon the administration of relief. It was not for nothing that in many dreary, desolate districts in the country. His Majesty's Employment Exchanges were known as" the dole office. "The whole outlook of the Ministry was concerned with relief, and the constructive energy of the Department had, to a large extent, become atrophied. That has very largely been transformed. The Ministry was sitting on the fence for so long that when it got down from the fence it did not know which way to move, or how quickly. In fact, a disinterested observer might doubt whether it presented a picture of still life or of slow motion. But it is now moving. Its methods have been reorganised and changed. I suggest, however, to my right hon. Friend that there is still room for an increase in the tempo of his operations. I suggest to him that the Employment Exchange machinery of the country has now got a job which is too heavy for it to perform in a reasonable time with its present staff. I know the difficulty of finding trained men to carry out these tasks, and I know how difficult it is to undertake to interview vast masses of people, but I suggest that the whole process is too slow and that at the present rate there is doubt whether the targets which the heads of the Department have set before themselves will be realised. I invite the Minister to give consideration to those matters.

I pass to another aspect of the present policy of recruiting for the Services. There is nobody, as far as I know, in the Government or in the Ministry of Labour and National Service—apart from the general machinery of the system of reservation—whose duty it is to estimate the effect of the present policy of calling-up upon the life of the country, in the slowing-up of its activities and in the consequences of that slowing-up upon the war effort. In war-time a slowing-up in the normal life of the community is to be expected, and hardships, major and minor, are to be expected and are not resented. But I am much concerned, and I think it my duty to say so, by what I regard as likely to happen in the life of the community and in regard to the morale of the people if calling-up on the present basis takes place in relation to the food trade.

I understand that agreement has been reached with the distributive trade, and that is a matter for satisfaction. The distributive trade no doubt has very large reserves and will furnish its proper quota, but with regard to the food trade, the fabric of distribution is wearing very thin. I have looked into this matter from the point of view of the co-operative trade, of the single shop, of the catering trade and of the multiple shop, and if calling-up is to take place on the present basis and of the type of men at present being called up, we shall pass right away beyond the area of inconvenience and annoyance and small matters of that kind and proceed straight into the area of dislocation and breakdown. I make no apology for asking the House to give attention to these matters. I had before me in the last few weeks, in the course of my examination, instances of the calling-up of men who are responsible for the supply of the rations to tens of thousands of registered customers.

There is one aspect of German economic planning and organisation from which we not only could but should take an example, and that is the calling-up of people not so much by age or by classification, which is by no means a scientific or perfect way of doing it. We have many classifications of people not called up some members of which are doing relatively unimportant jobs and, in the same way, people within certain age limits are reserved who are not doing any work of great national advantage. The German system is to relate the calling-up of the man to the kind of job which he is doing. I think we are doing something more in that direction now, but we want to apply that test far more rigorously. I think it essential that this should be done now particularly, perhaps, in those areas where morale has been most severely tested. My right hon. Friend might well consider whether the classification made by Lord Reith for certain priorities under the War Damage Act should not be extended to the field of his own operations.

I was examining the other day a classification of employees, whose calling-up is imminent. These are the employees of estate agents. Nobody would imagine at first sight that at a time like this estate agents should be exempt from being called up, but on examining the kind of work which these men were actually doing, I found that certain of them were engaged in connection with the repair of damaged property and others who are described as "clerical workers" are dealing with a multitude of serious problems resulting from the bombardment and involving the settlement of homeless people. It would be folly to call such men from their present tasks. It might be argued we could not do that now because we have neither the time nor the staff, but I would suggest at least that a different standard of inspection is required in the target areas. The situation has already altered in many ways since the war began. The position of a keyman is different. Ten months ago a keyman might very well be withdrawn for a time from a business in the distributive trade, because he had a responsible staff under him. To-day he has no such staff, and an intolerable strain will be put upon managements at the higher level if such men are withdrawn. The stage of breakdown in the distribution of food may not be nearly so far away as people think, and we should remember that it is not less important to fill men's stomachs than it is to fill shells.

I have already spoken at greater length than I had intended, but there are two other matters in regard to which I should like to ask my right hon. Friend to give us some information. We are anxious at present to utilise every possible source of help and labour in the country. We know that there is a large number of friendly and well-disposed aliens in our midst—many tens of thousands—and some time ago we heard with satisfaction that a Department had been established to deal with them and direct their energies into the most likely field. We also know that there are many distinguished people among them who cannot get work. I think the House would appreciate it if my right hon. Friend could give us some statement as to the progress which is being made by that new department.

Then, we are apt sometimes to forget, in our consideration of machinery and organisation, that the most complicated and most delicate machine in the whole field of production is the human body. There were many instances during the last war, and there have also been many instances already in this war, in which production has been retarded by failing to bear that fact in mind. I do not want to criticise any special efforts which have been made to increase production—far from it—so long as it is understood that they are merely symbolic. For instance, I do not think there was much practical value in the great "-Tank Week." When a man hears that the output of tanks has gone up by 50 per cent. in a particular week he says to himself, "What on earth were they doing last week and the week before?" There have been many cases in this war already in which, as happened after the magnificent effort made following Dunkirk, unduly long hours have-inevitably led to a diminution in production. I would like to ask for an assurance from my right hon. Friend that the Industrial Health Research Board, which came into being as a result of the experiences of the last war, will be fully utilised and will be given every facility—which it has not had up to now; it has in fact been crabbed by some of the Departments—to find out precisely what are the hours which give the best results on different types of work. There is probably no body which could be more useful in that connection, and that information should be sought and acted upon. There is a great deal of work in connection with the reorganisation of hours in industry which cries out to be done.

I will not detain the House any longer nor stand in the way of others of my hon. Friends who may wish to speak. The question will be raised as to whether there is sufficiently close co-operation between the production Departments and the Army. The history of the last r8 months does not suggest that we have yet reached that degree of co-operation which we understand obtains in the camp of the enemy. Also, I think the question of agriculture and agricultural labour is to be raised. The right hon. Gentleman, as he reminded us yesterday when we were discussing another aspect of man-powor, has a great and indeed a terrible responsibility. I sometimes wonder whether all sections of the community fully realise the difficulties which face him at the present time. I do not think the example of the men and women in the war zones in Russia and of the mournful tragedy that is taking place in the occupied countries is lost upon our people, and if the right hon. Gentleman gives the lead, he will not find us backward in answering his call.

Sir Ralph Glyn (Abingdon)

I am sure the House has heard the speech of the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) with very great interest. He referred to the fact that there is a number of aliens of one kind or another who are willing to give service and whose services are not being utilised. Yesterday, the Minister, replying to a Question which I had on the Paper, stated that it is possible under the Regulations to enable these people to have employment of a civilian character in the war effort. One feels, from what one hears, that perhaps that is not sufficiently well known, and I agree with my hon. Friend that it is a matter to which we should all devote our attention.

There is one other point to which the hon. Member referred, and that is the immensity of the task of the Minister of Labour and National Service. I know that it may not be within the province of his Ministry to weigh up what is the effect on the country of calling up certain people, and the effect on the ordinary population left behind, but I have always understood that the Lord President is responsible for that question, and I imagine that he is the Minister to whom the balancing of those called up and those left behind is properly apportioned. It seems to me that the House will appreciate the immensity of the problem when it is stated that our enemy to-day has something like 310,000,000 people, of whom no fewer than 182,000,000 are available for doing work to promote his war effort. It is a well-known fact that we in this country have something between 44,000,000 and 45,000,000, of whom I assume there are not more than 18,000,000 who are available for work of any kind. Out of that comparatively small number have to be found all our requirements for the Services, for Civil Defence and for the 101 other things which modern war necessitates in the way of passive defence at home, to say nothing of transportation, agriculture and matters of that kind. Therefore the task of the Minister of Labour and National Service is one of which I am sure the country does not realise the full difficulty and complexity.

Mr. Austin Hopkinson (Mossley)

The hon. Member has forgotten one immense fund of labour—those people devoted to filling up forms of various sorts.

Sir R. Glyn

I am willing to add the very large and extended numbers of Civil servants, but the point that we ought to bear in mind is the numbers available for the war potential and for maintaining the supplies of munitions and equipment to the Services. This leaves an extremely small margin and, so far, all the efforts to bring women into one branch or another of industry have not been as successful as we had hoped. The fact is that women are very often asked to do tasks for which they are not fitted, and there is an enormous number of tasks still being done by men which could perfectly well be done by women. I suggest that there ought to be a far better review than is now apparently available as to the suitability of male and female labour in factories and the Services. What I wanted to crave the indulgence of the House for a few minutes is in regard to the 27th Report of the Select Committee on National Expenditure, which deals with the problem of the Army and how far it" is utilising to the best possible extent the labour which has been drafted into the Army. The Sub-Committee which went into this matter had every assistance from the War Office. I do not know whether hon. Members have had an opportunity of reading the Report, which was presented to Parliament in August. Certain recommendations were made, and I do hope that the House will realise that in putting forward these recommendations the Select Committee did so as a result of studying also the aspects of man-power in connection with other Services and with the general war effort.

The Minister of National Service, strangely enough, has still the power to draft men into special corps of the Army without necessarily knowing the least what are the qualifications required of the individual, although he knows what are the number of vacancies in these particular corps. Men posted to the R.A.F. or the Navy go to these two Services and are then shuffled into the most appropriate branch. In the Army, as mechanisation is increased, so obviously the demands that come for skilled tradesmen for the maintenance of these vehicles and equipment become increasingly great. There are to-day—and we all know it, without having had the evidence we had on this Committee— large numbers of skilled men not having their skill utilised to the full because they find themselves in formations and units of the Army in which they are eating their hearts out.

I wish to say something for which I shall get into trouble, but that is the purpose of Parliament. If it is right that we should speak in Parliament, I propose to risk the anger of the Executive or anybody else. If they do not like it, they can shut up Parliament. I feel it is a scandal that there are men in detention barracks to-day who are being detained and prevented from making their proper war effort merely and solely because they are round pegs in square holes. A feeling of frustration has been forced on them by those hidebound, inadequate ideas that still prevail in certain branches of the Army and which do not realise that under conscription it is essential that you should emphasise the human factor in the Army. That is why we recommended in this Report that, in addition to a medical examination, there should be some form of intelligence test, if you like to call it so, by which you are really able to fit a square peg into a square hole and a round peg into a round hole.

A very interesting experiment, on which I think the Army deserves great congratulation, concerns a type known as "D. & B." which, by interpretation, means dull and backward. These men are called up, and some of them find themselves in an isolated position among men of normal outlook and intellect. At home they have been looked after by their relations and have been perfectly happy doing their job in familiar surroundings. Then war and conscription mean that they are flung into a situation quite unknown to them. That is cruelty, and there should be a watch on how these men are treated. Happily, there are certain officers in the R.A.M.C. who have carried out an amazingly clever experiment and have been able to draft most of these men when they have had the chance, which they have not always had, into companies of the Pioneer Corps where they are all more or less the same. They do not feel strange, they do not have an inferiority complex, they are perfectly happy and the work they are doing is magnificent. There is a lesson in that even for peace-time practice, so as to ensure that these men shall not be made to feel so shy and ashamed.

In regard to the mechanical side of the Army, the Royal Tank Corps, Signals and all the technical units, we know that to-day there are large numbers of men in them who are not suited to that work. It is known to the men themselves, it is known to their officers, and it is known to everybody. One of the problems seems to be so to try and cut out the red tape as to make the machinery of shuffling men more simple. In connection with that I have heard complaints as other Members have when the Minister of National Service has turned down a highly skilled man very much wanted for work in a workshop of one's constituency. How many people realise that it is most wasteful to urge on the production of mechanical plant, munitions, implements of all kinds, highly delicate machinery, and to pass these on to the Army, and then refuse to give the Army those highly skilled tradesmen who are essential to maintain that plant in proper condition. The great problem of the Minister of National Service is to weigh the balance between those two things. How many Members realise the value of the equipment of one armoured division to-day? Has anybody ever thought of that? Has anyone ever estimated what the actual material value of a Panzer division in Germany is? How many Members know the number of vehicles involved? You will not be far out if you take the cost of a warship of considerable tonnage and transfer that value to the value of the equipment and everything else entrusted to the commander of an armoured division. If we get that picture in our mind, surely we must all realise that it is a monstrous form of extravagance to deny to the Army the skilled tradesmen essential for keeping that valuable plant in order, to say nothing of the lives of men.

The Royal Army Ordnance Corps has always been looked on in the Army in the light of being somewhat of a Cinderella. In the last war, you would ask the D.A.D.O.S. for something, and if he was a good D.A.D.O.S you did not get it; but the Royal Army Ordnance Corps is much more than that to-day. The Royal Army Ordnance Corps has tremendous responsibility. It ought to be a Corps to which are transferred officers of the highest scientific skill and knowledge and men who have experience in workshops, accountants' offices, and so on. But the men are all put in haphazard. An incredible thing happens when Britain goes to war. You would imagine that the moment war started you would want to get the stuff out of the units on mobilisation. But you arrange that the whole of the Ordnance Corps shall be manned by men detailed from the Army, and on mobilisation they are at once recalled to their units, leaving the whole of the ordnance stores bereft of men. Then you get in a lot of unskilled labour. It is for the devotion of so many officers whose names are never heard, who do quiet duty behind the lines, that this House should give thanks. They are the men who did marvellous things during the retreat to Dunkirk.

Obviously, the extra burden that is thrown on the Minister of National Service is terrific. In 1936, there was a Committee set up; and on 23rd March, 1937, certain proposals were made by a Committee of this House, asking that these questions should be taken into account by that Committee. At that time the importance of industrial mobilisation was being considered. The Committee that was set up was presided over by the Noble Lord; Lord Swinton. At one time people used to say that the only persons who knew what was being done were Mr. Lloyd-Graeme and Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister, and that they both understood what Lord Swinton meant. At the moment we have not heard how far the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour has been the successor and heir to Lord Swinton's deliberations. It would be interesting to know, because questions were asked in the House in 1938 as to what had happened, and we were then told that these matters came under the care of the Minister for Coordination of Defence. I think that the Minister for Co-ordination of Defence in that rather do-nothing Government had no staff, one small office, and an enormous amount of paper thrown at him, which he was quite unable to digest. But I suggest that in the calm deliberation of that Committee, under Lord Swinton, there must have been something emerge which it would be worth while talking of now. For instance, there was the Imperial Defence College, one of the most notable developments in the Army in recent years, to which young officers were sent and papers made out by them about every possible condition of modern war. I do not suppose any of them have been read since the war started. In those documents you have promising young men's ideas of modern war. It is a remarkable fact that in the Army to-day wonderful young men are showing up as leaders and as administrators.

In conclusion, I would like to ask the Minister of National Service to consider how far it is safe to-day to deal with an industry which he knows well, the railway industry, and to take away still more skilled men. Should invasion come, the Army must rely on the railways to a very great extent. If the railways are unable to function because their skilled men are withdrawn, it will be too late when the men come back. In regard to road communications, all of us who sit for rural seats know that we are very near being unable to get transport for food or other necessities in isolated places. I think that the large number of lorries which are parked about the country pending invasion might be used, under proper conditions. Our committee on several occasions saw buses which had been withdrawn from service at various I.T.C. depots—sometimes 12 or 15 of them— waiting to take troops in a hurry to mobile columns. We asked what we thought was a very intelligent question: will they work? We were told "We are not allowed to use them until the invasion comes." All the men knew was that they had to keep the tyres pumped. On some days somebody came' to see that the engines were not frozen up; on other days nobody came, and they were frozen up. Plenty of people want to throw bricks at the right hon. Gentleman, but very few appreciate his difficulties. People would appreciate those difficulties more if they did not see vehicles lying about idle while it was impossible to get the necessities of life—agricultural labourers sometimes have difficulty in getting their rations. Surely, it would not be beyond the wit of man to devise a scheme which would keep the wheels of the lorries turning and which would not cost the Government anything?

More thought ought to be given to sorting out the men in the Services to do their jobs, and to sorting out the men called up, not according to age only but according to the service they are giving the State in doing their present job. I am sure we all realise that the officers of the Ministry whenever we have had occasion to approach them have always given us courtesy and attention, but few of us appreciate the enormous amount of work that has fallen upon them. It is the duty of this House to support the Minister, but I hope that a wider view will be taken and that the results of the work of the Noble Lord, Lord Swinton, who is now engaged on such mysterious tasks that I hardly dare mention his name, will be passed on to his successor.

Mr. Walker (Motherwell)

I rise in no spirit of carping criticism against the Minister of Labour. As a Trade Union official of more than 30 years' experience I realise very fully the tremendous difficulties that he is up against in organising the labour supply of this country. I do not agree with the hon. member for East Birkenhead (Mr. Graham White) who told us that Governments had an infinite capacity for doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. After all, this House gave its support to the Government and pledged that support in every possible way. We cannot turn round after we elect the Government and complain that all the faults and misdemeanours as far as this war is concerned lay at the door of the Government and that the people of the country generally have no responsibility whatever. The Minister of Labour has, outside the Prime Minister, the most onerous task of any member of the Government. He has to serve the three Services, and from the speech of the hon. Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) to which we have just listened we can all agree that one of those Services, namely, the War Department, requires a great deal of review and examination not only by the Minister of Labour but by the Secretary of State for War.

What is the task that is confronting this country to-day? We are up against the greatest war machine the world has ever seen, and we only started to organise after the war commenced. The task that we have in industry today is to turn, industry from peace pursuits mainly to war pursuits. In 1926 the German Government took a complete census of all the machine tools in Germany, long before Hitler was heard outside of Germany, and her industry was planned from the point of view of turning it at any moment from peace to war. But in this country we were going towards a different goal, and our industries were not organised upon a basis that at any moment we might be faced with an international crisis when this country might have to turn all its energies towards war. Why, in January of 1939, we were told by the Prime Minister of that do-nothing Government to which the hon. Member for Abingdon referred that he saw the dawn of peace breaking over Europe, at the very moment when the guns were being marshalled for an attack upon the liberties of every democratic country in Europe.

The Minister of Labour, when he took office, was faced with the problem of supplying with equipment an Army which had lost everything when it left Dunkirk, and with the problem of trying to reorganise that industry upon a basis of supplying to the Army, the Navy and the Air Force all the equipment necessary as quickly as possible in order to resist invasion. We are bound to admit that during those six to twelve months tremendous things were done in the face of the greatest possible opposition. The Minister had to face vested interests wherever he turned his hand, and it is vested interest to-day that is preventing the full development of the industrial and war effort of this country. Controversy rages in the country as to whether skilled men should remain in industry or go into the Army. That is a question that can only be decided by the Government of the day. They are in possession of all the facts. They know the needs of the Army and of industry, and if they come to a wrong decision, what kind of decision can you expect from those outside who can only see the position from one point of view? When the Minister tackled this vested interest he found— and I confess it frankly as a trade unionist—that the trade unions as well as the employers had vested interests. We had to defend privileges and concessions that had been fought for during the 100 years of trade-union effort. These things were not given to us ex gratiâ. We had to fight for them, and we knew that at any moment the employing classes would take advantage—and full advantage—of the national circumstances in order to destroy those things that we had built up.

But the trade union movement knew that the victory of Germany would be a disaster to trade unionism and to democracy in every country in Europe. It had seen the German Government destroying trade unionism and individual liberty inside Germany itself, and it knew that that power, organised in Berlin, had to be fought if we were to save not only democracy in general but the trade union movement in this country and in other countries as well. Therefore, we gave up without question those things that might be termed the vested interests of the trade union movement. We allowed dilution to take place, altered hours and conditions of labour which might be said to restrict output. But did the employers, on the other hand, give up their privileges with the same enthusiasm as did the trade union movement of this country? I am introducing that point because of the controversy that is raging at the moment, because the trade union movement does not exist and does not claim to exist to keep men from going into the Army. The trade union movement wants to safeguard the position of the people in industry and to do its utmost to assist in the national effort towards the victory over the common foe. In every place in industry throughout the country the Minister of Labour, if he were to get up and tell the whole truth about it, could tell the House about opposition here and there from the various vested interests on the employing side.

The right hon. Gentleman has recently introduced what is known as the Essential Work Order. I congratulate him upon that Order. It is a very statesmanlike piece of machinery for dealing with the problem he had in hand, although we cannot call it a piece of legislation because it did not pass through this House. What was the problem? It was that employers were retaining labour for which they had no use at a given moment, were not paying that labour and were merely keeping it idle. The Minister of Labour introduced the Essential Work Order in order to penalise such employers and told them, "If you keep labour that you cannot find work for at any given moment, you are required to pay a guaranteed week's wage." By that Order he gave to the working classes of this country something they never had before—a guaranteed week's wage. The ink was no sooner dry on that document, and on the agreements that were fixed up in the various industries to carry the intention of the Minister into effect, than unscrupulous employers soon found a way to drive a coach and four through the provisions of the agreement.

I will give two instances of what was done by employers and, unfortunately, agreed to by the National Service officers acting for the Ministry of Labour. In my own industry, because the work is mainly piece work, we fixed up rates of wages that were to apply during a standby period when an employer could not find work for men at the particular job at which they were employed. A certain firm in the West of Scotland gave seven days' notice to a group of their employees that their services would no longer be required. They were perfectly entitled to do that by law and under the Order, and that meant that the men were free to go elsewhere and find employment. But at the same moment as the firm gave the men notice they went to the National Service officer and said, "We can find work for these men, not at their skilled occupations but as unskilled labourers, and we ask you to bind them to us under the Order." It was put before what is called the "Ring Fence Committee," and they agreed, which meant that the men concerned got labourers' work at 30s. a week less than they would have received under the agreement laid down by the Essential Work Order.

In the second case—500 miles distant— a firm did exactly the same thing and operated in the same way. The men went to the Employment Exchange and asked to be signed on but were told by the manager, "You cannot sign on. The Essential Work Order makes it imperative upon your employer to pay you while he keeps you off the job you are usually employed at." "The manager was told that the National Service officer had agreed that these men should be reserved for general unskilled labour. He sent the men some distance away, where five men of their class were required. There they were told that they could not be employed as their employer had refused to give them up. Back they went to the Exchange, where the manager sent them back to the factory. A week elapsed, at the end of which the manager of the factory who had asked for five men said they could employ one man. The men were now registered at the Employment Exchange, drawing unemployment benefit and not coming under the Essential Work Order because their employer was able to get round it by the method he had adopted.

This kind of thing will spread throughout the country, and the Minister's attempt to ensure a guaranteed week for workers will be defeated by unscrupulous employers. This sort of thing is going on in our industry, and you will find that it probably applies to other industries. Perhaps when other Members speak later in the Debate they will be able to give illustrations of it. Can we organise this, country to meet the Germans? Great as our Army and Navy are to-day, they are not great enough to meet that tremendous machine which is battering Russia to-day in spite of her heroic resistance and enormous man-power, and the years she has had to prepare against invasion. The German machine is an enormous machine which has been built up ever since the Versailles Treaty was signed, under the eyes and noses of all the statesmen of Europe, and we have a tremendous job to do if we are to build up an Army sufficient to take the offensive against our enemy and at the same time supply that Army with munitions. There are thousands of jobs to-day being performed by men which can be performed by women, but it seems that employers are anxious to get women into their employ only if the women can be induced to accept less wages than the men whom they are displacing. The trade-union movement has been able to lay it down under the Orders issued by the Ministry of Labour that when a woman displaces a man and does the same work as he was doing she ought to be, and must be, paid the same rate of wages. If we are to organise properly, surely the great industrial machine of this country ought to be under the more complete control of the Government. The Minister of Labour cannot be constantly fighting against what are the natural instincts of the people who own the industrial plants. They are keeping their eye on the end of the war and watching that nothing is done that will undermine their position when the war is over. They seem not to realise that unless something almost superhuman is done, there will be nothing left for them when the war is over, because it will end the wrong way.

That is why we want a change of policy on the part of the Government. "Business as usual" must be ended for ever. The trade unions must learn that, and the employers must learn it. If we are to get the best out of our industrial equipment, it will have to be grouped in regions, and the labour power necessary to run it will have to be pooled in those areas. The ownership will have to be taken, for the time being—at least during the war—out of the hands of private individuals and put into the hands of the State. Why should not the shareholders of all these industrial companies accept a return of three per cent., which is the return given to the ordinary invester and saver during the war savings effort, the Government undertaking to keep the industries up to scratch as far as depreciation and efficiency is concerned? By this means all the vested private interests that are hampering our war effort at the moment would be removed. In the iron and steel industry and in the engineering industry the employers do not act as a body. Only on certain things are they united, and within their unity there is bickering and division, because each company is looking after its own particular interests. One company will not yield up men to help another company to run full time. Many plants are redundant and have no value whatever, but men are kept there—not earning full wages—who could be better employed at other plants, which, working full time, would be better employed in the national effort. This is a question of policy which must be determined, not by the Minister of Labour, but by the War Cabinet and the Government. Only in proportion as we do these things shall we be able to get the people of this country to agree fully, freely, and frankly to all the demands which the Government may make upon them.

We have military compulsion, and we are moving towards its logical corollary, industrial compulsion. The people of this country do not like that, but I believe they will accept it if they know and believe that industrial compulsion, the compulsory sending of men from one place to another, is done in the national interest, and that by transferring their homes and their labour they are working for the community and not for the private profits of employers who, in spite of all the extra taxation, are doing far better to-day than they did in the years before the war. It is no reply to me to say that extra taxation has been imposed. It is true that the wealthy pay more taxes than the poor. A wealthy individual pays more than a poor individual, but he takes more from the community than does a poor individual, and he is taxed only according to his ability to pay. We are all in the same boat. Before we can get a great united effort for the destruction of the menace of Germany, the Government will have to take action on the lines I have indicated under powers which the House has already given them. The Government have full power to do these things under the Emergency Powers Act. When they make up their minds to do them, I am certain that the Minister of Labour, with all the ability and experience that he has, will be able to mobilise all the resources of labour, man-power and woman-power, in this country for the benefit of the whole community far better even than he has done in the past.

Mr. Jewson (Great Yarmouth)

This is the first time I have ventured to address the House, and I trust it will show to me that indulgence which is usual on such occasions. Last week the Prime Minister, in his heartening speech to which we listened with so much encouragement and pleasure, told us that we cannot have the existing formations pulled to pieces by taking out of them the trained men who are already there. I have done professional soldiering myself, and I appreciate the truth of that point of view. But it carries with it, of course, the corollary that, if when once a man is in the Fighting Forces he must not be for any reasons withdrawn, we ought to consider very carefully before taking a man from industry for the Fighting Forces whether he is not one of those who can make his best contribution to our war effort in industry rather than in the Army. I am thinking more especially of men in low physical categories who, while they may be of first-class importance and use in industry, can never be first-class fighting men, and therefore, are of much less value proportionately in the Army.

We all know the old adage that an army marches on its stomach, and we ought, therefore, to be extremely careful when we consider withdrawing men from agriculture to make sure that we leave to agriculture a sufficiency of labour to maintain its necessary output. I believe that other hon. Members better acquainted with that subject than I am will say something more definite upon it later. In these mechanised days it is equally true to say that an army marches on the output of industry, and for the sake of the Army, therefore, it is essential that we should keep in industry such labour as will enable the output to be kept at its peak. In this connection it becomes daily of more importance to turn unskilled men and women into skilled men and women. Last week I had the oppor- tunity of inspecting one of our smaller training institutions. I am glad to say that excellent work is being done there. I was interested to' learn from several independent instructors, who all gave me the same answer, that the best age for a trainee is 30. I came across one man of at least double that age who was making very excellent progress, and he is going to be of great use to our effort in the near future.

From my own experience in connection with industry, I should like to suggest two ways in which man-power might be and should be economised. The first method is by ensuring a regular flow in the placing of contracts. Unfortunately, I have known cases where contracts have been allowed to end with no new contracts to take their place. This hiatus has meant a heavy loss of output, and in some cases it has led to a loss of labour for the firm concerned—a loss which could not afterwards be replaced. My second suggestion is for a more efficient system of accounting in Government offices concerned. Over and over again it has been my experience, after full details of an account have been rendered, and, of course, on the necessary forms, to be asked again for the details weeks and weeks later and yet again weeks after that, with a flow of correspondence intervening in each case. If something could be done to obtain more prompt attention to accounts in Government offices, it would save a great deal of man-power and woman-power on the clerical side of industry, and I hope it may be possible for this to be done.

I considered whether I should draw upon my very large experience in filling up forms, but I suppose I must assume that the forms required to be filled up are essential to our effort, although to a business man it is true to say that they frequently appear to be a waste of time and paper. The problem of manpower is not, of course, connected solely with our Fighting Forces; it is connected with our whole national life, and I have no doubt that the Minister and the War Cabinet regard it from that point of view. The Fighting Forces are a branch of our national tree; they are not the tree itself, and, if the tree fails, the branch will die. This brings me. to the reason which led me to be very anxious to have the opportunity of saying a few words in this Debate. I refer to the Defence areas, such as my own constituency, which has been so hardly hit not only by enemy action—and, of course, we do not complain about that in war—but also, deliberately and quite necessarily, by our own Orders and Regulations.

Taking my own constituency as an example, we have lost our fishing industry. For obvious war reasons the industry cannot operate on anything like its normal scale. But on top of that, on account of the necessary Defence Regulations, our second great industry, that of boarding houses and visitors, has been entirely wiped out. The population, owing to evacuation and removal, has shrunk to a small proportion of its normal size, and, as I have already mentioned, no visitors are allowed to enter the area. It is easy, therefore, to visualise the sort of conditions under which the shopkeepers, who have still managed to keep their shops open, are endeavouring to carry on their businesses. That being so, it should be our very definite policy to encourage and maintain such few remaining industries as exist in these Defence areas. We have weighted the scales against these communities by rules and regulations, made quite necessarily for Defence reasons, and, therefore, if possible we should weight the scales in their favour when we consider such questions as the labour needs of their remaining industries.

We must remember that where men have been taken away from a Defence area in a coastal town, they cannot be replaced in the same way as is perhaps possible in the case of a neutral or. reception area. In all probability, once they have been taken away they cannot be replaced. Therefore, reasons which would be strong enough to justify taking men from industry for the Army or other Services in a neutral area, might not necessarily be strong enough to take them away from a Defence area, where the remaining industries are so much more important to the maintenance of the life of the community. I hope that nothing I have said will lead the House to think that I do not appreciate the supreme and paramount importance of the Fighting Services in our national life. The Fighting Forces do not and cannot stand alone, and I ask that all possible consideration, and special consideration, shall be given to such hard-hit coastal towns as that which I represent.

Major Sir Edward Cadogan (Bolton)

It falls to my lot to congratulate the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Jew-son), who, I understand, has made his first contribution to our Debates. His eloquence and the knowledge he brought to our discussion were obvious, but, bearing in my mind the painful experience I had many years ago when I found myself in the same predicament, I must also congratulate him on his self-possession and self-confidence in addressing the House. I am sure that I am conveying the feelings of other hon. Members, in saying that I hope that on many occasions in the future we shall have the privilege of having contributions from him to our Debates.

My contribution to this Debate to-day will be brief, on the understanding that the Minister concerned will not measure the importance I attach to the points I raise by the brevity of my allusions. I attach considerable importance to the points I wish to place before him, and I trust I shall elicit not only his attention, but, possibly, a reply. Certainly, I shall respond to the appeal of the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White) in trying to be dispassionate—indeed I do not think I have ever been anything else. I do not know that I have ever been anything else. It has been urged in the Press that our Debate should be directed to the examination of general principles and policies, but that course will avail us little unless we examine how these policies are being given effect to in detail. As war production in its relation to man-power largely depends upon detail, I do not make any apology for drawing attention to certain defects in detail in the administration of a Measure which the Government framed not many months ago with the express purpose of increasing man-power in munition factories.

It is surely time that we should ask ourselves how far the Government's plan for the concentration of industry is fulfilling expectations, and particularly how far it has contributed towards an increase of man-power in war industries, which was the main purpose of that policy. I represent a constituency in which the policy of concentration has been implemented so drastically in the main industry, that of cotton spinning, that it has necessitated the application of the Essential Work Order in order to save what remains of the industry from any further reduction of its labour force. When the policy of concentration was applied to the cotton spinning industry it had been hopefully anticipated that the operatives released from the closed-down mills would be made available for munition factories and, incidentally, that the nucleus mills, those which have not been closed down, should have their complement of labour in order to spin the cotton allocated by the Controller. The scheme looked very well on paper as far as the man-power in munition factories and the cotton industry was concerned. If it had been working out according to plan, no doubt the production of war material would have been favourably affected by the Government's policy, but the Minister of Labour knows as well as I do that that scheme has not been working out according to plan. I have been concerning myself on and off for some months in my constituency and in its neighbourhood, and I have collected sufficient evidence to draw the Minister's attention to the shortcomings of the scheme as it affects man-power in the munition factories.

When the concentration took place, many cotton spinning mills were closed down, and this process released a number of foremen and apprentice-men and setters as well as a large number of women operatives. One of the reasons adduced as to why production in munition factories has been short of capacity is that the management personnel has been inadequate, or defective, and it is not surprising in virtue of the fact that many engineering firms have expanded in a very short space of time and a number of others have come into existence only since the commencement of hostilities, with the consequence of a hasty improvisation of management personnel. It has been well said that the quality of management is one of the most important elements in production. Owing to our special circumstances and the mushroom growth of our war industries, it is hardly a matter of reproach that the foremen, apprentice-men and production engineers have not been up to the standard requisite for obtaining the maximum output with the material to our hand. Many of these are unfamiliar with the technique of production, the psychology of the worker and the tactful discipline which must be exercised if the best results are to be secured. The concentration of the cotton spinning industry has released a number of experienced foremen who, with certain training in engineering—some have quite an adequate knowledge of it—would, I am certain, be an invaluable asset to the management side of munition work and conduce to a greatly increased output, but for some reason or other, which I should like the Minister to explain, their enlistment has not followed upon the Government's policy of concentration. That is the first question that I would like him to answer.

My second point is that investigation suggests that a very large proportion of the operatives released by the closing down of mills have not been absorbed into the munition factories, with this extraordinary result, that the Government have requisitioned the nucleus mills, which are already short of operatives, for the release of some of their labour for the purpose of war work in factories. Not to employ labour already released on the market and to withdraw it from the nucleus mills is surely, to put it mildly, the very negation of wisdom. The Minister of Labour fortunately has at last stopped the rot by the application of the Essential Work Order to the cotton spinning industry. I do not know whether he thinks the guaranteed week and the elimination of short time will be sufficiently attractive to bring a number of men and women into the nucleus mills, but these, of course, would be the older hands. The younger and more mobile labour force have faded out. Not even the Employment Exchanges can trace them. I have been told that that is quite all right. The problem has solved itself. These operatives who have been released would nave to produce their cards before the end of the period. But the period does not end until June next. What we shall all be doing in June next I do not know. I hope we shall be singing paeans of victory, but we shall not be unless we pay more attention to this question of manpower. I have approached the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, the hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Tomlinson). I have given him a great deal of trouble, and I should like to pay a tribute to him. He has always been most courteous and helpful and receptive to suggestions that I have made. But, whatever is being done, the concentration of industry has been going on for six months, and some of these mills were closed down six months ago. I suggest that the Employment Exchanges should be empowered to get a nominal roll of those operatives who were released from the closed down mills, and if they have found other work in the meantime, some note should be given to the Ministry of Labour as to where they are.

The matters to which I have referred reinforce my suspicion that there is not yet a sufficiently scientific labour plan worked out as between the Ministries of Labour and Supply and the Board of Trade. We are all getting sick to death of the word planning, but I think we are justified in bringing it into this Debate. So long as we carry on with the policy of concentration in this haphazard, hand-to-mouth manner the production of our war material will be impaired. I trust that the Minister of Labour will not be under any impression that I have brought these points to his notice in any factious spirit of criticism. I hope he will regard the comments I have made to-day and any that I shall be privileged to make in any future Debate merely as evidence of my desire to be of what assistance I can in the all-important matter of man-power in relation to the munitions factories.

Miss Lloyd George (Anglesey)

The hon. and gallant Member for Bolton (Sir E. Cadogan) has told us that the concentration of industry in his constituency is being actively pursued. I wish that might be so in a great many other constituencies. The Government should be urged to do whatever they can to speed up the concentration of industries so that the labour which is being utilised in them may be released for more vital war purposes. We have had some indications in the Debate to-day of the difficulties of which the Minister of Labour complained in deciding between the claims of one industry and another and of deciding between the claims of the Forces and industry for skilled men. The Prime Minister told us the other day that we never had and never shall have an Army of Continental dimensions, that the Army we shall have will be highly mechanised, and that it is vital that it should be maintained at the highest pitch of efficiency. No one will dispute that, but the experience we have had in actual hostilities so far has proved that up to date trained personnel have exceeded the equipment available. The Minister of Labour has said that he means to have sufficient skilled men for the Army, and he stated in a speech the other day: It shall not be on my conscience that I risked a single airman's life. In point of fact, in Greece and in Crete we did not suffer from a lack of trained men; we suffered from a lack of material, and lives were risked in those campaigns because men were insufficiently provided with modern equipment and sufficient aircraft. Since then we have been charged with a new responsibility—that of supplying our new Ally, Russia. That is a very great responsibility, and the Prime Minister has made it clear that serious sacrifices will be demanded of us in war material if we are to discharge that responsibility adequately.

The trade unions have expressed great doubt as to whether in their judgment industry can fulfil its production programme if as many key-men are to be taken away as is anticipated. Yet this is the very moment when we are contemplating the withdrawal of further skilled men from industry into the Army. As a matter of fact, at the moment we have never had so many trained men on the Allied side. We have a superiority of military man-power since Russia came into the war. We have not, however, a superiority of industrial man-power, because Germany is able to call upon the whole of the enslaved peoples of Europe. For the first time we have a superiority in military man-power, and our lack is still in the capacity to equip that man-power. That lack is becoming daily greater. Russia has already lost between 40 or 50 per cent, of her industrial production and if the worst were to happen—and we have to contemplate and plan for that—and Russia were to lose the Donetz Basin, she would be deprived of about 60 per cent, of her industrial capacity. With America not in a position to do more than give us half production, it seems that our responsibility for providing material is very great indeed. Yet this is the moment to choose for taking skilled men from industry and putting them into the Army.

The question has been raised by hon. Members to-day as to whether the most economic use is being made of the men who have already been taken out of industry and put into the Army. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn), who has had great experience and has had the opportunity of having a mass of evidence put before him on the Select Committee, has spoken of the misfits in the Army. We know perfectly well that there have been cases—and hon. Members in all quarters of the House know of them—of skilled men in the Army who have been put on to tasks like scrubbing floors. The answer that is given by the military authorities is that when the military blitz is renewed the services of these men will be needed as in the case of Libya. I do not know whether the Government have considered what is called the dual Army scheme. It would be possible with a scheme of that kind to second these men from the Army after their training back into industry for a period of time, at the same time withdrawing from industry men and taking them into the Army for training. The Government have for months past been releasing men for agriculture for the harvest, and I do not see why they should not try that principle on a much larger scale in industry. It would certainly keep the men just as fit and as highly trained as they would be in scrubbing floors. It would, moreover, give them the opportunity to get away from the awful boredom and the terrible strain of waiting upon events, a strain which inevitably must tell on the morale of any Army, however good it may be.

I would like to say a word about agriculture. No one in the House will dispute that there is no industry more vital to the national life. There may be an alternative between guns and butter, but there is no alternative between guns and bread. The Germans found that out in the last war. I do not suppose they had been better equipped at any period of the war than at the end, but the lack of bread so destroyed the morale of the Army and of the people that they were no longer able to keep on. Ten thousand men are to be withdrawn from this vital industry very shortly, after the harvest—I do not know whether that means after the corn harvest or the potato or beet harvest. What provision is being made to replace those men? The Minister of Agriculture has laid down a policy under which we are to plough up a great number of additional acres next year. Will he come to this House and say that he believes he can carry through that policy, and a policy of land drainage and land reconditioning, which is absolutely vital if we are to increase the production of food, with the labour supply which will be available after those 10,000 men have been withdrawn? I should be very much surprised if he were able to make that statement. I would press for a reconsideration of the withdrawal of those 10,000 men from agriculture, because, after all, it is a vital element in the organisation of shipping and raw materials, and a vital element in the organisation of victory.

As a member of the Women's Consultative Committee set up by the Ministry of Labour perhaps I may be allowed to say a word about what is probably regarded as the main solution of the problem of the moment, and that is the substitution of women for men in industry. I think no one will deny that we are far from a proper organisation of the training or the mobilisation of woman-power in this country. Suggestions have been made that women are holding back, are not coming forward in sufficient numbers either to join the Forces or to go into industry, and I think there is no doubt that there is a section of the community, not a very large one—but not a very small one either—that is not facing up to its responsibilities in this respect. They have no reasons, they have only excuses for not taking part, and I believe they should be dealt with.

The Minister has the power, and unless those women can show just cause why they should not be mobilised they should be ruthlessly directed to war work. The Minister has only exercised his powers in this respect over either men or women in a very limited number of cases, and if he were to do it on a very much larger scale I believe that he would have the whole-hearted support of the men and women of this country. It is not just that these shirkers, for that is what they are, should loom so large, so that an impression is created that the majority of women in this country have to be coerced into doing their duty. The Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary, who has taken a great interest in this matter, will, I am sure, be the first to acknowledge that that is very far from the truth. But there is a very great disparity between the number of interviews and the number of women who are actually placed in the Forces and in industry. It the machinery of the Ministry of Labour is to cope with all these needs there must be a speeding up. The hon. Member for Abingdon made, I am sure, a slip of the tongue when he said there was no such thing as red tape now. I should have said that the production of red tape was one of our main industries at the moment, and that if only we could produce tanks and aeroplanes at the rate at which we are producing red tape our anxieties would be considerably less. Somebody spoke to-day about scientific planning, but I think that what is needed is a great deal more drive and a great deal more co-ordination. I heard yesterday of an instance in which a factory in one area was urgently needing 300 women and that in another district 2,000 women were searching for work, and there was no relation between the two.

One of the main difficulties is that a great deal of this labour is immobile, and that brings us to the important question of the married woman who has domestic responsibilities and who, for those domestic reasons, is unable to leave the locality. But her services must be utilised; and here I should like to say that if the use of married women in industry is to be conditioned by the number of nursery schools and what are called '.' minders," I think the pace of recruitment will be slow. It would relieve the situation if married women could be brought into industry to work on a system of shifts. I know that the idea is not very popular with some employers, but certain industries have made a great success of the system. I understand that the Standard Telephone Company have made it an outstanding success, and if they have done so there is no reason why others should not do the same.

The most important thing of all in this matter is the training of women to take the place of skilled workers. The fringe of that problem has only just been touched. I think that the time is past for exhorting and appealing to employers to train women in the factories. I believe ' that nothing short of an ultimatum, with a restricted time limit, will be of the slightest use. The Ministry of Labour should take a strong line. They should make known to the various industries the quota of skilled workers they will demand from particular industries and say to them, "By such and such a day you will have to release X number of skilled workers, and before that time it is up to you, the industry, either by consultations with employers and employed or by any other method, to train women in your factories, so that by the time the skilled men are called up they will be ready to take their places." It can be done by grading up those women who are already skilled. I know that I shall be told that this is what is being done already. So it is. All these things are being done, here and there, and in a lesser or greater degree—nearly always in a lesser degree; but if the training of women in factories is to continue at its present rate without any impetus or initiative from anyone except the employers then, I think, a 30-years war will produce the requisite number of skilled women. The thing has to be done on a very large scale, and if we could have a few directions, with a dash of compulsion, for the employers it would have the overwhelming support of every right-minded—I do not say Left-minded— man and woman in the country. There are shirkers among the employers, as in every other section of the community, and they must be brought into line.

There is also a prejudice amongst employers against the use of women. It seems almost unbelievable, but it docs exist. I say that it is almost unbelievable after the record of the last 25 years, after the record, even, of this war, because I am told by those who know intimately that women have done more remarkable things in the realm of skilled work in this war than was thought possible in the last war. One correspondent of the "Times" the other day had made a tour of factories in this country, and he pointed out that, in a Spitfire factory that he visited, one in three of the workers was a woman. He expressed the view that very shortly the proportion would be completely reversed. That process has to be accelerated. We cannot afford what can only be called Victorian prejudices to stand in the way of our war effort. As those prejudices do not seem to die a natural death, I hope they will be speedily put out of the way by the right hon. Gentleman.

If we are to call up these women and a great number are to come into industry, they have to be assured of fair remuneration. The minimum wage should be raised from 38s. to 50s. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will see that the rate for the job is not only all right on paper but is applied in practice. I hope, after all these years, that we have got past the stage of thinking in terms of women's wages and women's work. We ought to be thinking in terms of the individual's work and wages. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will also consider the matter of hours. I heard of instances of 12-hour shifts being worked in industry. The Parliamentary Secretary looks surprised, but I have verified the information, and I should be very glad to give him cases and particulars. I came across a girl only yesterday who has been trained as an aircraft supervisor. As so often happens, after having a highly skilled training she was put into a factory as a worker. She worked 12 hours a day for three weeks, and then she was put on to the night shift. After a fortnight of that she collapsed. There was no other reason why she should have done so, as she was a perfectly healthy girl. Such cases ought not to be possible, but there are outstanding cases of that sort, and action ought to be taken about them. It has been proved over and over again that long hours defeat their own object, because production goes down every time.

Progress in the organisation and training of women is very slow and halting. All the directions and compulsory powers in the world will not achieve as much as proper organisation and a proper approach. There has been a most unfortunate approach in this matter from the very beginning. The Prime Minister asked for 1,000,000 women almost at the very beginning of the war. Women flocked to the Employment Exchanges, eager and anxious to give their services to the country, but no jobs were waiting for them. The Parliamentary Secretary knows all about that; it has been unfortunate. I have no doubt that Members of this House have personal experience of the fact that women are more easily led than driven. You may take them to' the water, but they will not always drink. They will respond to a call for their services and to leadership, but there has been no leadership in this matter from the Government.

It is very remarkable that no member of the War Cabinet has thought it proper to make a special appeal to the women of the country. The then Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. Menzies, gave one of the most remarkable broadcasts of the war, when he paid a wonderful tribute to the work that the women were doing, but no member of the War Cabinet has done so. I include the Minister of Labour himself. He has not found time to attend a conference of representatives of organised women in this country. I realise that the Parliamentary Secretary has done so. I feel that he has shown the greatest sympathy, understanding and lack of prejudice in his handling of this question; it is not intended as disparaging to him to say that that is not enough. We must have one of the leaders of the Government making the appeal, which has to be put across in the right way. You will get women much more easily by appealing to their patriotism than by any amount of directions and compulsion. Let women be asked to come forward. Let them not be treated as conscripts; ask them to take their part as partners, in the greatest struggle with which our country has ever been faced.

Mr. J. J. Davidson (Glasgow, Maryhill)

The speeches made to-day show an indication of a demand on all sides of the House for a thorough review of the whole man-power position. I do not intend to take up much time with local or constituency complaints. I wish to approach this subject directly by asking the Government exactly what policy they have for linking up questions of man-power with general questions of strategy. Every Member of this House could relate instances of man-power wasted by being used in the wrong way, and could bring to the attention of the Minister in public Debate deficiencies regarding our war effort, but not one Member could say that the Government had definitely and clearly made a statement indicating the future position of the organisation concerning our military, naval and air forces and the general civilian war effort in production. Not one statement has been made.

I am not approaching this subject in a spirit of destructive criticism. I would point out to the Government that there is an overwhelming feeling, not simply of dissatisfaction but of deep anxiety, whether the Government have any carefully prepared scheme or order of things for the future, or whether we are working day by day, setting up welfare committees, drawing men from one district to another, appealing to women and sending them into difficult areas in bad conditions and then continually asking hon. Members to come and clear up these little messes, or have we a carefully and properly prepared scheme that fits into a complete plan of strategy for the winning of this war? That is what I want to speak about to-day, and I want the Minister of Labour to deal, not with the difficulties of one particular set of people or another, nor with the badness of certain trade unionists or certain employers of labour, but with exactly what the Government's scheme is with regard to the military forces of this country. What have the Government decided? How many men are required in the Army? What force is it intended to obtain, and how long will it take to equip it? What steps are being taken within the organisation of the war effort to improve the situation with regard to production?

Having visited many parts of the country and having spoken to men employed on very important jobs essential to the war effort, I am frankly quite satisfied that there is much organisation to be done even with regard to the workers who arc already engaged in our war effort. First of all we must solve the food problem for the workers in heavy industry. It is no use promising one section of industry an extra morsel of cheese. I can make claims for at least six industries and show that the workers in each one of them should be better fed—and must be better fed; if they are not, their war effort and their production will be minimised. I would like to refer to the building industry, and here let me depart for a moment from my intention and give the Minister some instances. I have visited one of the biggest ordnance factories in the country, where men were still engaged on very hard work under very bad weather conditions. The manager said to me that he would like to ask his men to work until seven o'clock that night, but was afraid to ask them. I said "Why?" and he asked me to go with him. We went round the factory and saw men—navvies, builders' labourers, cranemen, men driving dumpers, diggers and scrapers—big, brawny men who required, and in the past had always been noted for, hearty meals. There they were, with bread and butter and jam, or bread and margarine and jam. Some of them had their weekly ration on the Monday, and it sufficed for one meal. The Minister cannot expect that men like these—men whom he knows very well because of his close association with them in the past—can work even normally with so much less food than they previously had. How, then, can they be expected to work abnormally?

This is a very serious problem, and, as a matter of fact, when we are dealing with the question of man-power, every Minister in the Cabinet should be on that Bench, for the question affects the War Office, the Admiralty, the Ministry of Supply and every other Department. It is unfair that the Minister of Labour and National Service should be expected to reply to many of the various questions that might be addressed to him on this subject. I addressed a question recently to the Secretary of State for Air, in which I referred to the contract system. The Minister of Labour and National Service must make up his mind that, unless he or some other member of the Cabinet is prepared to ask the Treasury for a full Departmental inquiry into the method of placing contracts and orders, there will continue to be confusion: men will stand idle where they could be working, and employers will play a game they ought not to be playing.

We have had men in Scotland, after building an aerodrome, walking in at 11 o'clock. They were employed by this firm of Wimpey's, to which I have so often tried to draw the attention of hon. Members. They were going to work at 11 o'clock and wasting their whole day, because Wimpey's firm knew that while other contractors were standing idle they had the next Air Ministry contract in their pocket and could afford to keep the men doing nothing. At the same time other firms, which were trying to keep their organisations intact for the national service, -could not even obtain a look-in. If certain big firms in this country are to be given every opportunity with regard to contracts while others are standing idle, retaining their organisations for the national service but not being utilised, I say it is a criminal waste of the manpower of this country. The Treasury must have an inquiry into the operation of such firms in order that the question shall be cleared up. In one case, men were sent from a Glasgow organisation to a contract in a certain part of England. The Glasgow firm had been trying to "obtain a job for their own men for a year and had not received one contract. It is a firm which had built the Scottish Government buildings in Edinburgh. These people had to send their men, machinery and plant, hired through a third party—which means, of course, extra costs and extra money from the taxpayers' pockets—to this job. I was interested in the case because they were Glasgow men and because they got into trouble for gambling on the job—playing cards. And they admitted to me that they were playing cards.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin)

Were they gambling with the Englishmen?

Mr. Davidson

No, they were Scotsmen and were playing among themselves, but the point is rather too serious for any amusement. These men were certainly playing cards and in so doing had committed a fault, and they were going to be very severely reprimanded for it when I intervened. They told me that they admitted playing cards on a Government job but said they had nothing else to do. One of them said he objected to being employed in that manner. He had been taking three loads instead of 12 in the morning and, "in the afternoon," he said, "I have been going to where I dumped the muck and taking it back to the original hole they dug it out of in the morning. "Yet contracts are handed out to organisations which can do this sort of thing. I have here letter after letter in regard to Wimpey's, from men who tell me that they are idling on the job, playing crown and anchor, nap and all sort of games, because it does not matter a hoot to the employer, who is doing the work on a certain contract basis and cannot lose no matter how long it lasts. I ask the Minister of Labour to do one thing—just one thing: to ask the Service Departments—the War Office and particularly the Air Ministry, all Departments which place contracts—information as to whether, since the war started, a single aerodrome, ordnance factory or any other building has been completed within the scheduled time. Ask that question, and the Minister will be very disagreeably surprised to find out that it is very seldom these big concerns carry out their part of the job and try to save the taxpayers' money with regard to this particular question of man-power.

I wish, also, now that the Minister is here, to repeat what I said. I do not want the Minister to reply to little troubles that have arisen within the organisation. I am asking him to-day for a national reply. It is not a question affecting Maryhill or any other constituency. I am asking him to state to-day whether he is satisfied that the War Cabinet of this country, in relation to man-power, have a definite strategical plan. What Army are we aiming at, how long will it take to acquire it, what resources have you got from the Dominions, from India? Is it true to say we are such a small country; have we not taken into consideration the vast resources of the Empire? Are those being taken into consideration to-day with regard to this problem of manpower? Are any steps being taken to try and develop to the utmost the war production of our Dominions and our Indian Empire, because they are all closely related? We know that in this country, as the Minister has already stated, we have to draw from approximately 18,000,000 to 19,000,000 people. Within that 18,000,000 and 19,000,000, what is your aim? Is it to go out from this country to-day, this spirit of defeatism I have heard, this message of defeatism, that the Germans have 180,000,000 people, that we have only 18,000,000 or 19,000,000 to draw from, that we started only since the war began, and the Germans started many years ago? These things are true, but can we not give the people a message of hope with regard to our organisation for the future, with regard to the utilisation of American help, with regard to the utilisation of our new Ally, Russia? How has that impinged on the resources of this country? These are the things we want to know.

I do not want to. hear a statement that a welfare committee was set up in some ordnance factory in the North of England. I know that within the organisation, within a great scheme such as this, there must be little difficulties and hardships, and the raising by Members, on compassionate grounds, of certain cases, but give us your general case regarding man-power to-day, tell us exactly what your scheme is for the future. And remember that the people of this country, the workers of this country, can themselves very often give helpful suggestions, even to Ministers. Utilise every form of obtaining these suggestions. I understand that Sir William Beveridge is on a commission of inquiry just now with regard to misfits in the Army. What form is this inquiry taking? Is Sir William Beveridge going through the country meeting the Provosts or Lord Provosts or Lord Mayors with one or two councillors, is he meeting a certain committee of business men, or is he going to the root of the trouble? I make one suggestion. If you want to get information such as this, there is no committee in the country that can obtain it. They cannot get to the cases. Appoint some officers, men who know the Army, who know what it is for a soldier to be picking up pieces of paper, and the like, or for a first-class caterer, as I know, to be sitting writing out chits in an office in a Signal Corps. Get men who understand that these things happened in the past and had to be removed in the organisation that we had in the last war.

I served in the last war, and I have seen many men deliberately prefer to be in the office instead of being on what we called gunfire parade at 5 a.m. I knew men who preferred to be in the cookhouse because they were free from this parade, long route marches, and arduous drills and marches. What is the position today? Can this Committee go into the cookhouse and find out? Can they go into the little orderly rooms and find these cases out? Can they find out the feelings of a man who left a good job in civilian life and is now acting as a batman, running for water, taking the lady's poodle out for a walk, brushing somebody's boots? Is that what you call utilisation of the man-power of this country when you see a hefty man 5 feet 9 inches or 5 feet 10 inches walking along with a young officer aged 22 who, no matter how fine a fellow he is, is not entitled to go into the Army during a total war and expect better service in a social way than he received in civilian life? It is that sort of thing that the Beveridge Committee must inquire into. I ask the Minister to see that it is not a committee which will meet one or two officers, or a deputation of men, with the adjutant present. I ask him to consider that point.

There is one point with regard to the woman-power of this country. I hesitate to trespass on the domains of the hon. Lady Members of this House, but I feel that the Minister was right in his attitude, absolutely right, in demanding a sympathetic attitude towards the women of this country. It is definitely not a matter with regard to claims of equality of sex. It is definitely a different matter when a girl is taken from home than when a man is taken; there is more anxiety. Parents whose girls are being transferred from one part of the country to another have more anxiety than they have about young Tom or Harry; there are different environments, different circumstances and different risks. I do not know exactly what organisation has been set up. I know that there is a welfare organisation in Scotland. Personally, I cannot throw any bouquets to it, but not knowing too much about it, I will not criticise it. I would suggest to the Minister that he would be well advised, when drawing women from Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, Coventry, or any other town, to have a local committee of people, not the Employment Exchange, who can see these girls and discuss matters with them.

If you care to instal in the Employment Exchange women who can understand the girls' problems and will give them sympathetic assistance, well and good, but I say, Set up those local committees for the women-folk, show them they are not going to be stranded in some town, explain by these local committees clearly to them where they are going and what they are being expected to do. No Employment Exchange official can do that in the way that a committee of local people coming from the girls' own town can do. I have listened to personal attacks upon the Minister. I believe that the Minister is a big man—and in saying that, I am not trying to flatter him. But I ask him not to try to hide the demands of the Services, but to tell the House that he is going to demand from the Cabinet a complete strategical plan for this war and then make his schemes with regard to manpower. If that is done, the Minister will be doing greater service to the nation even than he has done in the past.

Captain Patrick (Tavistock)

I find myself very strongly in agreement with the hon. Member for Maryhill (Mr. Davidson) when he says that this question needs to be treated on broad lines and a general plan worked out. One of the factors we have to take into account in drawing up a plan like that is the comparison between our policy and its success and failure and what the enemy have done. I have no detailed information, but I think all of us, from reading the newspapers, can form a general estimate on which to base a rough-and-ready comparison. We know, to begin with, that Germany has roughly 80,000,000 pure Germans—not 180,000,000, as some Members have suggested, for they cannot rely on the Czechs, the French and others. We know also that demands on her pool of labour in war-time are much the same as those on our pool—that is to say, the demands of war industry, of agriculture, and of the three Fighting Services. We could make a shrewd guess that the demands of her war industry are even more insistent than the demands of ours, because she has to produce ersatz products in place of a number of important commodities which we can import ready made. It is true that slave labour in the conquered countries may help her out. It is also true that she is at a slight disadvantage in view of the well-known Nazi attitude towards the employment of women, which must reduce considerably the amount of assistance she gets from women labour. But generally, I think, it is true to say that German war industry and our war industry make substantially similar demands on the pool of labour. The Luftwaffe, I believe, is still numerically superior to our own Air Force. Taking into account the very valuable assistance we have got from pilots from the Empire, as well as from our Metropolitan Air Force at home, I think it is true to say that the German Air Force makes much the same demands as our Air Force does. When it comes to naval and mercantile marine demands, Germany, of course, has a distinct advantage over us. That must be allowed for in any comparison.

The most important factor we have to consider to-day is the German army. The German army, according to the Press— and for all I know the estimate is fairly accurate—has between 220 and 230 divi- sions organised, trained, armed and in the field. That is a colossal force, and we all know what it has been able to do. Our population might be put at 45,000,000. We have discussed German and British industry. The demands of the two Air Forces are roughly similar. We are at a disadvantage in respect of the Navy and Mercantile Marine. Even so, making every allowance, had we organised ourselves as thoroughly as Germany has done I think we ought to have been able to produce an Army, numbered in divisions, roughly half of what Germany has actually produced. We have to admit that we have been out-organised by Germany in this vital matter of armies. We have to admit, too, that the man in the street is quite unaware of the fact, because of the propaganda suggestion that is constantly made by these very necessary and repeated appeals for increased production of weapons. I think that the man in the street generally has an impression that weapons alone will win the war—perhaps that is going too far; but that weapons are the crucial factor. I think everybody who has fought in a substantial part of any campaign knows that victory comes in the last resort only from the age-old process of a soldier on his feet walking into and holding the enemy's position. That was true at the time of Hastings, it was true at the time of Waterloo, and it is equally true to-day. The only new factor is that in order to make it possible for a soldier on his feet to advance into the enemy's land, actions by great fleets, powerful air forces and, nowadays, masses of tanks, are a necessary preliminary condition. It is the man and not the weapon that counts most. Those who grasp that fact, I think, are in the position of being able to distinguish between the cart and the horse.

Some may say that the argument I have just used was out of date at Passchendaele and that perhaps I have been personally inspired by Colonel Blimp to make this short speech. That is not so. If anybody thinks it is, I would refer him to the review of the war situation in general which was made by the Prime Minister about a fortnight ago. He made two points which are very relevant to the Debate to-day. He said that Germany had shown that she could hold off the Russians in the East and carry on three major offensives in the West at the same time. I rather think that my right hon. Friend was putting German possibilities at their highest theoretically, but still theoretically Germany could do that as a result of having 220 divisions. The other point that the Prime Minister made, and one which seemed to be absolutely of crucial importance, was that the Government had considered diversionary action to assist Russia in the course of the past month, but had decided against it. I have not the least doubt that that was right, but we must think what that decision means. It means in effect that, having set aside the minimum forces necessary to safeguard this country from the greatest invasion force the Germans can launch against us, we were not able and had not sufficient forces available to make use of a remarkable opportunity, anyhow, according to the Press, when Europe was denuded of all the good German divisions and indifferent garrisons and divisions were left in their places, and seeing also, to put it mildly, that the enemy had the very greatest interest in Russia at the present time. There was the opportunity and there was the need, but we were not strong enough to avail ourselves of those circumstances. That is our position in the third year of the war.

I think there is only one immediate conclusion to be drawn, that this House would be guilty of folly in agreeing to any course which could weaken the striking power of the Army, directly or indirectly. Personally, I would go further than that. I feel that it is the duty of every Member of this House himself to remember all the time, and, what is more, to see that his constituents remember, three points. The first is that our Fleet and our Air Force, in spite of their matchless skill and gallantry, cannot of themselves bring us victory. The next thing we must remember is that it is in the highest degree unlikely that either Russia or America, for different reasons in each case, will achieve victory for us. Thirdly, we must remember that, if that is so, then victory must be achieved by ourselves, by the soldiers of this country and the Empire going out and winning. If that is true—and I firmly believe that it is—surely it is our duty not merely to see that the Army in its present strength does not suffer, but we must go further. We must remember that everything we can do, the maximum that we can do to strengthen our striking power, will bring the day of victory nearer and that failure to do so will postpone that day of victory, perhaps for a long time and perhaps for ever.

Sir Leonard Lyle (Bournemouth)

I am very glad, as are most hon. Members, that we have had this opportunity of debating the question of man-power, because it is no exaggeration to say that upon the proper handling of this question may well depend the whole course of the war. Money we may squander, and, like the spendthrift in ordinary life, we may get away with it for a time, but man-power we squander at our peril, because events in this titanic struggle are moving at much too fast a pace. I am one of those who believe that we run a very great danger in too many men being called to the Army. Though I believe that there are many first-class brains at the War Office and men of far-sighted vision, the War Office as a body has not changed. The mentality at the War Office is largely the mentality of the last war. They are obsessed with the idea that the Hun can only be defeated by waging bloody battles on the same scale as were waged in the last war. The War Office stretches out a clutching hand to gather in the crops which will be garnered and ultimately thrown into the furnace. I know and fully realise the enormous responsibilities which rest upon the War Office and the necessity which exists for keeping armies, not only in this Island of ours, but in all parts of the world. But the whole question is a matter of balance. If other speakers say and have said that we have an Army which is none too big for its responsibilities, then I agree wholeheartedly. There is no doubt about it, but one must budget according to one's purse and cut one's coat according to one's cloth.

There is this to be said: The great battles of this war up to the invasion of Russia have been won by the side which had local air superiority. Great battles have been won by comparatively small armies equipped with mechanical appliances perfected to a degree and with everything they could want in that direction. But they have been equipped, aided and supported by overwhelming air superiority. Take the magnificent campaign which was fought by General Wavell in Libya, where he defeated an enormous Italian Army and captured tens of thousands of prisoners. I am told that that was won by a striking force of not more than 40,000 men. When the Germans drove back through Libya and un- fortunately found us unprepared, their striking force was not very much more than that number. We were told by a very high Canadian authority recently that the German striking force which broke through France and straddled itself all through that great country and ultimately caused the capitulation of France numbered something in the region of 140,000 men. We know that there were millions of men behind that striking force, but according to this high Canadian authority the force which, struck and which gained those victories was not much more than that number. Surely, all these events point to one moral—the paramount importance of equipment. However this may be, the fact remains that Britain just does not possess the man-power to satisfy the unlimited demands of the War Office and industry. Our white population, even if you take in the great Dominions, is vastly inferior in numbers to that of Germany. Man for man I have not the slightest doubt that we are superior, but in numbers we cannot hope to compete with Germany. Furthermore, our situation compels us to bear the burden of a great and glorious Navy and Mercantile Marine.

That being so, I am of the opinion that we should do two things. First, we must seek to maintain the superior man-power of our Ally Russia, which alone can provide the numbers and, if properly equipped, can surpass German manpower by something like two to one. Secondly, we must realise that our man superiority can, or should be, attained in armaments and mechanisation. Our Army, backed by the enormous engineering resources of this country and supplemented by the equally enormous resources of the United States of America, should provide that, unit for unit, we are not merely as well equipped but that we are outstandingly better equipped at all points than the Germans. I am of the opinion that this should be our goal. But can we expect this point of view to be accepted by the War Office? The Prime Minister in his great speech the other day deprecated the references to "Colonel Blimps" and "brass hats," and although, unfortunately, they may be difficult to find and produce, I still feel constrained to say that the shadow of the notorious colonel is ever present and that a distinctly "Blimpish" atmosphere; does exist and continue. Everyone knows it and realises it, but most people thank Providence that it is not welcome or has any place at the Admiralty or at the Air Ministry. It is not only the War Office who are continually lecturing us and telling us that victory can only be won by the launching of huge forces into conflict on the Continent. The B.B.C. have a maddening habit of introducing into what should be purely a news bulletin—

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for War (Sir Edward Grigg)

Can my hon. Friend say when a statement of that kind was made by a representative of the War Office. He said that the War Office were continually stating that the war could only be won by large numbers of men.

Sir L. Lyle

I am afraid I have not the reference by me, but I think it will be within the recollection of the House that it is the general view as expressed by War Office advocates. [Interruption.] I am reminded that it was the view of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tavistock (Captain Patrick).

Sir E. Grigg

The strategy under which this Army fights is not laid down by the War Office. It is no use perpetually saying that the War Office does this and that; the War Office has not the last word in these things.

Sir L. Lyle

The point I was trying to make is that it is not only the War Office. There is a feeling—and I am not overstating the case—that we can only encompass the complete defeat of Germany by huge forces of highly trained men fighting battles on the Continent and walking into Germany that way. The B.B.C. the other day interrupted what should be a pure flow of news with remarks by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Warfare which stated that this was the only way in which we could encompass victory. Why he should set himself up as a man with greater power to tell the course and end of the war than most people I do not know, but he did so, and I for one cannot accept it. But probably his story was prepared by somebody else. The story of 1918 is always cited. This war cannot be compared to that of 1918. The bombing of Germany as we know it to-day did not exist then. We must hit Germany hard and cut her supplies, and I humbly suggest that it is possible that that may be accomplished just as easily from the air as on the ground.

Captain Patrick

Does my.hon. Friend contend that the war can be won by bombing alone?

Sir L. Lyle

I say that it can be largely won by this means, and in doing so I am expressing a view which is entitled to equal consideration with other views. I mentioned a few moments ago the great speech made by the Prime Minister. He needs no tribute from me; I have always been one of his staunchest supporters and admirers, so why should I not proclaim my faith in him to-day? My faith is profound and not newly found. In 1924, when many people wanted to keep him out, I was able to secure his adoption for my then constituency— Epping. When the end of the chapter is written and when the end of my own chapter is written—although I know that my part in the war effort is very small— it will always be an intense source of pride and satisfaction to me that I was able to do something to effect the return of this great man to this House.

I only mention that because I wish to be bold enough to make one or two brief criticisms about certain statements which the Prime Minister made in his speech. He spoke of the diabolical and indescribable atrocities which were being perpetrated by the German Gestapo and troops behind the German advance into Russia, and he told us, also, that the invasion of this country was a possibility. He argued that we must be armed so that we could hurl the possible invader into the sea and exterminate him. How we cheered him, and how much we agreed. But in another passage of his speech he told us how in 1940, after the defeat of France and when British troops had returned from Dunkirk, we took a great and grave decision, when we had an ill-equipped Army to meet the possibility of invasion. We took a great risk, and we sent to the Middle East some of our very best troops and some of our finest equipment. It was by reason of this that General Wavell was able to gain his victory. It was a splendid stroke, and if I may say so, it was typical of the Prime Minister.

But cannot we take a little risk to-day when so much is at stake? The risk I want to take is not to send more troops abroad; it is not to denude us now when we are perhaps in a better position, although by no means entirely safe from invasion; it is not that we should send troops away from this country. The risk I ask that we should consider is whether we cannot keep more men to provide that equipment and to go on providing it, equipment for Russia and for ourselves, and give a little less to the Army which is calling for so much. My faith in the Prime Minister is immense and profound, but my faith in some of his colleagues is much less. I frankly confess that in the case of some of them my faith would have to be registered as microscopic. But cannot we learn by the experience of our mistakes? Surely, we committed a grave mistake when we called up the miners to the Army; we made a grave mistake when we called so many of the building operatives to the Army, important as they are to-day in equipping factories and aerodromes; and are we not going 10 make a further great mistake possibly, by calling up 10,000 farm-workers from agriculture? The Prime Minister said that we should not adopt the easy expedient of leaving men where they are and not calling them to the Army, but I think the easy course is to call them to the Army and the difficult course is to say that they are far better employed on the farm or wherever they may be.

In conclusion, I want to make an appeal. There are many of us who feel that this question has been dealt with largely departmentally, that there has been one Minister pulling against another, one Minister demanding the retention of certain men and another Minister demanding that they should be taken for some other purpose, and occasionally the Minister of Labour coming in, with his great weight, and deciding the matter in one direction. That is what has been going on, as far as I can tell. The Prime Minister is carrying a colossal burden. He cannot do everything. He has already performed miracles without enormous assistance. The appeal I want to make is to the Prime Minister to give his consideration once again to this vital problem. If he can do that, with all the knowledge and essential facts which he possesses and has at his disposal, I, for one, and I believe the whole of the House, will support his decision whole-heartedly as being the right one and the best one in all the circumstances, and shall go away satisfied.

Mr. Silkin (Peckham)

I do not propose to enter into the considerations put forward by the hon. Member for Bournemouth (Sir L. Lyle), particularly as I do not feel qualified to do so, and have not all the facts available, as indeed very few of us have. I recognise, however, that those considerations are very material ones in discussing the disposition of the man-power of the country. I think that the House is concerned to satisfy itself that the man-power of the country is being utilised to the best advantage, efficiently and fully, and it is on that aspect of the matter that I want to speak. I should like my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour to deal with the very pertinent questions put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Maryhill (Mr. Davidson). Is there a plan for the utilisation of the man-power of the country? Have the Government made up their minds as to the allocation of manpower between the Armed Forces and essential industries? Have they made up their minds as to the utilisation of the whole of the man-power of the country? I do not expect my right hon. Friend to tell us exactly how man-power is to be allocated, but I think the House will expect him to satisfy it that there really is a well-considered plan, based on strategic considerations, for the allocation of the man-power of this country.

I think the House will also expect him to tell it what are his plans for utilising the whole of our man-power, because not even the least observant person can walk about the country without realising that the man-power of the country is not yet wholly harnessed to the war effort. One need only look at the advertisements in the "Times," in which there was this morning, for instance, an advertisement for two servants for a family of three; one need only have listened to the speech made by Lord Woolton recently., in which he referred to manufacturers producing worthless foods, to realise that people are engaged to a very large extent in non-essential industries. One wants to be satisfied that the whole of the man-power of the country will be, within a very short period, utilised within the war effort.

I appreciate that a statement of that sort is much more easily made than carried into effect, and therefore, I should like to offer a number of suggestions to my right hon. Friend as to what he can do. In fche first instance, he is, under Industrial Registration Orders, registering men and women periodically for service in the industrial field. I believe he will have to go very much further and take in age groups far higher than he has ever contemplated if he is going to utilise the whole of our man-power to the greatest advantage. I see no reason why he should not go up to the age of 65 and down to the age of 16, and register every age group and ascertain how many of those registered are capable of playing their part in the war effort. Secondly, I feel that the machinery of registration must work far more quickly than it does. It is useless to register age groups at the rate of one a month and to carry out a limited number of interviews in what is, I submit, a leisurely way. I am not suggesting that those concerned are not working very hard, but I submit that the registration of one group a month, or even one group a fortnight, as is contemplated later on, is far too leisurely, and that it will take a far longer time than we can afford before the whole of the potential man-power of the country is brought under review by my right hon. Friend. The tempo has to be very largely increased.

So far as women are concerned, I understand that something like 40 per cent. of those who have registered have claimed to be engaged upon household duties. I suggest that my right hon. Friend's Department should interview these women, and satisfy himself that they are engaged on really essential household duties, and cannot therefore be spared. I believe that the number of invalid mothers has increased very largely since my right hon. Friend has called up these young women for registration, and that far more young women are now compelled to stay at home and look after the household. They ought to be interviewed, and their statements should not be accepted on their face value Moreover, far too little use is being made of married women. Even those who have young children can be usefully employed in the war effort on a shift system. The hon. Lady the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George) referred to a number of cases where women have been employed for a limited period per week; I know a number of factories where women are working 5½ hours per day, and turning out more work than when they were working 7½ hours per day. With proper organisation, a great deal of use could be made of married women who at present are not taking their part in the industrial field. The provision of day nurseries is essential, but is not proceeding at all rapidly. I know of a case where premises were seconded for the purposes of a day nursery some six weeks ago by one of the London borough councils. They made up their mind as to the suitability of the premises within two days, but it has taken the Ministry of Health six weeks to make up their mind.

Viscountess Astor (Plymouth, Sutton)

That is a very short time compared with some of the cases I know.

Mr. Silkin

We must work much more rapidly than this. Another method which my right hon. Friend could adopt—and this has not been done on anything like the scale possible—is the substitution of older people for younger people in the Civil Service, in local government and in industry. To me it seems shocking; to find important positions in the Civil Service being filled by young men of military age, positions which, in my judgment, could easily be filled by older people at present without work. A case in point is the Stock Exchange, where far too much day-to-day speculation is functioning. The man-power of the Stock Exchange could be utilised—and I am merely giving this as an example—together with the man-power of other professions which to-day are not fully occupied, in the Civil Service, so that younger men could be released. I submit that until such steps as these are taken we shall not be utilising the whole of the man-power of this country for many years to come. It is one thing to secure the man-power of the country, but it is another to see it is utilised to the best advantage. In this respect my right hon. Friend has a very important function. It is a commonplace to say that there is considerable conflict over, and considerable competition for, labour between the various production Departments. I believe it is a fact that some of the production Departments are themselves going out to recruit labour on their own account with the result that they some- times recruit labour from other production Departments.

Mr. Bevin

Which Department?

Mr. Silkin

All of them. I think I could satisfy my right hon. Friend that this is the case. The Ministry of Supply are employing men to go out and recruit labour for the Royal Ordnance Factories, and sometimes they recruit this labour at the expense of the Ministry of Aircraft Production. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will look into this before he denies it.

Mr. Bevin

I should like my hon. Friend to give an instance. I do not think we should be sent roaming all over the country to look into this. If my hon. Friend has a specific case of the Ministry doing this, I really think I ought to be told.

Mr. Silkin

I am giving a specific case, that of the Ministry of Supply.

Mr. Bevin

Where are they doing it?

Mr. Silkin

They are employing people to go out all over the place to recruit labour. It is a very simple matter to confirm it by inquiry at the Ministry of Supply. Either they are employing these people or they are not, but I suggest that my right hon. Friend might take the matter up. Production Departments embark on programmes without reference to the amount of labour required, and without reference to the question of whether that labour is available. Nor is there adequate co-ordination between the various production Departments to ensure, if there is a shortage of labour, that there is a proper allocation between them. I submit that one of the most important things my right hon. Friend could do would be to allocate the available labour as between the different production Departments, and that contracts should be based upon that allocation. I gather from the gesture of my right hon. Friend that that is already being done.

Mr. Bevin

No.

Mr. Silkin

I suggest that it is a matter worthy of consideration, because otherwise, when each of the Departments is short of labour and generally unable to carry out its programme within the time specified, it is a pure accident which of them manages to attain the largest proportion of required production. I think that a system based upon a proper allocation of the available labour as between the Ministry of Supply, the Ministry of Aircraft Production and the Admiralty, as well as other Government Departments which require labour, would be an efficient way of dealing with the problem of available man-power. As a matter of fact, this is already being done in the building industry. As my right hon. Friend knows, there is an allocation of building labour as between each of the different Government Departments which require building to be carried out. Although it is not possible for the Ministry to allocate to the Government Departments all the labour they need for carrying out their building work, it is a fact that such building labour as is available is allocated equitably and proportionately, and I suggest that the same kind of principle should be applied to the production Departments.

I want to deal with one other aspect of the matter. It is impossible to get the best value out of the men who are available unless you have an adequate supply of skilled labour. Here the Ministry has not done all that it might have done in securing an increase in the number of skilled men. I know they have done a very limited amount of up-grading and a good deal of dilution, but, taking it by and large, very little has been done to add to the supply of highly skilled labour. I admit that a certain amount has been done to get semi-skilled labour at the Government training centres and technical colleges, but it is in the field of highly skilled labour that there is the greatest shortage and very little indeed has been done to deal with it. I know it takes a long time to train a highly skilled man but, if the Government had started at the beginning of the war, we could by now, with intensified training, have been very much better off than we are. We may have to go outside this country for our supply of highly skilled men.

Mr. Bevin

Where?

Mr. Silkin

To America, or even to Russia. Why not go to Russia? [Interruption.] A high proportion of the industrial capacity of Russia has gone but they surely have a surplus supply of skilled men, which might be useful in our own industry. I put that suggestion forward for consideration and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not turn it down offhand. If these proposals are not considered these Debates are useless. Moreover, I feel that much more could and should be done in utilising the Government training centres. I believe both these and the technical colleges are doing excellent work but I have two criticisms to make. First, they are not being used sufficiently. There are far too many vacant places. Secondly, not enough selection is made of the candidates who enter the training colleges. Too many of them are unfit for industrial training and drop out before the training is over. A substantial proportion never finish their training because they are unsuitable. It will be worth my right hon. Friend's while to look into this and see whether a more efficient selection could not be made of candidates suitable for training. Some drop out because they are not physically fit for work in a factory. It would be far better to find that out before the training began than to discover it by a system of trial and error.

Finally, I want to say a word about wages. I believe true Government has no wages policy. There are a good many factors in our wages policy which are deterring production. For instance, there are men doing similar work in neighbouring factories getting different rates of pay, so that, when men are idle in one factory and it is necessary to transfer them to another, you get all sons of difficulties because of the different rates of pay. The result is a loss of mobility. Secondly, there are many cases where men doing an unskilled job are earning more than men doing a skilled job in the same factory. [An HON. MEMBER: "Working the same hours?"] Yes. Very often one man is paid a time rate and the other a piece rate, and the piece rate is so much higher that the earnings of the unskilled man are higher, even for the same amount of time, than the earnings of the skilled man.

Mr. Bevin

I should like to ask my hon. Friend a definite question. At present, wages are fixed between the trade unions and the employers. He should make a declaration whether he thinks the Government should now take the step of wiping the trade unions out of it and fixing wages themselves. He should say what his policy is.

Mr. Silkin

I say the Government cannot simply shut their eyes to these questions but I think the Government ought to have a policy. It is not sufficient to say these anomalies are inevitable, even though they impede production, and be content to leave it to the free play of negotiations between trade unions and employers.

Mr. Bevin

The hon. Member is speaking from the Labour benches and will be taken as speaking for the Labour party. Does he really suggest that I should take steps to wipe the trade unions out of it?

Mr. Silkin

My right hon. Friend ought not to try to put me into this dilemma. I am prepared to take any steps for the purpose of improving production and getting rid of factors which are impeding it. It is not a question of wiping out the trade unions—they will not be wiped out —but there are many practices which have been suspended for the duration of the war and will be restored after the war, and I see no reason why, even in the matter of wages, if it is necessary for the winning of the war, the free negotiations between trade unions and employers should not be suspended. Again, work in non-essential industries is being made more attractive than the work of men engaged in essential industries. That is an important factor which is preventing the flow of workers from non-essential to essential industries.

There is another factor. Wage rates in many cases have been fixed so high, possibly in ignorance of what the job involved, as to become a deterrent. It is possible for men to earn so much money by working very little that, in many cases, they feel ashamed to take the money which they could have earned if they had worked full time. Some of these examples were quoted in the report of the Select Committee on National Expenditure. After a blitz some hundreds of pounds worth of work was found underneath the benches, which the men had been ashamed to produce and get paid for because their earnings were so high. I do not mind men earning high wages, and in justice to the employers I would say that they did not mind how much the men earned. It was not their wish that the work should be put underneath the benches, but it is a fact. I merely state these facts, because they are facts, as indicating the need for a Government policy on wages. Unless my right hon. Friend is prepared to think again and not stick to dogmas which were good, and which he and I believed in before the war, but which have no. validity to-day, when the need is for the maximum amount of production, he will not be doing justice to the men or to the country.

Mr. James Griffiths (Llanelly)

My hon. Friend is a member of the Select Committee on National Expenditure and he has given an instance—we do not know how many there are—of men who withheld production because if they produced it their wages would be too high. It is only fair to the workers that he should tell us whether that is a single instance or whether it is a widespread practice.

Mr. Silkin

My hon. Friend is perfectly right in putting the question and I am glad to be able to answer it. I do not put it forward as something which is very widespread. I merely put it forward as one example—and I gave a number of others—of what is affecting production. I think it only fair that I should put it forward. I am merely suggesting that these extremely high wages are prevalent throughout industry. They are much more widespread than my hon. Friend seems to think. They are prevalent in the aircraft factories in particular. I hope that my right hon. Friend will not regard statements made here as necessarily critical of the Government. The Prime Minister in his statement last week suggested that the Government were very willing to hear the views of Members on matters which affected man-power and production. It is only in that spirit that I have made these remarks. I believe that some of the factors I have mentioned are, definitely, holding up production and are, therefore, preventing us putting forward our maximum effort. I hope that my right hon. Friend will take some notice of the statements I have made.

Mr. Orr-Ewing (Weston-super-Mare)

I do not propose to follow the last speaker into the controversy about wages, except to say that many of us, on all sides of the House and in many parts of the country, always envisaged some sort of policy, if we had another war, under which there would be complete compulsion and conscription of both labour and wealth. [An hon. Member: "Wealth and labour."] Some hon. Members would, perhaps, put wealth first, but it does not matter which we put first, for both are of equal value. I do not think that any such policy of compulsion would have been possible without the agreement of all parties in the State. It is regrettable perhaps that such compulsion could not be exercised.

I would like to pick up one point made by the hon. Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George) with regard to the employment of female labour, especially on the land. She said that a great deal of prejudice would have to be overcome before we made full use of female labour. That is very true of agriculture. The industry is threatened with the withdrawal of a considerable number of men in the comparatively near future. They have had some dispensation, which is of some assistance, for seasonal work. Agriculture seems to me to be one of those industries where the dual system of military service and productive work could be applied. To a certain extent it has been applied already, but it has been applied in a very loose way and a great deal has been left in the hands of individual commanding officers as regards the release of men to work on the land. The system should, more rightly and properly, have been set out either by the Ministry of Labour or the Ministry of Agriculture. It is surely not impossible to devise a system by which a man is taken into the Army from agriculture, scheduled as an agricultural worker while he is in the Army, returned for seasonal work on the land, and while in the Army trained, not to become a key-man who could not be released, but in such a way as to become a useful member of the Fighting Services who could be released for seasonal labour.

In that connection we come to the problem of the employment of women on the land. There is greater prejudice in the South and West of England against that form of employment than there is, for instance, in the West of Scotland. We might, with great value, try to encourage those employers in agriculture in the areas where prejudice exists to see what is being done in those areas where women are being; employed and have been successfully employed for many years. That leads to the question of the management of female labour on the land. It is sometimes assumed that because a farmer near one village made a failure of employing women on his farm women cannot be properly employed on farms. I have found from a good deal of investigation and careful watching that where a farmer makes intelligent use of female labour, that labour is of immense value. It is only where unintelligent use is made of it that female labour gets a bad name for employment on the land.

The question of management applies not only to agriculture but in a serious degree to the shortage of labour, and particularly skilled labour, throughout industry. I think that everybody who has anything to do with production believes without reservation that one of the most serious handicaps is a shortage of experienced, skilled management. It is not the fault of industry entirely, although one cannot free it altogether from blame over the past years. It is sometimes assumed by those who do not know much about industry that management is represented only by the fat gentleman with a cigar in his mouth and his feet on the table. The type of management I mean runs from the head management to the shop management. The lack of that managerial experience is a great drawback to production and is bound to become greater as the force of skilled labour becomes shorter owing to the increased demand. One of the greatest problems of management is how to train the skilled worker. It is sometimes assumed that the skilled worker in the machine shop can be produced only in a Ministry of Labour training centre. For the greater part of work needing a high degree of skill the training had far better be given in the factory in which it will eventually be used.

In order to organise that sort of training there must be skilled management unless production is to be interrupted. It is one thing to gird at the lack of skilled management and another thing to devise means of curing that lack. If we examine some of the possible causes of the shortage we shall see how difficult a problem it is. There are at least two points on which we could do something. One reason for the shortage lies in our educational system in the past. Possibly too much value has been put upon certificates or degrees recording a certain grade of education. It has led to much specialisation, which being narrow is not a very good field of training for management. Another cause may be the rise in the power of women in this country, whereby sons have become rather spoiled and not so subject to the discipline of the father as they were in past generations.

But I believe the greatest cause is the lack of a sense of security for the future when a man is called upon to leave the machine or the bench to enter the lower grades of management. I have heard it said many times during the past few months "I am not prepared to take up this job because I know that I shall not get a chance to hold it after "the war." I believe a great deal could be done to remove that prejudice. After all, we are not asking for sacrifices at the moment in such a case, but we are offering promotion. It is true that the higher position to which the man or woman has been promoted may not exist later, but I think we are entitled to say to those who are offered promotion "You have to take that risk now. Consider what those who have joined the Forces have lost now, at once. Yon may lose in the future, but they are losing now." We have to en-courage young men, keen men, to come forward and take those posts, and to see that they are properly trained for them, and we ought to put no bar on women taking these higher posts. I was rather surprised and shocked to hear the hon. Member for Anglesey say that no particular appeal to women had been made by any member of the War Cabinet. For the life of me I cannot see why a particular appeal should be made to women. Women are part of the general community, and it is only when they start to regard themselves as something quite outside the community that I find myself in disagreement.

Dr. Edith Summerskill (Fulham, West)

If they are part of the general community are they treated as on an equality with the rest of the community?

Mr. Orr-Ewing

I would not contend that all in the community are treated equally.

Dr. Summerskill

I mean as to pay and conditions.

Mr. Orr-Ewing

If it is proved to be necessary to make a special appeal to women, for heaven's sake let that appeal be made in a definite form, with definite proposals as to how women can best offer their services and how they can best be employed. There is far too much general talk and not enough specific information. I believe most earnestly that the problem of management is one of the greatest difficulties with which we are faced to-day, and I would ask the Minister to do everything possible to encourage suitable men to come forward, and to encourage men who have left industry to come back and give the benefit of their knowledge towards preparing others for their responsibilities.

Mr. Lawson (Chester-le-Street)

I think those who have been present during this Debate will agree that it is not often that we have a Debate which is so well attended, or in which so large a proportion of hon. Members want to speak. Seeing how the two sides in the Debate have struggled to emerge, I feel it almost imperative that we should have another Debate upon the same subject at an early date, to afford a reasonable opportunity —perhaps I should say in secret—to deal with some of the questions which have been put and which cannot be answered in public. My hon. Friend the Member for Maryhill (Mr. Davidson), in a very able speech, put what must be in the minds of most hon. Members when he asked whether the Government had any real plan and what forces they estimate will be necessary to carry through such a plan. What is to be the size of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, and what numbers of workers are required to equip those forces? I do not know whether the Government would be reluctant to answer those questions, but I think that, at some stage or other, the country—at any rate the House—ought to have some estimate of what the Government's plans are and the numbers of men required, because the country is very much concerned about the present position. This Debate is a reflection of that concern. That the average person is concerned, I think there is no doubt whatever.

In spite of some of the points which have been made to the contrary, I think as a whole the mass of the people are not only willing but eager to do almost anything the Government ask of them in pursuit of victory. We often hear of the shortcomings of certain people. Only this week I came across a simple expression of the attitude of our people, and it is not limited to one particular part of the country but is common all over the country. I went into a rest centre in a place that had been bombed. I said, "You have not got many men here today," and was told, "No, they are all at work." I knew that a large number of houses had been destroyed and I asked, "What about the men whose homes have been destroyed?" and the answer was "They gave us orders that we had to call them up at such and such a time. We put them up their 'baits,' and they went to work in the clothes they were standing up in." That is a perfectly ordinary indication of the desire of the people to give the best that is in- them in pursuit of victory.

One of my hon. Friends raised a matter of very great concern. I think the Minister of Labour is very sorry that he did so, because it is not so simple as he and many people in this country think. There is a school of thought which seems to believe that the Government can lay down some scale or standard of wages irrespective of the arrangements between organised labour and employers. As a matter of fact, my hon. Friend did not take full note of the report to which he drew attention, which was the 21st Report of the Select Committee on National Expenditure, when he referred to the statement that certain workers did not give of their best according to the amount of money they received. I am glad that I have been challenged on that point, because it would be unfortunate if the people of this country received the impression that that kind of thing is at all general or that there is enough of it worth speaking about. The Report stated: The view has been expressed that when people earn wages greatly higher than those to which they are accustomed, the wage incentive ceases to be effective, with the result that they absent themselves from work when they have earned as much as will satisfy their desires … Some workers who had been absent without leave stated that the loss of wages was immaterial to them. This is in apparent contradiction to the assertion (quoted in paragraph 20) that many workers like to work on Sundays to get the double pay, though they may offset half this extra money by absenting themselves on a weekday. In fact, each statement is probably true of some workers, and these are actuated by a variety of motives; but there is no evidence that either statement is true of the great majority of workers. It is against reason to suppose that the wage incentive does not operate for most people.

Mr. Brooke (Lewisham, West)

Would the hon. Gentleman read the next sentence from the Report? The words which he has omitted to read are those to which the hon. Member for Peckham was surely referring.

Mr. Lawson

It says: In so far as high wages are the result of bad rate-fixing, it is undeniable that they operate to cause loss of output". That does not make any difference to the statement about the loss of incentive not being true of the great majority of workers. I go further than the Report. Nothing has surprised me more than the moderation of the great mass of workers during this war in respect to the standard of wages. I represent an industry, and I have spoken to some of the men. Only last Sunday one said that £3 10s. was not so bad on the whole, compared with what some people were getting. When you take the great basic industries of the country and compare the general standard of cost of living, you realise that the workers are throwing themselves into their work and are getting very little more in wages while giving a great deal more work, than they got in peace-time.

Mr. Hopkinson

Is the hon. Gentleman referring to the engineering trade?

Mr. Lawson

I was speaking about industry as a whole. I know that certain sections of people are getting good wages. It is unfortunate that matters of this kind should be raised, but as they have been raised there is subject for debate. If it is debated, some very hefty things will be said. I talk with a very large number of employers as with workers, and I know that the great mass of employers and workers alike are prepared to give to the limit in pursuance of our war effort. On the whole, great sacrifices are being made. We have to limit ourselves largely to the question of the proper use of man-power.

It is difficult to deal with the question if you do not know exactly what the Government want. Sometimes the Government do not know it themselves. They are advised by the Committee of Imperial Defence, which Committee is advised by the leaders in the field. Experience in the last war was not too encouraging for taking them as absolute guides. What is known as the Beveridge Report has been published, dealing with the use of skilled men in the Services. My hon. Friend the Member for Maryhill (Mr. Davidson) put some very pertinent questions on this subject. We were all wondering exactly how Sir Wm. Beveridge and the other members of his committee would get the information about the use of skilled men in the Services. To whom would they go for it? One cannot get it by going to the War Office or to the commands. The investigation needs to be very thorough indeed. I was going to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman as to the methods used to get this information, so that we could rely upon it.

It can be said on the whole that the Army is much more up to date in these matters now than it was a year ago. I do not think that it is altogether fair to be always deprecating the leadership of the Army in these matters. We must remember that the Navy might be said to be on a semi-war footing all the time, even in normal times. It has to be on the job all the time to keep the seas clear, and it gets a good deal more attention. I want to say too that in my estimation the Navy as a rule knows better than do the other Forces how to make use of the men they take from industry. That is my experience. But as for the Army, on the other hand, we try to forget it in peace-time; if it wants any money, we say rude words to it. We do not keep it even decently equipped; we hardly give it the tools with which to operate for purposes of manœuvres, and it is a well-known fact that sometimes when visitors have come to these shores in peace-time, and manoeuvres have been in progress, the Army has not had the machinery and guns to show and has sometimes had to put up dummies for the edification of the visitors. Therefore, we have to be moderate and measured in our judgment.

When all is said and done, however, it is very difficult for the Army to adapt itself to the idea that industry is the real motive power of armies to-day. I will say this for them, that they have managed to get women on to the guns fairly quickly. That is an example of adapting themselves to the new position. It shows, at any rate, a little vision. Indeed, I will say this for those responsible, that if the Government representatives are as quick as they have been, we shall be able to find a good deal more material for the Forces than we are getting at the present time. On one occasion when a daughter went to enlist, her mother went with her, and before she knew what was going on they were taking details, under the impression that she too was going to enlist.

The last paragraph of the Interim Report of the Beveridge Committee says: There are thousands of men of military age doing clerical, storekeeping and other light work in the Services, which could be done by women or by older men, but for which women or older men, for one reason or another, have not yet been made available. Is it a fact that up to the present time stores are dealt with by men, and that the Pay Corps, for instance, are only manned by men? I should like to know. The Report says there is a great deal of clerical work which might be done by women. Within the ambit of the Forces themselves, I think a good deal of man-power could be found, by substituting woman-power for it. Before leaving this Report, which is only an interim report, I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he has yet received the Committee's other Report, because I think this one was submitted a month ago. If not, when does he expect it, because this is a question in which expedition counts? I have heard of cases in the ordinary world of production in which skilled men at some stage or other have not been used by the factories or works in which they are engaged. I know very well that in the present conditions of turnover from peace to war there must be a stage when some skilled workers are not being used. But how long does that last, and how great are the numbers affected? I do not wish to press the point too far, but a man once said to me, "Fifty skilled men at my works have not been used for weeks." That might be legitimate, but if large numbers of skilled men are going to be idle or semi-idle for any length of time, I should have thought that some pooling system to enable them to be transferred to where their services are necessary would have made better use of their labour. I can assure my right hon. Friend that many very good men are much concerned because their skill is not being used.

Taking the general labour situation, I do not think there is any doubt whatever that good sources of labour are still untapped. Sometimes semi-skilled men in some workshops could be released in favour of the Services without very much loss. I think also that there are many women who might be utilised, but who will have to be prompted. The hon. Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George) put it very well when she said that many women have not really the will to do anything at all. They ought to be made to do the job. If a situation were to develop like that of last year, I do not think we should have any hesitation whatever in making them do any work, in any part of the country. I do not think that if the Russian situation unfortunately developed in an unpalatable way there would be any doubt what the women would do. They have been doing great and noble things in the last few months, but suppose Russia were to collapse. I do not think that is probable; in the light of their conduct and fighting capacity, I do not think it is possible, but suppose it did happen. What would we do then? There is not any doubt that we would bring into industry whole masses of people in various parts of the country. Whatever excuses they had, my right hon. Friend would take steps to see that they did their duty.

I repeat, as I started, that I am very sorry indeed that the right hon. Gentleman will probably not be in a position to give an answer to some of the questions put concerning the plans, and the numbers necessary, but if he is not, I trust this House, at a very early date, will take the necessary steps to interrogate the Government under the proper conditions in order that the country may be satisfied that the Government are doing their best. There is a feeling abroad among the best informed Members that we are too trustful, that we take things too much for granted. Members who can be relied upon are asking these questions of the Government, and I think that if these questions could be answered, there would be a good deal more confidence abroad than there is at the present time in view of the position in which we find ourselves.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin)

I would like at the outset to make reference to the last remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson). I want to assure him and the House that the Government on this question, and on general production and the war effort, will not take advantage in any degree of the general support given to us in this House. No Government has been more anxious to have the advantage of sharing responsibility with the whole House itself. We recognise that we are a Coalition Government; we have the support of all parties. That does not decrease our responsibility but rather increases our feeling of obligation to the Members of the House. Neither will we shirk trying to deal with criticism or the statement of such plans as we can without aiding the enemy, in order that both the House and ourselves shall be in a position to take an intelligent responsibility in carrying on this great struggle.

I confess that to-day I am rather handicapped in dealing with this Debate. I wish it had been a couple of weeks later. My reason for that is that the exchange of insurance books from all the industries takes place in July, and I have had the staff working night and day to compile and analyse all the statistical returns ready for a complete new man-power survey. I can really only adequately do it once a year on the exchange of books, due to the tremendous movement of population from one industry to another, to the checking up, both of the call-up for the Services and the dealing with the wastage, from various causes, from the Services, and the reabsorption into industry, all of which has to be traced in detail and analysed to ascertain out of these registrations and changes that we are making how the total labour force and the man-power force of the country is really changing. So that, so far as concerns many of the detailed questions which I have been asked, I regret that at the moment I cannot answer them as adequately as I would like. Neither do I want to shirk them. If, when the manpower survey is completed, the House desires more information, I shall be only too happy to give it.

I will try to deal first with some details that have been put to me in questions, and then endeavour to deal with the general problem as well as I can. The Debate was opened by my hon. Friend the Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. White), and he thought, and other speakers have referred to it, that the present handling of the woman problem was too slow. I would only say this: No country, not even Germany, has tried what is virtually the compulsion of women as we have tried it in this country. Germany has made a slight attempt at it and has discarded it. They were unable to handle it, to the credit of the German women. They tried the same methods that were applied to men. They failed, and the reason they failed was that they adopted their usual ruthless methods, and found themselves up against what is a very strong and almost universal force in this world, which is probably not always understood—a working-class psychology. It is surprising how much it is alive, however much that country may be an enemy on other grounds. Equally, they tried what the hon. Member for Peckham (Mr. Silkin) suggested regarding the levelling of wages. They ordered the men to work 12 hours a day. They took a certain amount off the big earning men and put it in a pool—

Mr. Silkin

I never suggested anything of the kind. I did not suggest that anyone should work 12 hours or that wages should be levelled downwards.

Mr. Bevin

I beg my hon. Friend not to interrupt in the middle of my point. I am only explaining. They tried also to make the men give certain hours of overtime—I am only illustrating my point about working-class psychology, and am not questioning the advocacy of my hon. Friend. I am only warning the House of the dangers. Instead of solving the problem, you may create one which gets beyond control. The result of this attempt led, even in Germany, to opposition, and not only had they to restore the overtime and pay, but they had to do so retrospectively. It is rather striking, with all the control of the Gestapo and the rest of it, that when it got to this question of money wages, they ran up against an entirely different psychology from that found in every other walk of life. I should be stupid if, with all my long association with these problems, I ignored the possible repercussions of taking such an unwise step. I remember in the last war—I think I have mentioned this in this House before—when my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) set up a Committee on Production, and there was fear of inflation, and fear of all sorts of other things. The Prime Minister then set up an arbitration board in an attempt to stop it. Immediately there were more strikes, more disputes, and at last he himself had to go to Glasgow to stop the great upheaval which had been caused. We should be foolish not to learn our lesson from the experiences of the last war. Whatever may be my faults in handling wages and hours, it is a fact that the amount of time lost since I took office as Minister of Labour is equal to one day per man employed in 15 years. That is, I think, the great test.

I am glad to assure the House that we have speeded-up gradually. Although the hon. Member for East Birkenhead and I are both getting older, we must not forget the lesson of our youth, that in handling women you must proceed gently. At present the entry into industry as a result of this gradual speeding-up has been growing week by week, until now we are interviewing 40,000 to 50,000 a week. I have been criticised—not so much to-day —for the interviewing method, but it would have been extremely difficult to have introduced any other system. I am very grateful for the help I have had from the women's committee, and from nobody more than from my hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Miss Lloyd George). Advice and help have been given to me; and, to do me credit, I do not believe that I have turned down any of the advice; I have acted upon it. But I have to have regard to the parents.

If I introduced mobilisation of women and made them go to the Employment Exchanges, where they were given cards and treated in a hard official style, the scheme would be a complete breakdown. One thing I am very glad about, and that is that not only have I got the women to come into industry almost up to the amount required, but I have carried the confidence of the parents of this country. I think that is very vital. If you have to build up an enormous amount of welfare work, hostels, and so on—and that is very important when you are taking women of 19, 20 and onwards away from their homes and assuming liability for them possibly in uncongenial billets in large towns—you must proceed with tact. I think that in that we have succeeded.

It is said that I have not sufficiently considered the effect on other industries of the calling-up of people. We have established a definite organisation, so that day by day, as we are dealing with other trades, the effect on those trades is considered; but I would remind the House that we are in this difficulty. Everybody who has spoken to-day has told me from where I have not to call people up. I cannot remember a single speech which has suggested from where I could call them up. Everybody says that I must not take skilled men out of the munitions industry, but fighting is not a question of what trade you are in: you have to have regard to the temperament of a fighter as well. It was once said that we were a nation of shopkeepers; I do not think it is quite fair for the industrialists of this country to force me back to the position that I must get the whole of the Army out of the professions and the distributive trades. I am not prepared to accept the position that I must call up the shopkeeper, but that I must not touch the man who was in a distributive trade when the war broke out but moved into a munition factory.

That is the claim which has been made. There is a tendency for everybody to want this to be a comfortable war. People want the Minister of Labour and National Service to do everything, but not to disturb them, because it is very awkward. But wars are not like that. I do not think we can have a perfect war, however much you want it. There was one very important point raised with regard to our classification. I have not come to a final conclusion or put it to the War Cabinet; and, therefore, I must at the moment treat the matter tentatively. I have been studying the question, and I am coming to the conclusion that block reservation will have to go and individual reservation take its place. That means working out another great machine, and these great administrative machines are not easily created in war-time. You have to make the changeover in a way that will not disturb things too much.

I should have liked the process of training and manning the country to have been begun before the war, not in the war. I should have liked to see a double-purpose Army, an Army where the whole nation was trained both for fighting and for production in such a war as this. But if that is to be achieved, you cannot allow the War Office to be almost completely scrapped in peace-time, and then expect to improvise a military machine and carry out tasks like that in 15 months. Germany has done it, and one effect is that in the great areas over which she is fighting in Russia one of her great advantages is that she has more mechanically-minded men than ours; not because our men are inferior, but because during the years that have passed she took care that, while our skilled men were allowed to rot, she was training them by the thousands for the work which they are doing now. If any of her armoured divisions are smashed, she has, in practically every infantry division which is following up, thousands of skilled men who are able to carry out repairs. Neither I nor the Secretary of State for War can turn them out in a few months. I really think sometimes, as I sit here and listen to the criticisms of us in this House—and I am a newcomer— that they must be prompted, not so much by our failings but by the pangs of conscience over the last 20 years. I want also to thank the hon. Member for Abingdon (Sir R. Glyn) for the suggestions he has made and to inform him that the selection tests were adopted on 25th August almost immediately after the report of the Committee was made, and I welcome them. I do not want too much of the psychologist because I have generally found them bad judges when they have applied tests to me. I do not know what would have become of me if they had had an examination of me in the early stages.

The railways are now being scheduled under the Essential Work Order and the railway workshops have been put on munition work. But we recognise in the new claims that are now being made upon us for transport in the Middle East and elsewhere, that we must look to our locomotive production and utilise the workshops again for their original purpose. I think that that deals with the difficulties that the hon. Member had in mind. The suggestions of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bolton (Sir E. Cadogan) were also exceedingly helpful. One point he made was whether we are making a proper use of the supervisory grades being released as a result of the concentration of industries. I am following this up intensely. I have been worrying the production Departments not to lose any of them because the lack of able supervisory people is one of the great hindrances to production. In addition to that, in order to help supervision, as I have already on a previous occasion explained to the House, I have opened courses in order to give rapid training for supervisory grades in the various Universities and technical colleges of the country. It is very essential that that should be followed up.

With regard to the loss of workers after we get them from the concentration industries, I have been giving consideration to that and we are evolving a new method to follow them up and see that they arc not lost. These problems arise from day to day. I will look into the question of the older workers, and with regard to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey I have already mentioned the dual army scheme. As a result of the development of the war and of the probable duration of the war, we are reviewing it, but it would be foolish of me to give any indication of what the position will be because every Department has to look at it rather differently. They have different tasks to perform, but I can assure my hon. Friend that we are taking every possible step to see that the fullest use is made, by exchange or otherwise, subject to the fact that the Cabinet as a whole accepts the view that we cannot be a party to breaking up the units in a manner which will destroy the efficiency of what will, possibly, ultimately be our great line of defence.

I have been asked by several speakers about the Beveridge Committee. That Committee have been and are doing their work very efficiently. They have gone down to many depots and talked to the men. They have had information from the unions where it is alleged that men are not in their proper positions. They have been given every facility by the Service departments, who are very receptive, and if, as an outcome of this investigation, suggestions are made for reorganisation, change or adaptation, I do not believe that my right hon. Friend would resist it if it were found to be effective. There is no difficulty—let me remove this misapprehension—between the Service Departments and myself and there have been no conflicts at all. We have together done our best to evolve these servicing organisations in the most effective manner we can. It does not mean that we have always been successful, but there is no hostility and no fight about these problems.

It was suggested that I should now get to the stage of issuing directions to women more drastically than I have done. That is the advice from a woman of how I ought to treat the women, and I am encouraged because it is on lines which we have been wanting to follow, and probably now, with the help of the women's committee to-day, it may be that we can tighten up this business more effectively. Agricultural workers have been mentioned by a good many speakers, but I am not quite happy that everybody who calls himself an agriculturist is entitled to exemption. I think that this needs a tremendous overhaul. I heard a very extraordinary story, and I would say to the Members of the House that the thing for which I am waiting from hon. Members is one letter helping me to get one man into the Services. Everything up to now has been as to how I shall keep them out. The agricultural position has to be overhauled from the point of view of personnel, and they are entitled, in view of the Cabinet policy on food production, to have labour provided, but they must adapt themselves, as industry has adapted itself, to the labour that we can provide. You cannot have agriculturists saying that they are no good. In the great works of this country I have to lay down systems. You cannot allow a man who has been idle for two, three or four years to be sacked within 48 hours of his being taken on and say that he is no good. You must keep him a month. You must let his muscles harden up, and allow him to get fit and back into industry.

The amount of wastage has been less than 5 per cent, of the people who have been out of work for years, and I have to say to other people, "I cannot provide you with Class I or A1 labour." That is what I am asked to do, but the Services must claim that. The great productive enterprises are claiming it, and I must ration this labour in the best way I can. I have been told that in the training centres I have caused a good deal of waste, but the actual waste in the training centres is about 12 per cent. It must be remembered that that 12 per cent. arises from a cross-section of the population from 16 to 70 that I have taken into these training centres. The factories have had the first pick, and the training centres have had the residue. I have taken in men who have been unemployed, cripples, and men of Grades 3 and 4 who were rejected by the Army.

Mr. Davidson

And rejected from employment not so long ago?

Mr. Bevin

Yes, rejects of every kind, and of those rejects, I have lost only 12 per cent, in an intensive training course of four months, which I think is a remarkable achievement—one of which the Department might well be proud and one which speaks well for the instructors. The amount of wastage is very small, and here I would say to the executives in industry, "I wish when you take men from me into your factory you would put them to the same intensive use." A lot of disappointed people have come back from the training centres who, when they got into a factory, were kept at repetition work far too long. Their full services were not used. I throw out this suggestion because I think it is vital to the success of the scheme in future.

I was asked a question about aliens. As soon as I came into office I established an international labour force, and I ceased to call these people refugees or aliens. I gave them an international labour badge, and thousands of them, of many nationalities, have been taken into industry. I formed them into units according to nationality, and I arranged that a small affiliation fee should be paid to the Trades Union Congress. I did all that so that our own fellow-countrymen would regard them not as aliens but as fellow-workmen and would receive them on equal terms in the factories. The Home Secretary has to be satisfied that security is not endangered by this plan, and it has, of course, been necessary to pass them through a very fine sieve. The result of this work has been to contribute to two things. It has helped our production in war and has brought these unfortunate people, who were the victims of oppression, nearer in friendship to our own people. That they are treated- as an international labour force and not as aliens may be a great factor in helping us at the end of the war again to forge the bonds of friendship with their countries If in any particular case the Department or somebody has been remiss, I would be glad to have it brought to my attention, but in the main I think the Department has done all that could be expected of it in this field and has, I hope, reduced the difficulties of the aliens problem which was to the forefront not so very long ago.

I come now to the more general side. I have been asked whether we have a plan. Of course, we have a plan, but if anyone thinks that we started out with a plan at the beginning of the war and that we shall finish up with exactly the same plan, that assumes that the situation never changes and that we never have to change the plan. The steps that we took were simple, but I think they were effective. Like another hon. Member who has spoken, I do not want to lead our people into a defeatest attitude in which they think that because there is a greater population in Germany, it is overwhelming. That is not so. But it is no use ignoring what we are up against and what factors have to be faced. I asked what I should have to provide on the estimation for all the Forces. I was told, and I knew that out of the total male population of the most physically fit, I should have to find that number for the Forces and set them aside; in other words, I should have to write off that number from the total productive population. We had then to estimate at what time they would be wanted by the Forces, and we came to a very good check. The Service Departments and my Department, with the approval of the Cabinet, agreed that the calling-up should not be in advance of equipment, except to this extent. As everybody knows, in the Army there is a period of drill that has to be gone through, and that was taken into account. The Adjutant-General's Department and my Department have tried, as far as human ingenuity could devise, to time the two things together with the return of the equipment from the factories. I think that is as sound a plan as one could have. We did not waste any more labour than we could help.

Then we had to turn to production. There the first factor we had to consider was not man-power, but two other important things, one of them raw materials and the other importing capacity. We proceeded to examine the raw materials position in the country when we took office. It was not evened out. I am not saying that in criticism, but merely stating a fact. By carefully carrying the priorities back to the source and shipping the materials as well as we could, we tried to build up our raw materials on an even keel under each item so that we had an even number of weeks' stock to keep the, flow of materials moving. The basic essential things for efficient production are time and flow of materials. If these are not effective, all other things will fail. The second step we had to take was to consider how soon the factories on order, the machine tools, and everything else would be ready for use. It was no use calling up man-power and then having nothing for it to do. It was better to leave the man-power to keep the normal life of the community going in the interim stages.

On those estimates we proceeded to see how fast we ought to make inroads with concentration, with non-essential trades, and everything else. All this had to be timed, but not everything synchronised. The builder did not give us the building at the time and date, the machine tools got sunk. In the Battle of the Atlantic at a critical period—the figures have been given—the sinkings reached over 500,000 tons. These heavy sinkings during that period reduced our imports and threw our calculations out for very essential things. And so, in some factories I had the people there before the machines, and before the factories were ready. What was I to do? Break it up again? That would have been silly. Once you have organised the labour force anywhere, it is futile and silly to allow it to be broken up, unless you are driven to absolute extremity.

Mr. Davidson

My right hon. Friend has made a very important point, namely, that the goods were not delivered at the date they should have been and that buildings were not completed on the scheduled date. Is that not just one of the points which has been made during the Debate, that because of the Government's policy of allocating contracts to certain big firms, other firms have been left completely outside, with the result that you have not been able to get the goods on time?

Mr. Bevin

I beg my hon. Friend not to ask me to give an answer to a question which it would require a special committee to investigate. After all, I cannot say that it was limited to not spreading the contracts around. There were other factors. As a matter of fact one of the great factors was that in the early days of the war, due to a wrong calculation, the brickmakers were called up, and I had to organise and bring back to the brick- making industry some thousands of men because there were no bricks with which to go on building the factories. Then the House will remember the great defence programme after Dunkirk, when they were debating the shortage of cement which was holding back our factory production. You cannot sit down and say it is one item. It was a series of items. It must be remembered that the whole of these factory arrangements were organised, quite properly, on the assumption that France would remain in the war. But she did not, and one of the steps which we took was at once to cut down a lot of the factory building in order to concentrate on others and bring them into production at the earliest date. If the building programme has to be gone into, I suggest that my hon. Friend asks for time and takes steps to see that the Minister of Works and Buildings is here, instead of expecting me to deal with contracts and other things during a Debate on man-power.

Mr. Davidson

I explained that difficulty.

Mr. Bevin

I was saying that we tried to time it; but we did not always synchronise, and we did not always synchronise machine tools and other things. But it was planned and it was designed, and if the plan could not always work perfectly because your enemy upset it, that does not mean there was no plan. That plan is working out to its logical conclusion, and perhaps one of the greatest tributes that can be paid to the way in which the question has been handled is the relative position of the -two countries to-day. Even apart from Russia, on the essential things which involve invasion, air and sea, we have got ourselves into a far better position as a result of the organisation that has gone on. Let me make one further point. Do not forget that this country was very slow to turn from peace to war. The great factories in this country were being appealed to by the Government, even after Munich, to swing their space over. It might have been better if we had started ordering earlier, but I am not going to praise or blame. I have said on the platform a dozen times, that if anyone asks me who is responsible for the mess in which we find ourselves in this country, I say, "All of us." I say that because we all refused to face the facts and landed ourselves in it; because we were hoping against hope that the trouble would not arise. It did arise, and it is just as well to acknowledge it, and, having acknowledged it, to do our damnedest to get out of it.

Mr. de Rothschild (Isle of Ely)

All except the Prime Minister.

Mr. Bevin

I was not singling out individuals. I fought hard in other spheres to try and get people to see it. At a later date I shall be very happy to give greater detail, but I think to-day's Debate has been helpful. Any points that I have not answered I will deal with later.

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