Commons Sitting of 3 February 1942

Preamble
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.]
NEW WRIT.
For the County of York, West Riding (Keighley Division), in the room of the Rt. Hon. Hastings Bertrand Lees-Smith, deceased.—[Sir Charles Edwards.]
PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  BILSTON CORPORATION BILL,
  "to empower the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Bilston to construct new waterworks; to confer further powers on the Corporation in regard to the water undertaking; to make further and better provision for the improvement, health and local government of the Borough; and for other purposes"; presented, and read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time.
  BOMBAY, BARODA, AND CENTRAL INDIA RAILWAY BILL.
  "for the winding up and dissolution of the Bombay Baroda and Central India Railway Company, and for giving effect to arrangements made with the Governor-General of India in Council"; presented, and read the First time; ordered to be read a Second time.
  MID-WESSEX WATER BILL.
  "to provide for uniform rates and charges for water applicable throughout the limits of supply of the Mid-Wessex Water Company; and for other purposes"; presented, and read the First time, and ordered to be read a Second time.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  BRITISH ARMY.

    MAN-POWER.
    Major Lyonsasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the extension of liability to military service,
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    and in the light of all considerations now involved, he will now reconsider his refusal, on 21st October, 1941, to establish an Inspector-General of Man-power for the purposes then indicated?
    The Secretary of State for War (Captain Margesson): I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to my reply to him on 21st October. I have given this matter careful consideration, and I am satisfied that the present arrangements are working smoothly.

    ESCAPED PRISONERS OF WAR (LEAVE).
    Mr. Moelwyn Hughesasked the Secretary of State for War how much leave is granted to men upon their return to this country after escaping from captivity on the Continent?
    Captain Margesson: On reaching this country, escaped British prisoners of war are granted 21 days' leave.
    Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister satisfied that that leave is sufficient, when in some cases these men have undergone months of hardship before they have been able to find their way to this country?
    Captain Margesson: Yes, Sir, by and large, I think that 21 days are sufficient.

    WELFARE WORK.
    Mr. Bellengerasked the Secretary of State for War how much money was allocated from public funds for welfare work in the Army during the years 1940 and 1941, respectively?
    Captain Margesson: The amounts of money allocated from public funds for welfare work in the Army during the financial years 1940–41 and 1941–42 were £629,500 and £818,500, respectively. A comprehensive scheme to deal with the welfare of the Army was not introduced until September, 1940, so that the former sum covered only about six months of the year, but it allowed for some heavy initial capital expenditure. These amounts do not include the considerable sums spent annually by Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes on providing professional entertainment for the troops.

    LEAVE (PAY AND ALLOWANCES).
    Mr. Cecil Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for War why soldiers coming on leave are not receiving any pay for

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    maintenance; why they are told that the money is now put to their credit; and when they will be entitled to receive it?
    Captain Margesson: Detailed instructions have been issued to all commanding officers reminding them of their responsibility for ensuring that soldiers going on leave or furlough receive a cash payment representing pay at the net rate and ration allowance at the special leave rate up to the end of their period of leave. The commanding officer is also responsible for ensuring that pay and ration allowance are sent to a soldier who has been granted an extension of leave. If my hon. Friend will send me details of any individual case in which these instructions appear not to have been carried out, I will gladly have inquiries made.

    REQUISITIONED CAMP.
    Sir Herbert Williamsasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will publish the report of the Lands Department on the requisitioning of a camp, the location of which has been given to him?
    Captain Margesson: No reports have been received on the requisitioning of this camp and the chattels contained in it other than communications of an entirely routine character. I can see no good grounds for departing from the normal practice of not publishing such correspondence. I would like to take this opportunity of saying that further inquiries have confirmed the statements contained in the previous answers given to my hon. Friend on this subject and show that there is no justification for his suggestion that inaccurate information has been given to the House. I am writing to him more fully on this point.
    Sir H. Williams: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend be good enough to furnish the names of the board of officers set up to inquire into certain aspects of this matter?
    Captain Margesson: The board were not set up to inquire into this matter. They were concerned with taking over from an outgoing unit.
    Sir H. Williams: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend publish the names of the board of officers who did the taking-over?
    Captain Margesson: I will consider that.

    SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENT, NEWARK.
    Mr. Evelyn Walkdenasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will again review the urgent need for more entertainment on Sundays for men and women in the Services in the Newark area; whether, in view of the present attitude of the owners of public places of amusement, and the demand in the Services for more entertainments, be will employ his requisitioning powers to use certain cinemas on Sundays, and request Entertainments National Service Association to arrange for a regular series of entertainments exclusively for men and women in the Services?
    The Financial Secretary to the War Office (Mr. Sandys): Entertainment is provided in Newark every Sunday night in the Corn Exchange either by Entertainments National Service Association, by Service concert parties or by voluntary concert parties. Besides this a free film show for the Services is provided every Sunday by voluntary effort, and I believe there is also a great deal of private hospitality. I am satisfied that the military authorities with the assistance of the local population have done their utmost to provide a reasonable amount of entertainment for the troops on Sundays. Requisitioning powers are only employed when premises are required for full-time use by the military. It would therefore not be appropriate to invoke requisitioning powers to obtain part-time use of a cinema.
    Mr. Walkden: While appreciating that explanation, which was also given in the answer which I received last week, will my hon. Friend send a competent welfare officer to Newark to see the position for himself and obtain, if possible, an impartial report upon the whole circumstances?
    Mr. Sandys: We already have a competent welfare officer in that area, and he has already reported to the War Office to the effect that a great deal too much is being made of this matter.
    Mr. Walkden: Will the hon. Gentleman accept a proposal that three Members of Parliament should visit the area on a Sunday night to go round and make a report upon this position?
    Mr. Sandys: I shall be glad to have any further information from the hon. Member.
    Mr. Bellenger: Who was the welfare officer who made the statement to which the hon. Gentleman has referred? Was it the command welfare officer or the county welfare officer?
    Mr. Sandys: I have not got that information with me.

    DISCHARGED SOLDIER (INQUIRIES).
    Mr. R. J. Taylorasked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the case of James Young, of Bedlington, who stated at Blyth County Court that, while he was unable to secure work on account of injuries to his hands, he was called up for the Army and passed by the medical board Grade 1; that on entering the forces he was re-examined and re-graded Class C, put to light fatigue duties, never had a drill or handled a rifle, and six months later was discharged as unfit for any form of military service; and what steps he proposes to take to prevent a repetition of such cases?
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson): I have been asked to reply. Inquiries are being made, and I will communicate with my hon. Friend as soon as possible.
    Mr. Taylor: Is my hon. Friend aware that cases of this description discourage confidence in medical boards, and will he take steps to deal with the members of the medical board who passed this man into the Army, if on inquiry the facts stated in my Question are substantiated?
    Mr. Tomlinson: I will see that these suggestions are taken into consideration.
    Mr. Rhys Davies: Has my hon. Friend or his chief ever considered the considerable percentage of men discharged from the Forces who have been passed by medical boards, when obviously they have been unfit for the Fighting Services?
    Mr. Tomlinson: Not in a specific form.

    STEAMSHIP "DUNERA" (INTERNEES).
    Mr. Edmund Harveyasked the Secretary of State for War whether the memorandum submitted to the High Commissioner for the United Kingdom in Australia in December, 1940, on behalf of the refugee internees transported to Australia on the ss. "Dunera" has been
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    made the subject of inquiry by the War Office; and, if so, with what result?
    Captain Margesson: The memorandum referred to by my hon. Friend was considered by the War Office as soon as it was received, and as a result a court of inquiry was set up to inquire into the conduct of military personnel on board the "Dunera". As a result of the report of this court of inquiry three courts-martial were held of which I gave full details in the Reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) and my hon. Friend the Member for English Universities (Mr. Harvey) on 5th August, 1941.
    Mr. Harvey: Was not the inquiry held when none of the people most concerned were in this country, and is it not a fact that a great number of them have returned?
    Captain Margesson: The court of inquiry was held, and the court-martial was the result.
    Miss Eleanor Rathbone: Is it possible to have a satisfactory inquiry without witnesses, when all available information can be taken into consideration?

    PRIVILEGE LEAVE.
    Major Milnerasked the Secretary of State for War whether any reduction in privilege leave is made in consequence of a soldier being granted compassionate leave?
    Captain Margesson: Compassionate leave normally counts against the allotment of privilege leave up to a maximum of seven days in any one period. But in cases where compassionate leave is granted as a result of enemy action the first seven days of such leave do not count against the normal allotment of privilege leave.
    Mr. G. Strauss: Is it not unfair to take away a man's privilege leave because he has had to visit his wife who is seriously ill for four or five days? Why cannot he have his leave in the ordinary way?
    Captain Margesson: We always have to take into consideration the percentage of soldiers away at any one time, otherwise it would not be fair on other men.

    AGRICULTURAL WORK.
    Sir Robert Youngasked the Secretary of State for War what additional pay soldiers receive for agricultural work for

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    which they are loaned to farmers; whether this is paid by the farmers direct to the men; what are the hours of work and other arrangements for their comfort; and whether the men can refuse to do such work?
    Captain Margesson: No additional pay is given to soldiers for this work, and they continue to receive their normal Army emoluments and draw Army rations. The farmer is charged by the Army a sum equivalent to the rates normally payable for the work less the cost, up to 1s. a day for each man, of any liquid refreshment supplied by him. Officers or non-commissioned officers in charge of parties try to conform with the farmer's requirements as regards hours provided they are not unduly long. The military authorities supplying the men may withdraw or refuse to supply them unless they are satisfied that conditions of work are satisfactory. As this work is a military duty refusal to perform it would constitute a military offence.
    Sir R. Young: Is there any arrangement to make sure that the men are capable of doing this agricultural work, or are they ordinary labourers, who need a lot of training?
    Captain Margesson: I do not know that I altogether appreciate the question. Agricultural work can be performed by soldiers.
    Mr. Thorne: Surely the man who is doing the job ought to be paid the rate for the job, whether a soldier or a civilian?
    Captain Margesson: The job is performed as part of his military duties.
    Mr. Stokes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in many cases the farmers would much sooner pay the men direct and get better work out of them?
    Sir H. Williams: Are soldiers in their spare time permitted to undertake agricultural work?
    Captain Margesson: I should require notice of that question, but I imagine that that is so.
    Mr. Austin Hopkinson: Are we to understand that forced labour is to be applied only to Service men, and not to civilians?

    REGIMENTAL INSTITUTES (AUDIT BOARDS).
    Mr. Bellengerasked the Secretary of State for War whether any other ranks are entitled to sit on the audit boards assembled to examine the accounts of regimental institutes; and what is the procedure for publishing such accounts.
    Captain Margesson: No provision is made in King's Regulations for other ranks to sit as members of audit boards to examine the accounts of regimental institutes. A balance sheet is published in unit orders as soon as possible after the quarterly audit.
    Mr. Bellenger: In view of the large sums of money involved and the fact that they come mostly from other ranks, would it not be better perhaps to amend the Regulations and permit other ranks to control the money?
    Captain Margesson: Most of the accounts dealt with by the audit boards are actually kept by the officers, and they are responsible.
    Mr. Bellenger: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman look into the matter again? Is he aware that the Regulation is not universally adopted of publishing the accounts and that there is considerable questioning as to what happens?

    BRITISH PRISONERS OF WAR.
    Sir Waldron Smithersasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is satisfied that the duty of searching hospitals in enemy and enemy-occupied territory, allocated to the Red Cross, is being carried out efficiently, and that the next-of-kin of all officers and men in these hospitals have been informed of the fate of their relatives?
    Captain Margesson: I am not altogether clear what my hon. Friend has in mind. Occasionally the War Office receives information about missing personnel from national Red Cross societies in enemy-occupied territories. This assistance which is much appreciated, is entirely voluntary and unofficial in character. It is often extremely difficult to establish the identity of the individuals to whom these reports refer, but wherever such identification is possible the information is communicated to the next-of-kin.
    Sir W. Smithers: Does my right hon. and gallant Friend think that these organisations are adequate, and are the next of kin being given the fullest information possible in order to relieve their anxiety?
    Captain Margesson: It is very difficult for me to answer the first part of the Supplementary Question, because the organisation is inside enemy-occupied territory and I have no power over it. Any information that is obtained is certainly given to the relatives.
    Mr. Hewlettasked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the condition of the British prisoners of war in Camp 2, Stalag XXIE, as regards unsuitable accommodation, inadequate food and unsatisfactory cleansing arrangements; and whether, as nearly 1,000 prisoners are concerned, he will as soon as possible, make inquiries through the Protecting Power to ensure better treatment?
    Captain Margesson: Information has been received which indicates that the accommodation for British prisoners of war at Stalag XXIE is not satisfactory. The matter has been taken up with the Protecting Power, and an early visit to the camp will be made.
    Mr. Hewlett: While thanking the Minister for his reply, may I ask that extra special efforts be made, as I understand many of the prisoners of war were those brought to Rouen for repatriation purposes?
    Captain Margesson: Yes, Sir, I have asked that this shall be made a matter of urgency.
    Mr. Bellengerasked the Secretary of State for War whether he has any statement to make regarding the ill-treatment of British prisoners of war by the Italians at Bardia?
    Captain Margesson: I am not yet in a position to add anything to the reply given to my hon. Friend the Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) on 28th January.

  SCOTLAND.

    WOMAN'S ARREST.
    Mr. Gallacherasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware
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    that Miss Barbara Morning, 28, Floor-burns Crescent, Johnstone, was aroused out of bed and arrested by the police at 3 a.m. on 29th October, 1941; that it is now admitted that the arrest was the result of a mistake on the part of the procurator fiscal; and will any compensation be offered to Miss Morning?
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Westwood): Regret has been expressed to Miss Morning, on behalf of the procurator fiscal and the police, that the warrant for her arrest was executed at so inconvenient an hour, and she has declared herself satisfied. Steps have been taken to ensure that in future warrants are not executed at such an hour save in very exceptional and justifiable circumstances.
    Mr. Gallacher: Are we to understand that no one is to be punished for taking a young woman, whose health is not good, out of bed and keeping her in a cold stone cell for six hours for no offence of any kind?
    Mr. Westwood: I have indicated that when the full facts were explained to her Miss Morning declared herself satisfied. We have given instructions to the police and to the procurator fiscal that in future, unless in very exceptional circumstances, they must not repeat actions of this kind.
    Mr. Gallacher: Is it not admitted that there should have been no arrest at all? Will no action be taken against anyone?
    Mr. Westwood: It is not admitted that no action should have been taken. Miss Morning was directed under a Defence Regulation and pleaded guilty to not complying with the direction. She was admonished and liberated shortly before 11 a.m. She did not admit that action should not have been taken.
    Mr. Garro Jones: Was it a serious offence with which this lady was charged? If not, does the hon. Gentleman consider that the police officer who thought it right to turn her out of bed at that hour is fit to continue to discharge his responsibilities?
    Mr. Westwood: The police officer was not responsible. It was the procurator fiscal who did not inform the police that the only action necessary was to warn Miss Morning to attend at the court next day.

    AGRICULTURAL LABOUR (ITALIAN PRISONERS).
    Mr. Snaddenasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware of the shortage of agricultural labour in some parts of Scotland; and what steps he proposes to take to make available to Scottish farmers Italian prisoners of war now in this country?
    Mr. Westwood: I am fully alive to the agricultural labour position in Scotland, and in view of the labour shortage I am glad to say that arrangements are being made for the allocation this year of a considerable number of Italian prisoners to Scotland. A small proportion will be available in the spring, and a substantially larger force in the early summer.
    Mr. Snadden: Will these prisoners be employed in gangs or on individual farms?
    Mr. Westwood: They will be in camps in different parts of the country—it would not be in the public interest to mention the places—and the allocation of gangs or individual prisoners to farms will be in the hands of the agricultural executive committees.
    Mr. Snadden: What will they be paid, and to whom will it be payable?
    Mr. Westwood: I could not say without notice.
    Captain McEwen: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind the statement of the hon. and gallant Member for Peters-field (Sir G. Jeffreys) last week that farmers were complaining that the work they got out of these Italian prisoners was not worth much, and does his information bear that out?
    Mr. Westwood: My information is that that is not the universal experience in connection with the use of Italian prisoners.

    NATIONAL SERVICE DIRECTION (PROSECUTION).
    Mr. Gallacherasked the Lord Advocate whether he is aware that a partial cripple, Hugh Grosset, of Kelty, Fife, was sentenced to a term of imprisonment at the Dunfermline Sheriff's Court for refusing to return to work at the coal face; that two medical men and his trade union secretary supported him in his plea that he was unfit for such work; and who
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    was responsible for initiating this prosecution?
    The Lord Advocate (Mr. J. S. C. Reid): Mr. Grosset was charged and convicted of having failed to comply with a direction of a National Service Officer to take up work as a stripper and machine-man, and was sentenced by the sheriff substitute at Dunfermline to 14 days' imprisonment. The prosecution was initiated by the procurator-fiscal at Dunfermline. I have considered the case and am satisfied that the procurator-fiscal acted properly in taking proceedings. The evidence referred to in the Question was put before the local appeal board which, after considering the whole evidence, advised that the man was fit for work.
    Mr. Gallacher: Who had jurisdiction, and who decided that this man was guilty of an offence?
    The Lord Advocate: The sheriff substitute, when the case came before him, held—and I have no reason to disagree with his view—that he was bound by the decision of the National Service Officer as advised by the local appeal board. Accordingly it was the local appeal board who really decided that the man was fit for work.
    Mr. Gallacher: Are we to understand that the local appeal board decided that the man was guilty and then directed the sheriff and the court to pass sentence?
    The Lord Advocate: No, the sheriff was entitled to consider all other matters in connection with the case, and he said that he took into account the man's explanation and imposed a smaller sentence than he would otherwise have done.
    Mr. Gallacher: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I will raise the matter on the Adjournment.

  COAL INDUSTRY.

    DOMESTIC SUPPLIES, LONDON.
    Mr. G. Straussasked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware that there is an acute shortage of coal for domestic use in some parts of London; and whether he will release some of the stocks to fill the gap?
    The Secretary for Mines (Mr. David Grenfell): I am aware that merchants' stocks of solid fuel are low in certain parts of London, chiefly owing to

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    difficulties occasioned by the recent spell of severe weather; but nowhere can the position be described as acute. Authority had already been given for the sale to merchants of coal from Government dumps in any case where that course is necessary.
    Mr. Strauss: Is my hon. Friend aware that the shortage in Lambeth is really serious, particularly among small consumers, many of whom have not been able to get any coal for three weeks or more? Will he look into that problem particularly and see that merchants are supplied from the dumps with the coal necessary for small consumers?

    NEW MELLS COLLIERY, SOMERSET (WAGE RATE).
    Mr. James Griffithsasked the Secretary for Mines whether his attention has been called to the action of the management at New Mells Colliery, Somerset, in locking out two workmen in violation of Article 4 of the Conditions of Employment and National Arbitration Order, 1940, and of the provisions of the Essential Work (Coalmining) Order, 1941; and what action he is taking in the matter.
    Mr. Grenfell: I have made inquiries at New Mells Colliery and find that two men were asked to agree to a reduction in the rate paid to them for driving a drift and that they were refused permission to work on the old rate; the case was referred to the Labour Supplies Officer, and he has reported that the matter has been settled by agreement; that a new rate has been fixed and that the men are now at work in their own occupation in the same working place.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE.

    CLOTHES RATIONING.
    Mr. Messerasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the demand that medical officers in the employ of public health authorities shall give up the full number of coupons for their protective clothing will mean that many surgeons will have very few coupons left for their own use; and whether he will reconsider this decision?
    The President of the Board of Trade (Sir Andrew Duncan): I have received no evidence to show that the type of white (overalls now available at two or three
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    coupons each, according to type, are unsuitable for use by doctors, and I do not consider that the purchase of them will place an undue strain on a doctor's ration of coupons.
    Mr. Messer: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that a circular has gone out to local authorities on -this matter and that it shows that surgeons in operating theatres will come to an end of their coupons? Does he not know how important to a surgeon overalls are and what a large number are used.
    Sir A. Duncan: They know the number of coupons available.
    Sir Francis Fremantle: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the ordinary person does not require protective clothing, and that if the extra coupons are sufficient in this case, they are superfluous in the case of ordinary persons? Surely this is an example of extra requirements for public needs.

    SMALL TRADERS.
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will convene a meeting of the chambers of trade throughout the whole country with a view to considering and ascertaining the best methods of protecting the livelihood of the small retailers throughout the country?
    Sir A. Duncan: The Retail Trade Committee propose to consult representative trade organisations about this and other matters raised in their second interim report, which I have received. I hope that the report will be published on Thursday of this week.
    Mr. De la Bère: Will my right hon. Friend do everything in his power to keep in touch with the chambers of trade in this matter, because they have a large amount of information? May I also say how much I appreciate the efforts that have been made in this matter by my right hon. Friend?

  POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION.

    REGIONAL COMMISSIONERS.
    Major Milnerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether any decision has been come to as to the retention of regional commissioners after the war?
    The Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Arthur Greenwood): I have been asked to reply. No, Sir. Consideration is being given to problems of local government areas and functions after the war, but no decision has been taken as regards the future of the regional organisation.
    Major Milner: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in some quarters it is stated that a decision has been come to and that it has even been decided who is likely to occupy these offices? Will my right hon. Friend assure me that nothing has been done?
    Mr. Greenwood: I can give the most absolute assurance of that kind. No decision has been reached or is likely to be reached for some time.
    Mr. Charles Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that some people consider that this form of Government control should cease?

    LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS.
    Mr. David Adamsasked the Min-ester without Portfolio whether, in any steps contemplated in the structure of local government to meet the changing needs of the situation, he will assure the House that the basis of democratic election will be preserved?
    Mr. Greenwood: Yes, Sir. In the consideration of any proposals that may arise out of inquiries into problems of local government after the war full regard will be paid to the maintenance of the principle of democratic election.
    Mr. Adams: Do I understand that this principle will govern all the proposals concerning local government?
    Mr. Greenwood: I hope so, but I do not rule out the possibility of indirect election by some authorities like the Metropolitan Water Board.

    SMALL TRADERS.
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the Minister without Portfolio whether he is giving consideration to the problem of the future livelihood of the children of the rural and independent retailers, whose livelihood is being threatened and destroyed, both as a result of the war and as the result of the unchecked development of the chain stores; and whether he will confer with the President of the Board of Trade with
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    a view to the introduction of legislation to protect the future welfare of these people?
    Mr. Greenwood: I cannot accept the implications of my hon. Friend's Question, but I can assure him that, in the preparation of plans for reconstruction after the war, the welfare of the rising generation will be a primary objective.
    Mr. De la Bère: Does my right hon. Friend realise that it is necessary to have regulated development and a settled policy, and that this kind of window dressing will never again be allowed to continue on that basis, because the middle classes and the independent retailers must have protection?
    Mr. Greenwood: My hon. Friend had better await the publication of the report.
    Mr. De la Bère: I am not satisfied that enough progress is being made.

    RAILWAY SLEEPING CARS, GLASGOW-LONDON.
    Major Lloydasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he has consulted the Railway Executive Committee with a view to increasing the sleeping-car facilities between Glasgow and London; and what advice has been given in this connection?
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport (Colonel Llewellin): I am advised that sleeping accommodation on the trains between Glasgow and London could only be increased at the expense of reducing the seating accommodation or by the substitution of third-class sleepers for first-class sleepers.
    Major Lloyd: Has my right hon. and gallant Friend consulted the Railway Executive Committee, and is that their reply?
    Colonel Llewellin: This reply has been received from the London Midland and Scottish Railway.
    Sir H. Williams: Is it not the case that there is no shortage of sleepers but that there is a shortage of locomotive power, and that if trains were run slower they could have more sleepers?
    Colonel Llewellin: No, Sir, that is not the case. The problem is caused by a shortage of locomotive power. We have trains going between London and Glasgow with as many coaches as the engines will take.
    Sir H. Williams: If they go slower, could not the engines take more coaches?
    Colonel Llewellin: On the other hand, there has been criticism that they do not go fast enough.
    Mr. Kirkwood: Is the Minister aware that if they go much slower we shall not arrive here at all?
    Major Lloydasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport what further representations he has received from the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce contending that there is inequity in the distribution of sleeping berths between Glasgow and London, to the serious detriment of important business engagements; and what steps he is proposing to take to rectify this position?
    Colonel Llewellin: I am sending my hon. and gallant Friend copies of the most recent letter from the Chamber of Commerce, and of the reply which has been sent.

    MILITARY SERVICE (FITNESS STANDARD).
    Mr. Messerasked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the feelings of disquiet being aroused by the passing of physically unfit men for service in the Army; whether there is any minimum standard; and what is the method adopted in arriving at it?
    Mr. Tomlinson: While cases of physical or mental unfitness cannot invariably be detected, the medical boards do not, in general, pass men who are unfit for service, and I am not aware of any grounds for disquiet. The standards applied and the methods employed by the boards are contained in a Code of instructions agreed with the Service Departments and approved by the Medical Advisory Committee. I am having a copy of this Code in its latest form placed in the Library.
    Mr. Messer: Would it not be advisable for men who claim to be unfit for service to have the right to go before an independant medical tribunal, for there are undoubtedly cases of great hardship?
    Mr. Tomlinson: I will put that matter to my right hon. Friend.

    ARMED FORCES (PAY AND ALLOWANCES).
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Prime Minister whether consideration has now been given to the question of the pay of the Armed Forces and allowances to their dependants, and whether a statement can be made?
    Miss Wardasked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on the Government's proposals for bettering the payments and allowances to wives and dependants of men serving in His Majesty's Services?
    Major Milnerasked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to state what improvements are proposed in the pay and allowances of the Armed Forces?
    The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Attlee): My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister hoped to be able to make a statement on this subject to-day but regrets that he is not yet in a position to do so.
    Major Milner: When may we put down a Question again?
    Mr. Attlee: I will let my hon. and gallant Friend know. I hope it may be possible to give a Reply very soon.
    Mr. Shinwell: Has the Minister of Pensions had his party at Blackpool?
    Mr. Bellenger: Will it be possible to issue a White Paper setting out the proposals?
    Mr. Attlee: That is being considered.
    Miss Ward: Is officers' pay being included?
    Mr. Attlee: I cannot anticipate the statement.

    WOMEN'S SERVICES (COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY).
    Miss Cazaletasked the Prime Minister whether he will consider setting

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    up a committee to inquire into the conditions of the Auxiliary Territorial Service and the other women's Services?
    Mr. Attlee: A Committee, under the Chairmanship of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty and with the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for War, my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham (Sir E. Grigg), the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Air, my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Captain Balfour), and the Parliamentary Secretary, Minister of Labour, my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Assheton), as members, has been set up to consider and report to the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Secretary of State for War, the Secretary of State for Air and the Minister of Labour and National Service, on the standards of amenities and welfare conditions in the three Women's Services.
    The Committee will, in the course of its consideration of these questions, receive the advice of the Directors of the W.R.N.S., A.T.S. and the W.A.A.F. and these Directors will attend the meetings of the Committee as may be required. These Directors will investigate and report upon the comparative conditions of accommodation, issues of clothing and equipment and other matters affecting the well-being of the Services, and will present their conclusions and any suggestions to the above Committee. In addition, the Committee have expressed their willingness to receive representations and views on any questions affecting welfare from the Women's Consultative Committee, which advises the Minister of Labour on all questions relating to the recruitment of women.
    Miss Cazalet: Does not my right hon. Friend think it would be a good thing if some responsible women were co-opted to the Committee?
    Mr. Garro Jones: Is it not rather an odd and unusual procedure to appoint a Committee of Parliamentary Under-Secretaries? How are they going to find time from their other duties to attend the Committee?
    Mr. Attlee: I do not think it is unusual.
    Sir Percy Harris: Will evidence be given before the Committee from outside people, or will it be limited to official evidence?
    Mr. Attlee: That is a matter for the Committee.
    Miss Eleanor Rathbone: Will the husbands and parents of these young people be reassured by a report from four young men in high positions?
    Miss Ward: Will the representatives of the Services be full members of the Committee and will they sit with the Committee on every occasion?
    Mr. Attlee: As I pointed out, the Committee will seek the advice of the directors, and they will attend the meetings of the Committee as required. That does not mean they are full members of the Committee.
    Miss Cazalet: Does my right hon. Friend think it would be a good thing to set up an all-women committee to inquire into conditions in the male Services?
    Mr. G. Strauss: Is it not really a mistake to have an investigation into the conditions in these Services by the people responsible for those conditions?
    Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: As these matters are of great interest to the community, may the report of the Committee be published?
    Mr. Attlee: That is a matter for the Committee.
    Miss Rathbone: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise this question on the Adjournment.

  NATIONAL FINANCE.

    ESTATE DUTY (DETERMINATION OF LIFE INTERESTS).
    Sir John Mellorasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the revenue authorities contend that Section 43 of the Finance Act, 1940, applies where executors, in order to give effect to a bequest of an annual payment for life and facilitate distribution of the residue, purchase an annuity from an insurance company; and whether, in view of this contention having given rise to a possible liability, contingent upon the death of the annuitant within three years from the date of purchase and incalculable until such death, he wilt take steps to amend the said section or otherwise remove an obstacle to the winding up of many estates?
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): I am not altogether clear as to the type of case which my hon. Friend has in mind; but if he will furnish me with particulars of any case, I will have inquiries made.

    WARSHIPS WEEKS, EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW.
    Mr. Sloanasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what were the total amounts raised for war loan in Edinburgh and Glasgow during the warships week; how much of this was contributed by banks and insurance companies; and how much was paid in commission to banks and stockbrokers during those weeks?
    Sir K. Wood: The amounts raised during the Edinburgh and Glasgow Warship Weeks, including subscriptions to all forms of Government security now on issue, purchases of National Savings Certificates, deposits in the Savings Banks, and loans free of interest and gifts to the nation, were £15,482,031 and £13,510,424 respectively. The other information for which my hon. Friend asks could not be obtained without a disproportionate amount of trouble.
    Mr. Sloan: Is it not the case that the right hon. Gentleman does not give the information because it would prove that these were really not genuine funds raised by the workers, but that the money is secured largely from the banks and insurance companies?
    Sir K. Wood: There is no foundation for that as far as I am concerned.
    Mr. Stokes: When will the right hon. Gentleman explain his reluctance to give figures of the commission on money subscribed for these loans, which he knows is very large?

    WAR LOANS (STOCKBROKERS' COMMISSION).
    Mr. Sloanasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the sum that has been paid by the Exchequer to stockbrokers as commission on War Loan?
    Sir K. Wood: The total commission paid to stockbrokers on War Loans since the commencement of the war amounts to £696,000, which represents commission, nearly all at the rate of one-eighth of one per cent., on total subscriptions of about £565,000,000.

    INCOME TAX AND SURTAX.
    Professor Savoryasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that a taxpayer liable to the highest rate of Income Tax and Surtax, desirous of making a payment of £5 5s., has to lay aside a year's interest on £3,800 Three per cent. Savings Bonds, while the recipient, if also liable to the same rate of tax, retains only 4s. 10d.; and will he give the widest circulation to these figures to illustrate the war burden imposed on the wealthier classes by their contribution to the revenue of the country?
    Sir K. Wood: I have referred several times to the extremely heavy burden imposed by the Income Tax and Surtax on the larger incomes. This burden is well illustrated by the figures given by my hon. Friend, and further examples may be found in the Financial Statement for 1941–42 (No. 73 of 1941).
    Professor Savory: Will the right hon. Gentleman do his utmost to dispel the illusion, still so widely prevalent, that capital has not been conscripted in the present war?

    WEEKLY WAGES (INCOME TAX).
    Mr. Kirkwoodasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) whether he will make arrangements for tax deducted from the weekly wages of workers to be varied week by week according to the amount of the wages, in order to avoid the hardships now caused to Clydebank workers and their families, by deducting from their present small earnings large arrears of tax on their higher earnings last year; is he aware that this system is leading to reluctance in th3 men to work overtime, and in their wives to go out to work at all;
    (2) whether he is aware of the hardships now caused to Clyde bank shipyard workers and their families by the demands for income tax on the good wages and overtime earned last year; and what concessions does he propose to make to these people to encourage them to continue to work overtime without the knowledge that extra money so earned will be taken from them for arrears of tax, especially as it was by his arrangement that the arrears accumulated until 1st January?
    Sir K. Wood: I would remind my hon. Friend that the scheme for deduction of tax from wages for the period January to June of this year is already in operation, and it would not be practicable to vary it by making week to week deductions according to the amount of the wages, as he suggests. The reason for the time lag involved is the necessity of ensuring that each taxpayer receives the allowances and reliefs to which he is entitled.
    Mr. Stokes: Would it not be better to scrap the whole scheme as it is now understood and institute a system under which deductions are made weekly from the wages of the men, afterwards setting up for them a credit account in respect of any over-deductions?
    Sir K. Wood: No, Sir. The present scheme was carefully considered. I will keep the matter under careful review, but I think the scheme has certainly been devised in the interests of the wage earners.
    Mr. Gallacher: Will the right hon. Gentleman say why he refused to meet a deputation on the subject which was accompanied by Members of this House?
    Mr. Levy: Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that it is in the national interest that this system should be reconsidered? The incentive to the workers is being taken away from them, and it is affecting production and doing no good at all, and is it not time that it was altered?
    Sir K. Wood: No, Sir. I should like to say at once that I completely dissent from such a view, and I think that hardly anybody shares such an opinion.
    Mr. Thorne: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware that there is a number of cases where men who are receiving £3 15s. a week find that £1 4s. 2d. is deducted from their pay in respect of Income Tax?
    Sir K. Wood: The exact particulars of deductions will be found in the White Paper which was issued at the time of the opening of the Budget, and I do not think they would bear out those figures.
    Mr. Kirkwoodasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will look into a number of hard cases where
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    Clydebank workers are being pressed for arrears of Income Tax and mitigate their suffering by arranging for payment to be spread over as long a period as may be necessary?
    Sir K. Wood: The arrangements for collection of Income Tax by deduction from wages provides substantial relief from the hardship which might otherwise result from demands for lump sum payments. My hon. Friend will, I am sure, appreciate that, if the scheme is to work equitably, the period over which tax is to be deducted cannot be varied as between one taxpayer and another according to individual circumstances. I would, however, remind him of the provision that the deductions on account of Income Tax shall in no case reduce the net cash payment of wages below certain minimum figures which are higher for married than for single men.
    Mr. Kirkwood: Is the Chancellor aware of the fact that unless he alters this system in its entirety he is not going to get the Income Tax? He will have to do the same as was done in the last war, and cancel it all out, because it cannot be got. You will have the railway-men on about it just inside a month, never mind the engineers.
    Sir K. Wood: No, Sir. I have a belief myself, and I think it is shared by people in all political parties, that this scheme has met with a fair and proper response on the part of the workers.
    Sir H. Williams: Why is there this diminution of enthusiasm for Income Tax?
    Mr. McNeill: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer not aware that by refusing to meet a deputation from Clydeside on this subject he created the impression that he was afraid to discuss and to justify it?
    Sir K. Wood: No, Sir. I think there is no misunderstanding about that. The deputation to which the hon. Member refers was one of which I received very short notice and I found that it was a deputation of shop stewards, and I suggested to the deputation that if they desired to see me they should be accompanied by trade union officials.
    Miss Ward: May I ask my right hon. Friend why his machinery for the collection of this tax was not absolutely perfect? May I have an answer?
    Sir K. Wood: I do not quite follow the question.

    ADVERTISING EXPENDITURE.
    Mr. Hammersleyasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will consider the advisability of disallowing, for Income Tax purposes, expenditure on advertising which exceeds a reasonable proportion of the expenditure for advertising in the standard years?
    Sir K. Wood: Under the existing law, the allowance or disallowance of expenditure on advertising as a deduction in computing the profits of a business for Income Tax purposes is determined by the same rules that apply to other items of expenditure, and I see no reason for introducing any differential treatment.
    Mr. Hammersley: Does my right hon. Friend's answer mean that what is stated in the Question is, in fact, the existing procedure?
    Mr. Hopkinson: Does not the whole of this expenditure come direct out of money which would otherwise go to more useful purposes?
    Sir K. Wood: My hon. Friends will remember that I took power in the last Finance Act to deal with this and other matters, but if facts are brought to my notice, I will look into them.
    Mr. G. Strauss: In view of the fact that the present position is a public scandal, could not the right hon. Gentleman disallow advertisements of all goods which cannot be sold?
    Mr. Hammersley: Does not the reply of my right hon. Friend mean that unless some outside individual brings cases to the attention of the Revenue, nothing will be done?
    Sir K. Wood: No, Sir. All I did was to invite my hon. Friends to give me information.

    HOSPITAL SURVEY.
    Mr. Messerasked the Minister of Health whether, in the hospital survey he is undertaking, there will be any consultation with the Society of Medical Superintendents?
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh): My
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    right hon. Friend will be glad to receive the views of this or any other society concerned with the hospital services; and the surveying officers will consult with any such body in the course of their survey as may be found necessary.

    UGANDA (COFFEE EXPORT TAX).
    Mr. Harveyasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies why a new ordinance has recently imposed an export tax on coffee produced in Uganda which does not apply to coffee produced in the Belgian Congo, Ruanda or Urundi which is exported via Uganda whether or not it be processed in Uganda; and whether, as this discrimination will have an adverse effect upon coffee-growing in Uganda and, as an expert tax is, in principle, open to grave objection, he will consider its abolition?
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. George Hall): On the recommendation of the standing committee appointed by the Governor to advise on export taxes, the Governor, with the approval of my Noble Friend, imposed in September last under the provisions of the Uganda War Revenue (Export Tax) Ordinance No. 30 of 1940, an export tax of £2 a ton on Uganda coffee. My Noble Friend does not consider that the taxation will have an adverse effect on the industry.
    Mr. Harvey: Is not the imposition of this tax inconsistent with the Government's own policy, when they pressed in the summer of last year for preferential rates on the railway in favour of the export of coffee?
    Mr. Hall: No, Sir. The method of the export tax is used in many colonies for the purpose of raising revenue and it is a part of the policy of the Government to enforce it.

    BELISHA BEACONS.
    Mr. Thorneasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works and Buildings when he intends to pull down the 70,000 iron Belisha Beacon poles; to what use he intends putting the globes; and what will be the total weight that can be melted down?
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works and Buildings (Mr. Hicks): The total amount of iron recoverable from the poles and metal globes is approximately 1,000 tons and it would be comparatively costly to collect. So long, therefore, as other scrap is more readily obtainable it is not proposed to pull down these beacons.
    Mr. Thorne: They are a nuisance.

    CIVIL DEFENCE PERSONNEL (CONDITIONS).
    Mr. Orr-Ewing (for Mr. R. Morgan)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether he can now make a detailed statement as to the position of whole-time and part-time voluntary Civil Defence workers under the Order issued last week;
    (2) whether the absence of any specified age in the new Order affecting Civil Defence workers indicates that the alteration in duties therein specified applies to Civil Defence workers of all ages or whether it is limited to people under 50 years of age; and whether it equally applies to the many young people serving in the Civil Defence Service in their early twenties?
    Sir Leonard Lyleasked the Home Secretary whether, when voluntary Civil Defence workers are placed on exactly the same plane as paid Civil Defence workers as regards mobility in their areas, hours of work and day and night service, such workers will be permitted to claim equal treatment with paid workers in respect of remuneration; whether he is aware that many people have hitherto been ready to work on a voluntary basis because they had some reasonable freedom of choice in respect of all the considerations mentioned; and whether, under the new scheme, they have any safeguard of their legitimate interests, industrial, domestic and physical?
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security (Mr. Mabane): The Orders which require part-time members of the Civil Defence Services, special constables and other part-time police auxiliaries, to continue to serve until their services are dispensed with, apply to all such persons who have attained the age of 18 years. Local authorities have been advised that, if
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    they refuse to grant an application for release, the applicant should be informed that he is entitled to ask the Regional Commissioner to reconsider the matter. Local authorities have also been advised that, while many of those who volunteered for unpaid service devote a large amount of time to their Civil Defence duties and will want to continue to do so, the recognised standard of compulsory duty for part-time members (including for this purpose those giving whole-time unpaid service) should be a maximum of 48 hours in each period of four weeks. It has been explained to the authorities that, in fixing hours and times of duty, full regard should be had to the ordinary employment and other day-to-day obligations of the members and, where necessary, to personal and domestic circumstances. In accordance with general policy, members should not be detailed for stand-by duty within their ordinary working hours or in numbers in excess of those required for the efficient functioning of the Service.
    The Orders place the part-time members under obligation to present themselves for duty at a given place and time and to obey lawful orders given in the course of the Civil Defence employment. My right hon. Friend is confident that local authorities will exercise their powers reasonably and with the objects of maintaining an efficient service and at the same time avoiding hardship to individuals and any unnecessary disturbance of existing duty rosters. There is already in force a scale of compensation for loss of wages sustained by persons who are absent from their employment because of attendance on authorised Civil Defence duty. The changed status of the part-time members does not put them in a position comparable with that of the whole-time paid personnel, or present a case for payment for part-time services. I will send my hon. Friends copies of the circulars issued to local authorities.
    Sir H. Williams: Does that answer mean that civil conscription has been applied to persons over 60 years of age who in the past have done voluntary service, whereas people over 60 who have never done anything are exempt?
    Mr. Mabane: It means that those who have been part-time volunteers in the past, irrespective of age, will be required to continue to perform those duties.
    Sir H. Williams: In other words, those who have never done anything at all are to be exempt from that obligation?

    WILLIAM JOYCE (GERMAN BROADCASTS).
    Commander Locker-Lampson (for Mr. Liddall)asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that a person named William Joyce, a British subject, interned in enemy territory and employed by the German broadcasting authorities, is in receipt of £10 per month from the British Government; and whether he will take steps to stop such payments to Joyce and like traitors forthwith?
    The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Richard Law): No, Sir. According to my information, no payments have been made from public funds to any British subject in Germany bearing this name.
    Mr. Lawson: On a point of Order. May I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that this Question has received considerable notice in the Press and has given rise to some comment? When Questions of this importance are put down, could you not do anything to require the attendance of the Member responsible in order that the Question may be properly dealt with?
    Mr. Speaker: That is not a duty which ought to be put upon me. The old rule must apply that the Member must be responsible for the accuracy of facts stated in a Question.
    Mr. Garro Jones: In a case where considerable harm has been done, is it not open to the Member who has put down the Question to make a personal statement in regard to the sources of his information?
    Mr. Speaker: That is not a question which I can decide.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Charles Edwards): May I ask whether the Lord Privy Seal has any statement to make on Business?
Mr. Attlee: Yes, Sir. After the Second Reading of the Restoration of Pre-War Trade Practices Bill and
1052
Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution, we desire to make progress with the War Orphans Bill and the Patents and Designs Bill We also propose to take the Motions to approve the Fish Sales (Charges) Order and the Timber (Charges) (No. 5) Order.
On the next Sitting Day, after the consideration of Supplementary Estimates and the Committee stage of the Landlord and Tenant (Requisitioned Land) Bill, we desire to take the Motion to approve the Purchase Tax (Exemptions) (No. 1) Order.
Earl Winterton: Does my right hon. Friend propose to make any alteration in the usual procedure of the House in regard to questions relating to Business? If all the Government Whips are to sit on this Front Bench and to ask this kind of question, is not the situation completely farcical?
Mr. Shinwell: Is it not much better for a member of the Government to ask the Government what the next Business will be?
Mr. Bellenger: When is it proposed to take the Motion in the name of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne) relating to the special report of the Select Committee on National Expenditure?
Mr. Attlee: On the third Sitting Day.

ANGLO-ETHIOPIAN AGREEMENT.
The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): I am happy to be able to inform the House that an Agreement was signed on behalf of His Majesty's Government with the Emperor of Ethiopia on 31st January at Addis Ababa. The text is being laid as a White Paper, copies of which will be available to hon. Members to-day. This Agreement restores our normal diplomatic relations with the Emperor. Mr. R. G. Howe is proceeding forthwith to Addis Ababa as His Majesty's Minister to the Emperor's Court. The Emperor has asked us for technical advisers, and we have agreed to do our best to procure the services of a small number of British officials. It will be their duty to assist the Emperor with their counsel in the restoration of his administration. It is expected that the currency of the Agreement will be two years.

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His Majesty's Government have agreed to finance the Emperor during the first year to the extent of £1,500,000, and during the second year to the extent of £1,000,000. Should the Agreement be prolonged beyond the first two years His Majesty's Government have agreed to grant him £500,000 during the third year and £250,000 during the fourth year. This tapering-off of financial aid makes allowance for the gradual restoration of Ethiopian finances. The financial arrangements, therefore, have been designed to ensure that the dependence of Ethiopia upon a foreign country shall not be perpetuated.
The Emperor has also asked us for a military mission to assist him in the reorganisation of his armed forces. The Military Convention, which was signed at the same time as the Agreement and has been printed in the White Paper, provides for this and for the British forces which it may be necessary to maintain in Ethiopia for strategic reasons as well as for the evacuation of Italian prisoners of war. The Ethiopian army will be equipped from the booty captured during the campaign in Ethiopia.
The Emperor has asked, too, for some British Judges in his courts to assist him in the administration of justice, and the Agreement provides that a foreigner may elect to have his case heard in an Ethiopian court on the bench of which a British magistrate shall sit.
The House will observe that His Majesty's Government have not sought to profit by the Ethiopian campaign, at the expense of the independence of Ethiopia. They are glad to have been able to play a part in securing the restoration of Ethiopian liberties. I should like here to pay a tribute to the fine sense of statesmanship shown by the Emperor. This has been abundantly evident during the trying period of the readjustment of his country from the chaos of war to independent administration.
Mr. Noel-Baker: While congratulating my right hon. Friend on his statement, and warmly endorsing the statesmanship which the Emperor has shown from 1935 to this day, may I ask whether, at a later stage and after peace has been restored, if the Emperor desired to appoint advisers of nationalities other than British, His Majesty's Government would have any objection to that course?
Mr. Eden: This Agreement is only for two years, but in the circumstances described by my hon. Friend, that is, after the conclusion of peace, I cannot conceive that there would be any objection.
Miss Rathbone: Will the Emperor be free to make his own suggestions and to accept or reject the advice offered to him, and will Ethiopia in future be allowed to send a representative to meetings of the Allied Conference?
Mr. Eden: With regard to the first point, the Emperor has asked for certain British advisers. The object is to make the arrangement work smoothly, and there is no question of imposing advice upon him. As regards the second part of the question, if the hon. Lady means the Allied Council at St. James' Palace, no doubt if Ethiopia wishes to join, an application will be made, which will be considered.
Mr. Creech Jones: Does the Agreement accept the old frontiers of Ethiopia, and is there anything in the Agreement with regard to the suppression of slavery?
Mr. Eden: Yes, Sir. The position is that the Emperor has declared his intention to issue decrees abolishing a state of slavery as soon as he is in a position to legislate. He will be in a position to legislate as a result of this Agreement. As regards frontiers, I would ask the hon. Member to put down a Question. But no action has been taken to decrease the frontiers of the Empire from what they were before. There are, however, certain practical points which I can discuss with my hon. Friend.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  RESTORATION OF PRE-WAR TRADE PRACTICES BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
  The purpose of the Bill is to restore after the war the trade practices departed from during the war, in accordance with the Government's pledge. The Bill itself follows a precedent which was established in 1919, but there is a significant difference in the circumstances as between the two periods. That has been brought about to a large extent by the enormous development between the two wars of joint industrial relations in the country, particularly joint industrial councils, and the improvement both of, direct relationship with employers and of what may be described as tripartite machinery between the State, the employers and the trade unions. In 1915 very little of this machinery existed, and the Government at that time were driven to conduct negotiations over a wide field of conferences with large numbers of trade unions in order to secure agreements for the relaxation of practices, and after a very prolonged effort these were embodied in a Government pledge, which was then described as the Treasury Agreement.
  We had, as I say, a great advantage at the outbreak of this war, in that there had been established a National Joint Advisory Council. In addition to the establishment of joint industrial council machinery, there had grown up a responsible employers' organisation which was organised in the British Employers' Confederation. Equally, the Trades Union Congress had changed its constitution from what was purely a Parliamentary Committee to a General Council with wider powers and greater ability to speak for the unions as a whole in those matters in which the State was involved. My predecessor, before war broke out, took the very wise step of calling the parties together and establishing a national body representing the two organisations. This Bill has been drafted with the aid of and in consultation with these two organised forces in industry in this country: The
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  basis upon which this problem of dilution was dealt with on this occasion was very different from that which obtained in the previous war. It was approached by both parties with a determination to contribute whole-heartedly and to co-operate with the State in whatever steps might be necessary to secure the protection of the country and ultimately an Allied victory. The establishment of this machinery enabled us to transfer from a peace-time basis of industry to a war-time footing with great facility and speed. Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that the change-over was made with scarcely a single dispute in any works in the country on the question of dilution.
  Hon. Members must appreciate the difficulty and the complicated problems arising in workshops, and with the inherent conservatism of our people on both sides, especially in view of the fact that nearly every trade practice in this country which has been devised to protect the workman has been the result of years of effort and may be described, I think, as a real property right so far as the working classes are concerned, and must remain so as long as there are two factors in industry, representing capital and the operatives. It must be remembered, too, on this occasion that dilution and change of trade practices have had to be carried out over a wider field of industry than occurred in the last war. That is due to the fact that mechanisation in that period had spread in the productive effort over a much wider area, and wherever you introduce mechanisation you are bound to develop craft workmanship, not merely in the manufacture of the machine; very quickly you develop a craftsmanship in the operation of the machine, in its use as well as the manufacture of other products. Therefore, due to the development of mechanisation, changes of practice had, as I say, to be carried out over a wider field.
  I would emphasize that, having regard to the size of our labour force in this war, the change in its distribution and composition, the necessity for rapid adjustment in the character and methods of production and, in many cases, for the complete revision of the piece-work rates due to these changes, it is remarkable that the amount of time lost through disputes represents only one-fifteenth of a day per year for each worker employed since the war broke out.
  Mr. Austin Hopkinson: Does the right hon. Gentleman refer to official disputes?
  Mr. Bevin: All disputes are reported to my Department. I may say that practically every dispute that takes place, whether official or unofficial, is reported to the Conciliation Department. It is noteworthy also that the spirit that animated the Council was manifested before there was any question of a Government pledge. I think this ought to be said for the operatives, that when the rearmament programme developed, and especially after Munich, there was, before the actual declaration of this war, considerable negotiation and, in the case of the engineering industry, an agreement arrived at between the parties dealing with dilution. It was an evidence that those who held responsible positions on both sides probably saw the inevitable coming and tried to make provision for it. All these changes of a voluntary character were arrived at on the basis that they were for war purposes and that the practices would be restored after the war. This was subsequently fortified by the Government pledge. Indeed, the Government pledge is essential in order to supplement the voluntary arrangements that have been arrived at.
  There have been many disputes in this country during my memory arising from employers who do not play the game. Leading employers and trade unions enter into a solemn agreement and carry it out—and perhaps one of the greatest tributes to both sides is that the word of a committee of a British joint assembly of that character is honoured far more than many laws. Therefore, we must take steps to see that no one shall take advantage of those who have entered into these honourable and voluntary bargains, and see to it that neither competitive nor other advantage is taken at the end of the war. Another essential reason for this pledge, or for the carrying-out of the pledge, embodied in this Bill, is that the transition from peace to war is very difficult, but transition from war to peace is even more difficult, and therefore every step has to be taken to minimise the chances of dispute when that moment arrives. We have not relied on the course of dragging the parties in the settlement into the courts in the first instance. The courts will come
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  in only if an employer refuses to carry out an award. We take the view that the arbitration method is the best method to allow of technical understanding, and to ensure the understanding of the problems of the workshop without importing too much legal argument into the controversy.
  The Bill is not concerned with wages; it is concerned with rules, practices or customs with respect to the classes of persons to be or not to be employed, and the conditions of employment, hours of work, or working conditions; dilution and demarcation are the most important aspects.
  The intention of the Bill is to re-establish temporarily the practices existing immediately before the war. We have not attempted in these proposals to establish a statutory code of trade practices. The Bill is intended to operate in the 18 months after the war. I daresay it will be argued that, the establishment of these rights will be of disadvantage to many workers who benefited by changes in practice, and to many who, for the first time, have been introduced into industry, but, as against that, I would say that they could only have had those benefits as a result of the sacrifices of others who took years to build up those rights. Therefore, the House will note that Clause places on the employers the obligation to restore trade practices which have been departed from during the war and to maintain the restored practices for 18 months. This Clause applies equally to employers in undertakings which have been begun during the war. The object of bringing in undertakings which have been established during the war is to ensure that there shall be no loopholes which would defeat the object of the Bill.
  The period of 18 months is important. Anyone who knows anything about the great industries that will have to be returned to peace-time conditions knows that the re-tooling and re-conditioning of many of these great works will take anything from four to 12 months to accomplish. It is essential that allowance should be made for this, and indeed the Government are considering the best methods of preparing for the change in these trades, as regards preliminary drawings and research and in other directions, so as to be able to speed up the arrangements preparatory to the transition. But even with

  1081
  the best that you can do in those directions, if it becomes necessary suddenly to" ease making munitions, there is bound to be a gap, and until the industry has been started on its new basis, it is rather difficult to know exactly what problems will have to be faced. Therefore, while, under Clause I, we give this guarantee for 18 months and while we fully safeguard the right of the unions to re-establish their trade practices, we know—it must be obvious—that there are many things which have been introduced during the war that even the unions may desire to retain and that the employers may desire to retain. We have made provision, accordingly, to enable agreements to be made with the unions for modifying or waiving the obligation under Clause I. That follows the 1919 agreement, but we felt that in strengthening this provision in this Bill it would place the parties on a proper basis to negotiate the waiver of any of the obligations. We have made the safeguard that only a union whose custom it was before the war period to maintain the practice in question can enter into such an agreement with the employers. I think the House will agree that this is an essential provision. Those who have built up these practices must either restore them or exercise their power to waive them. This is really intended to prevent advantage being taken, by others, of the changes made during the war.
  Mr. Naylor: If an employer at the end of the 18 months' period feels a desire to eliminate a trade union practice, we may take it that he is not privileged under this Bill to report to the Minister. Would it be correct to say that in such an event the usual methods of negotiation between trade unions and employers will be followed and that these will take the usual course?
  Mr. Bevin: That is the intention. What is proposed is the steadying of the position for 18 months, and then the full play of industrial relations comes into operation again. I think 18 months is a very wise period to take, because it gives a chance of seeing on what lines British industry will develop. Clauses 3 and 4 provide for the settlement of any question whether or not employers have discharged this obligation. Any such question may be reported to the Minister by an employers' organisation or a trade union, and if it cannot be disposed of by conciliation, it
  1082
  must be referred to arbitration. The procedure which it is proposed to adopt under the Bill is intended to make sure, in the first instance, that the matter has been discussed through the joint machinery in the trade. If it is not settled by the conciliation arrangements already existing there, then we refer it to arbitration. There is no penalty on anybody until it has been referred to arbitration. If, then, the award or decision is not carried out, the employer is liable to penalties. Just as we arranged for the coming into operation of dilution through the joint machinery, so our intention is to try and make re-adjustments and to strengthen that joint machinery as much as we can.
  Mr. Tinker: I was not quite clear from the right hon. Gentleman's opening statement what the power of the tribunal is to be. Will its decision be binding on the employer, and if he does not carry it out, will be come under penalty?
  Mr. Bevin: If an award has been made and then the employer does not carry it out, he will be liable to prosecution in the ordinary course.
  Mr. Tinker: The matter must go to court?
  Mr. Bevin: You cannot give the tribunal power to impose the penalty. You must go to a court of summary jurisdiction, as you would in every other matter.
  Mr. Tinker: I was not clear on that point. I thought the tribunal had the power of the law behind it.
  Mr. Hopkinson: Is it not the case that, previously the arbitration courts did have the power to impose penalties?
  Mr. Bevin: Speaking from memory, I cannot challenge what the hon. Member has said.
  Mr. Hopkinson: They fined me anyhow.
  Mr. Bevin: The hon. Member probably deserved it. In any case we feel that where penalties have to be imposed, the ordinary procedure of a court of summary jurisdiction is best. It has certainly been best in this war, and I think it would be best to retain it in this case. In drafting this Bill we have really followed the practice laid down in the Conditions of Employment and National Arbitration

  1083
  Order—No. 1305—which has been operating during this war. I repeat that the object is to ensure that the overwhelming proportion of these cases will be adjusted by this method without going to any court. That is what we are striving to achieve. The remaining Clauses of the Bill deal with the establishment of the arbitration tribunals, their powers and duties, and, as I have said, with legal proceedings in the case of failure to comply with the arbitration awards. They also relate to the position of undertakings carried on by the Crown and by local authorities and with the application of the Measure to Scotland and Northern Ireland.
  Mr. Hopkinson: The Bill does not state how the arbitration court is to be constituted and from whom it is to be drawn.
  Mr. Bevin: It will be constituted exactly as arbitration courts established under my Ministry are constituted now. Generally, we have a legal gentleman in the chair—and we always proceed on the assumption that legal gentlemen are quite impartial? The chairman may be assisted by panels of assessors, in addition to technical experts. That allows for flexibility in regard to advice, in accordance with the particular trade that is being dealt with. We follow the practice of having the assistance of three persons, including one from each side, with a knowledge of industry. In that way, we hope to get a proper decision, based on knowledge as well as impartiality.
  Mr. David Adams; I take it that there is no appeal from the decision of the arbitration court?
  Mr. Bevin: No, the arbitration court, like all arbitration courts in industral practice, will give a decision which will be final; and if an employer does not act in conformity with the award, he will be liable to be taken before a court of summary jurisdiction.
  Mr. Naylor: Who is to initiate the legal proceedings in the event of the verdict going against the employer?
  Mr. Bevin: I will answer that point in Committee. In the first instance, the case reported to the Ministry for arbitration must come from the union or from the employers' organisation. We shall then follow the procedure set out in
  1084
  Arbitration Order 1305—that is the intention. I commend this Bill to the House. I hope that it will have a unanimous Second Reading. The unions and the employers have acted in good faith right from the beginning. Many changes have been made, and they will have the feeling, as a result of the passing of this Bill, that after the war there will be an appropriate opportunity of getting industrial practices back quickly, without disturbance, and of removing, as far as we can, from the ambit of fighting and struggling in the industrial arena these vexed questions of dilution, demarcation, and trade practices.
  Mr. Naylor: Will my right hon. Friend answer the question I asked just now?
  Mr. Bevin: I will answer it later.
  Mr. Hammersley: Is it not a fact that proceedings can be instituted by any persons employed or by a trade union or an employers' federation?
  Mr. Bevin: I thank the hon. Member. My memory lapsed at that moment. Clause 5 (2) deals with the question.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: This Bill is an instalment of good will. It is the result of good relations in industry and of consultations between those affected and the Government. It carries out a pledge given by the Lord Privy Seal and the Minister of Labour. During this war, the trade unions dealt with in this Bill have made the greatest organised sacrifices in this country. The men and women in the Armed Forces rightly expect us to provide them with adequate equipment. The men affected by this Bill have been eager to do that, and have lone all they possibly could when and where they have been allowed to. They expect us to safeguard their interests, and, as far as possible in time of war, we have done so. This Bill is another contribution towards that objective. They expect all interests—and I want to emphasise that, in view of the sacrifices that they have made—that may impede the successful prosecution of the war to be sunk.
  The people affected by this Bill—to whom I belong—have given their all since September, 1939, in the interests of the nation. Even before the war, the Amalgamated Engineering Union agreed to the relaxation of customs, in order that

  1085
  the nation should be prepared for what seemed inevitable to anyone who was taking an interest in the worsening international situation. They did that in August, 1939. That date is the golden key to an understanding of our attitude on this war. Some of us, and only a few, realised the menace of growing German armaments and policy in 1934. Our outlook was affected as a consequence. At that time we were called, by many prominent people, pessimists; 'but it eventually proved that it was realism that was guiding us. In 1935, at Brighton, the present Minister of Labour made a courageous speech, which caused the whole Labour movement to face up to the situation and to its responsibilities. From those days, the organisations covered by this Bill have faced up to their responsibilities and their obligations.
  But great uneasiness is expressed about the relaxation of customs. Only the devotion of the men, who are real anti-Nazis, prevents action from being taken in some cases. The rate for the job is supposed to apply. Women, in many instances, are nowhere near receiving the appropriate rates. In particular, in such tasks as crane-driving, capstan-operating, painting, store-keeping, the work of process clerks, production engineering, and on all kinds of machines, the women are not receiving the appropriate rates. The men in the factories want to win this war. They realise what is at stake, and that determines their attitude. But if employers will take advantage of this situation during the war, our men are thinking, "What will they do after the war?" The relaxation of customs, and all that that means, in the engineering industry was a revolution in itself. Not only has there been dilution, but, as the Minister of Labour and his officials will be prepared to admit, the men affected have even co-operated in carrying out dilution. The importance of training has often been stressed in this House, and the men and their officials have whole-heartedly co-operated in the training schemes of the Ministry of Labour. After Dunkirk, when our equipment was either dumped into the sea or smashed up, the Ministry officials and others went to the men affected by this Bill and put the full facts before them. The men responded to the needs of the nation as no organised body of men had
  1086
  done previously in the history of this country. They worked 60, 70 and 80 hours a week; in fact almost every minute of their time was spent in equipping our Armed Forces as quickly as possible.
  The men who will be affected by this Bill have contributed to the maximum extent in their co-operation in industry. They could easily have retarded output, but every man has been on guard against any danger of that kind being allowed to creep in, and such a spirit cannot be measured. There has been no sullenness in the factories and no sabotage worth talking about. All the best workmen have been on their guard against any sabotage taking place in this country. The Germans prepared secretly and silently for 17 years for this war, and openly with great speed for five years. We have prepared slowly for three years, and in that short time we have accomplished miracles in regard to production, in spite of criticisms of machinery and organisation. The General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress wrote a few months ago-about this Bill. He said:
  "Some time during the Parliamentary Session—the sooner the better, in our view—the Government are to introduce a Bill for the Restoration of Pre-War Trade Union practices …. This Measure is one which we have been urging almost from the beginning of the war …. The Bill covers all the points put to us at the conferences we have had with the representatives of the unions most directly concerned, and represents, in my opinion, a really constructive piece of work."
  In introducing the Bill, the Minister said that the Government are following the precedent of the last war after which the Restoration of Pre-War Trade Practices Act was passed in 1919. We got few benefits from that Act. I remember so-clearly how in 1922 we were locked out for weeks and, in some cases, for months. We lost £1 per week within a few weeks and were subjected to a condition of affairs unparalleled in the history of this-country for many years. After all our sacrifices in the last war, and the payment of indemnities and reparations, it was finance and capital that got the reparations, while we marked time at the Employment Exchanges. The "Observer" wrote, on 8th July, 1916:
  "A grandeur of being beyond all that our country has known before is being purchased for those who live by those who die."
  On 29th January, 1922, the "Observer" said:

  1087
  "The armies of Ypres and the Somme and the Hindenburg Line are now an army besieging the Labour Exchange."
  They include the men covered by this Bill. This is the second time in my generation. I remind the House of this because the war has a tremendous effect upon the working conditions of the people who are affected by this Bill. There has been introduced more fixed capital, and all that counts with regard to production. Machine and cutting tools have been changed, and speeding-up has taken place in all directions. The war has already created—and I am hoping that it will create more—mighty production forces in this country. After this war the anarchy of production will be increased unless we have a planned system for our people's benefit. This Bill is an instalment within limits. It is a contribution to good will, but my experience teaches me that once conditions are changed and old-established rights are surrendered, you can seldom restore the status quo of prewar conditions which have resulted from generations of sacrifice and struggle by our forefathers.
  I am myself a member of a craft union. I acted in a representative capacity in a large, well-organised factory for many years. Very few people have any idea of the importance attached to the rights and customs that have been surrendered by the men during this war. Very few have an idea of the difficulties of demarcation questions which arise and the importance and value attached to them by the craftsmen and the machine-men. These have all been surrendered or removed in order to bring about the successful prosecution of the war. But does anyone believe that this Bill will restore them? We do not expect industrial conditions to be like the laws of the Medes and Persians, but we expect that the men who have made sacrifices should not suffer after this war in the same way that men suffered after the last war. It was our men, and the women later on, who made the great contribution towards the re-equipment of our Army. It was the men in the main who are affected by this Bill who stood up to the nightly bombardment in the industrial centres during the air raids, and who, after spending time in the shelters at night, went straight to their work on the following morning. There was no absenteeism as far as they were concerned. No one
  1088
  can lay any responsibility at the door of these men for any inefficiency in production.
  Are we to be allowed after this war to co-operate in the way that we are doing during the war in order to try and build a Britain worthy of our generation? There has been no ca' canny in this war. No one has heard the term mentioned. There have been no agents provocateurs. In the last war they were to be found in many centres. The men are themselves the best policemen to prevent anything of the kind creeping in. There have been few instances of sabotage, and the Minister rightly paid tribute to all sections of industry for their whole-hearted co-operation. In the last war many of us were called away to play our part. We afterwards talked to our men and made up our minds that never would we be a party to a repetition of the sacrifices that were made in the last war. But circumstances changed all that, and in 1934 we realised what was at stake, and in consequence of that we had to forgo our past experiences, realising that with which we were faced. I kept many cuttings after the last war in order to help to arm myself with information to enable me to play my part among the men to see that we did not go through that kind of thing again. Here are one or two of these cuttings:
  "Mr. Churchill, the Minister of Munitions, announces that he intends abolish the leaving certificates and to drop the dilution Clause in the Munitions Bill, which have figured so largely in the reports upon industrial unrest.
  The announcement was made in the House of Commons late last night on the order for the consideration of the Munitions of War Bill."
  One could go on giving extracts from similar speeches by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), the late Lord Kitchener, the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook (Mr. Amery) and by the late Mr. Arthur Henderson and others, and later they had to devise means to investigate uphappy labour unrest. There has been no sign of that in this war. Therefore, the Government are rightly introducing this Bill in this war in order to fulfil the pledge they have made.
  In May, 1917, 60,000 men and women were on strike in Lancashire in opposition to dilution. There is no sign of that in this war. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs wrote:

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  "Of all the problems which the Government had to handle during the great war the most delicate and probably the most perilous were those arising on the home front."
  How different this time. Will this change be recognised? Will it be remembered? I hope that between now and the Committee stage consideration will be given to the following points: With regard to Clause 4, Sub-section (3, d), should there not be provision made here for any further sum for other damages that may arise? With regard to Clause 5, Subsection (1), in my view the maximum fine is infinitesimal. An employer could easily cover himself many times over in one minute by the continuation of a single operation. Even with the subsequent fine of £25 a day, that would in many cases mean very little. Like the "bookies," they do not mind being fined if they are getting away with a great deal. The same thing happens in the black market, where the fines suffered until recently have been so small that those convicted do not mind. Surely the £25 should be increased many times. With regard to Clause 5, Sub-section (3), is this Sub-section required? I think it could provide an escape on advice from a lawyer. As for Clause 7, I understand that the Crown has always been given a privilege from the Statutes, but after this war a new situation may arise. It may be necessary for the State to carry on many undertakings. I hope that it will. It has proved a very efficient method of carrying on in one quarter of the globe, where our friends are putting up a great resistance to the menace of German armaments. It is vital that all State under takings "shall" be included and not "may" be included. Local authorities are being included. I know the value of "shall" against "may", because I was involved for 10 years in a legal battle over these two words.
  In Clause II do we require a wider definition of trade practice? We are reminded here that the 1927 Trade Union Act still applies. We know all that that means. How will this affect Post Office workers? Certain grades of these workers have agreed to war-time changes only. Will they be included in the Bill, or will the 1927 Act still apply? How will Civil servants be affected? I would like the Minister to make a special note of this. Should not this be changed in order to cover cases mentioned by the Minister in
  1090
  presenting the Bill? Take coppersmiths. They arrived at an agreement in May, 1939, so that they could play their part in equipping the nation to face the worsening international situation. I only wish the whole nation had responded in the same way. The Amalgamated Engineering Union arrived at an agreement in August, 1939. Surely it is reasonable to expect that after these men went to the length they did there should be no obstacle put in the way of maximum production of the nation's requirements. This Bill should cover the May, 1939, agreement.
  This war has brought about an enormous increase in the productivity of labour. Restrictions and customs of all kinds have been cut out. Centralisation of capital has been accelerated, thus leading to further monopoly development. It is of paramount importance that we should prepare to deal with the post-war situation. Within very narrow limits this Bill is a contribution towards that, but I doubt whether we shall be allowed to plan and prepare for that period. As I listen, think, watch and read, I am of the opinion that that should not drive us into a negative position. That should not make us pessimists, because progress has not come about in that way. The British people lead the way in progress and, if they are allowed after this war, will still lead the world. If they are not allowed to progress in one way, they will progress in another. As I have said, we shall facilitate the passage of this Bill. We welcome it, but my experience teaches me—armed as I am with my experience of the last war—that once you relax customs and practice it is very difficult to restore them.
  Before I sit down, I want to ask the Government to do something more, something big and worthy of the generation to which we are proud to belong. The Minister rightly paid tribute to industry and referred to the small amount of time which has been lost through industrial disputes. We know the difficulties, the amount of expansion which has taken place, and how quickly. The men concerned with this Bill deserve well of the nation. Their good will in the aggregate cannot be measured. This Bill is bound to have a great effect on output. They have made a fine contribution, but they

  1091
  will make a greater contribution yet if industry is better organised. They cannot do any more individually, but they could get better results by improved organisation. These men should be given more concrete promises, and consideration ought to be given to a six-hour day and a five-day week after this war. Recently I sat with my wife at home listening to a broadcast from America by the Prime Minister, who began his speech with the words, "Fellow workers in the cause of freedom." That was a historical phrase, but our interpretation of freedom also includes economic freedom and security from what we have suffered in the past. This Measure is the result of a compromise made by the Lord Privy Seal and the Minister of Labour in particular, and we welcome it because of the promises which are being carried out within the limits of this Bill.
  Mr. Henry Strauss: Although this Bill is in many ways a novel one and clearly presents difficulties, like the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) I welcome it. It would be very rash for anyone, either inside or outside the House, to oppose the Bill after substantial agreement has been reached between the two great parties in industry and the Bill is introduced in fulfilment of a pledge, though he is entitled to point out some of the difficulties that may arise. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour on introducing the Bill, and I hope it will have a speedy passage through the House. No doubt valuable contributions to the Debate will be made by those with direct experience as trade unionists and those with direct experience as employers. I belong to neither of those groups, though as a barrister I naturally sympathise with those who believe in trade union rights. But I think that perhaps this Bill should not pass even its Second Reading without attention being drawn to some of its implications.
  Ever since the beginning of the war, and every week with greater strength and assurance, we have been informed by writers in the Press of the Left, both daily and weekly, that the pre-war world is absolutely dead, that its death is a very good thing, and that nobody who is not a fool or a reactionary, or both, would dream of reviving it or restoring any of its customs
  1092
  or practices. Those assurances are also given us constantly by speakers on the wireless. We are further assured that no patriot ought ever to think of what will be the position of himself, or of the class to which he belongs, after the war, that nothing is quite so indecent as property rights, and that property rights, above all, ought to be treated with contempt. I was very much interested therefore to note that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, with the applause of all the trade unionists sitting opposite, said, as the greatest reason why these practices should be restored, that they were really property rights. In other words, the trade union world has at last discovered that property rights can be respectable and that they can give no greater strength to their advocacy of the restoration of trade union practices than to say that these are, in effect, property rights and must accordingly be restored. The trade unions are asking for a restoration of privileges. They are quite right.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: Privileges?
  Mr. Strauss: Yes. The privilege of the skilled trade unionist as contrasted with the man brought in by way of dilution. The trade unions are very loyal to what I may call the "old-school-tie" ideal.
  Mr. Smith: Are the lawyers prepared to do the same thing?
  Mr. Strauss: In many ways there is a similarity. The hon. Member seems to think I am making a complaint about these things. He is wrong. I am only drawing attention to them. I have said that I support the Bill. I merely point out—and ask the House to note it—that this is a Bill animated, very properly, by the "old-school-tie" ideal and that the trade union leaders are demanding a restoration of the privileged position of the old trade unionists. I do not say for one moment that they are wrong to do so.
  There is another thing I think the House should note. We have had a great deal of this talk of a new order. There are people who assert that the heroism of our Army, Navy, Air Force and Mercantile Marine, our civil population at home, our workers in the factories and the mines would not have been displayed to preserve anything, and that it is only to be accounted for by the fact that they are fighting for a new order or a new world.

  1093
  I believe that to be profoundly false and also to involve an immoral view about war. War, in the belief of civilised people, is not justified by a desire to produce positive benefits. It is Hitler who believes in that. It is justified as being necessary for the defence of those things in which men believe. That includes, of course, the right to work for a new order. I shall not quarrel with the hon. Member for Stoke, who preceded me and gave eloquent expression to some of the ideals for which he works and has long worked, but though it is true that, if we win this war, every man will have a right to work for any new order or any reform in which he believes, it is not true to say that that is why we are fighting the war. We are fighting the war in defence—not to produce a better world but to prevent the introduction of a much worse world. If a man believes in a new order, do not let him assume that the war has necessarily made it easier. If he wished for a new order, he would have wished and worked for it even if there had been no war., Nothing could be more false than the view that there was nothing in the civilisation we enjoyed before the war which was worth preserving, nothing of value in a civilisation derived, as I have pointed out before, from so many splendid sources, from Rome, from Greece and from Christianity, and enriched by British institutions and traditions. Among those institutions I, for one, would pay my tribute to trade unionism. That is a characteristic British institution, and although I am not a trade unionist in the strictest sense, I would certainly express my admiration of trade unionism as one of our worthy institutions and an institution which should play its part.
  That is why I welcome the fact that to-day one of the greatest figures produced by the trade union movement has introduced in the House a Bill that gives the lie to all that sloppy talk of the Left, all this talk that there was nothing worth while in our pre-war civilisation, that anybody who believes in any part of it must be a reactionary or a fool, and that one must not work for the restoration of any of it. That is given its lie by this Bill. Those who back the Bill clearly show either that they do not believe in a new order or that they think that the proper introduction of a new order is a compulsory return for 18 months to an
  1094
  important part of the old order. It is even to be a criminal offence if you do not return to some practices of the old order, for at least 18 months. I hope that the House, and the country also, will note this important fact. It is a tribute to the wisdom of trade unionists that they realise, from their common sense, their contact with the things which really matter and from their knowledge of workday conditions both in peace and in war, that there is a great deal which was of value in the civilisation which we had built up, and that it is a cheap and shallow view which represents the whole thing as worthless.
  I would remind hon. Members, and the hon. Member for Stoke, whose speeches I so often listen to with pleasure, that trade unionists are not the only people who have made sacrifices without question during this war. I know that the hon. Member for Stoke would be the first to admit it. There are people with far less protection from organised bodies, such as trade unions, who have made even greater sacrifices than the trade unionists, and who have made them without very much hope of subsequent restoration of what they sacrificed, though I do not suggest for one moment that one section showed more patriotism than another. Professional people, small shopkeepers and others have made the most overwhelming sacrifices; no similar pledge has been given to them and they are not protected by being given such protection as a Bill of this kind provides. I hope that the moral of this Bill will not be lost on anyone. Men and women in all classes and in all sections have made great sacrifices for this war, and, if they are decent, they will not seek to be rewarded for those sacrifices, because they made them in a cause which is sacred to them and in the cause of their country, in order to preserve their civilisation, the things of value that they had known in peace and their hopes of the future. It is not only trade unionists who have made such sacrifices. For my part I welcome this Bill, but I think I am justified in pointing out that by it the Minister of Labour and every trade unionist who supports it give the lie to nearly all the talk of the Left poured out from the B.B.C. and expressed in leading articles of the Press.
  Mr. Evelyn Walkden: Does the hon. Member mean the B.B.C. during its "Any Questions" programme, when

  1095
  the hon. Member was making his contribution to the solution of post-war problems?
  Mr. Strauss: I was not thinking of that programme, but, since the hon. Member mentions it, I would respectfully point out that there have been three permanent members of the Brains Trust—one is at present away—and that of these three two belong and are known to belong to the Left, and that there has been no permanent member belonging to the Right. I thank the B.B.C. for having given me one opportunity to be present and to make some answer on one occasion to Prof. Joad.
  Mr. Walkden: On three successive Sundays.
  Mr. Strauss: No, Sir. I have appeared on one occasion only. I apologise for being led into that digression. I welcome this Bill for the reasons I have stated. Do not let us overlook the fact that by it the great trade unions say that there were things enjoyed before the war which are worth preserving, that it is not only reactionaries and fools who wish to preserve them, and that this applies to other people as well as to trade unionists.
  Mr. Austin Hopkinson: I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, and to add:
  "this House refuses to give a Second Reading to a Bill designed to increase the costs of production at a time when decreased costs will be especially necessary if serious unemployment is to be avoided."
  Long experience of this House has led me to think that on occasions of this sort there is always the grave danger of the Debate relapsing into rhodomontade relieved by such interludes of brilliant wit as we have just heard from the hon. Member for Norwich ((Mr. H. Strauss). I have ventured to put down an Amendment for the rejection of the Bill in the hope—which I fear will not be fulfilled—that the rest of the Debate may be confined to serious discussion of what we are doing and what this Bill really means. As Members above the Gangway know, I am always ready to give way to any interruption in the hope that I may learn something which I did not know before. Therefore, when I read out this Amend-
  1096
  ment, no doubt some hon. Member will rise if he thinks that any thing I say is unfair and unjust, in which case I shall be only too ready, with permission of Mr. Speaker, to allow the interruption. The form of the Amendment is this:
  "That this House refuses to give a Second Reading to a Bill designed to increase the costs of production at a time when decreased costs will be especially necessary if serious unemployment is to be avoided."
  As I have said, that is a very controversial form for an Amendment of rejection. My only excuse for thrusting myself forward on this occasion is that, so far as my recollection serves me, I am the only Member who has been punished under the Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act, 1919. Perhaps I may be allowed to remind the House what happened on that occasion. Here again I am subject to correction, because these events occurred more than 20 years ago, and they were so trivial that I have not troubled to keep them sufficiently in my memory.
  I was charged at the instigation of the Manchester Branch of the Engineers' Society with an offence against the Prewar Practices Act, inasmuch as I had done something after the war which I had not done before the war. I was hauled before a court consisting of one lawyer, one representative of the trade unions, who were prosecuting, and one member of the Employers' Federation, to whom I am certainly not persona grata. In this unbiased court, two members were in complete opposition to me and one of them actually initiated the prosecution. The decision of the court was taken on evidence which I could not really refute. The offence was that I employed disabled soldiers, on skilled work at more than trade union rates at less than trade union hours. Inasmuch as these men had been disabled in the war it was perfectly obvious that the offence was blatant, for I could not employ before the war men who had been disabled in the war. But that was not the main part of the evidence brought forward by the trade unions.
  To my surprise a trade union official of long standing got up and solemnly gave evidence to the effect that from time immemorial a man on a planing machine in an engineering shop must serve seven years' apprenticeship before the age of 21; when it is perfectly well known that from time immemorial in the Lancashire

  1097
  district all the labour on planing machinery has been recruited from the shop floor. I was convicted, not upon the former evidence, but upon the latter evidence, and I was smartly fined. Naturally, I went on perpetrating the offence. Then the whole thing leaked out, and a Debate took place in this House, and, after that, no one ever heard of the restoration of the Pre-war Practices Act again. Whether it is still in existence I do not know, but for good or had that was the end of it.
  Are we going to stultify ourselves by perpetrating another piece of humbug such as this Bill? We now come to the more controversial part. I know of no trading practice which is not a device for increasing the cost of production. Can anyone above the Gangway inform me of any trade practice, such as those implied in the Bill, which is not a device for increasing the cost of production—one man, one machine, keeping the rate per machine the same whether an inferior man is on it or not, dilution, and so on? I am not blaming trade unions, but that is the fact.
  My Amendment goes on to say that increasing the cost of production immediately after the war is specially dangerous from the point of view of employment, for why, when you get down to brass tacks, is a man thrown out of employment? Simply because the product of his labour cannot be sold. Whatever the immediate circumstances are, that is the ultimate thing that puts a man out of employment. The goods cannot be sold because the potential customer is either unwilling or unable to pay the appropriate price, and the appropriate price, of course, is completely conditioned by the cost of production. I do not think the Bill will effect its object, but the principle is there. We are trying after the war to increase the cost of production, and to that extent we are going to make the post-war unemployment problem more serious even than it will be in any event. It seems to me that the time of the House might very well have been occupied in refuting this argument so that the House of Commons at last may have some sort of idea as to the meaning of unemployment and the means by which it can be reduced. I challenge hon. Members above the Gangway—it is a friendly challenge—to tell me whether I was in error on my premises, the premises being that all trade
  1098
  practices are practices intended to increase the cost of production.
  Mr. Tinker: I accept the hon. Member's challenge. The intention is to improve the conditions of the workpeople. It may influence the cost, but, by giving satisfaction to the workers, you will improve output.
  Mr. Hopkinson: The hon. Member's view, with which I sympathise somewhat, is that the ultimate result may not be to increase costs, but the form of my Amendment refers to a particular period in the history of industry, that is, the immediate post-war period of 18 months during which the Bill will be effective. Although Members above the Gangway will not admit it publicly, I think they will admit privately that all my industrial life I have worked very closely with the trade unions, knowing that they are an essential and, in the main, a very beneficial, part of our industrial system. Again and again on appropriate occasions I have protested against the way in which the politicians have hamstrung the trade unions by taking away their proper functions from them and turning them more or less into political societies instead of trade unions in the proper sense. Therefore, do not think for a moment that in moving the rejection of the Bill I am in any way wanting to do any harm to the trade unions.
  The Minister of Labour presented the Bill to the House as "a poor thing but mine own." It is not really bona fide at all. It is a very grave accusation to make against the Government to suggest that they bring forward Bills which they know are just humbug; but this Government must remember that this is not the only thing which is pure humbug in relation to these matters. For example, if a man is taken into the Fighting Services from his work, he is to be guaranteed his job on his return. Every member of the Labour party who has had experience in industry knows perfectly well that that means nothing at all in actual practice. A man is put down to be called up. He is given an extension so that another man may be trained for his job. The first man is taken away with a guaranteed job. The second man after another six months is taken away and is guaranteed the same job, and so the whole thing goes on. It is humbug pure and simple. This Bill is

  1099
  very much on the same lines. I hope the House of Commons, bare as it is, will endeavour for the rest of the Debate to devote itself to reasoning whether on the whole the Bill is likely to increase unemployment or not, and to that extent whether it is desirable for it to pass.
  One of the great happenings of the day—I hope it is going to be of immense benefit to the country—is the visit of the so-called Russian trade unionists, who apparently have been trained by Premier Stalin in an accomplishment which is practically lost in this country and in the rest of the world: I mean the accomplishment of getting rid of cant and telling the truth. I take this opportunity to rub in what those Russian delegates have been trying to rub into us, and what Premier Stalin is trying to rub into the other heads of the Allied countries, and that is that there is only one proper place for cant and humbug and that is the propaganda sheets of the Government, and you must keep it there and never introduce it into the counsels of the nation, as we do.
  Mr. Tinker rose—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Clifton Brown): Does the hon. Member rise to second the Amendment?
  Mr. Tinker: No, Sir.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Then the Amendment falls to the ground.
  Mr. Tinker: I am always interested when the hon. Member speaks, because he is original and unorthodox. One cannot agree with many of his themes, but I always have it in my mind that he means well. He tries to put us on the right lines from time to time because we are all going one way. He has made one or two points which I think ought to be taken up, because they require to be answered. One is that the restoration of trade practices will mean an increased cost of production. On the face of it that may sound very good, but these practices have been called for, and granted, to prevent greater things happening. But for them there would probably have been a stoppage in industry. You get workmen to a certain point, prepared to meet the employers and try to reason with them, but unless they get something like a fair return, the only resort that they have is to stop production altogether. Imagine what that means. If
  1100
  you stop production for a day or a week or longer, there is a loss. If you give a man a shortened working: day or an increase in wages, that immediately increases the cost of production on the face of it, but good will and better conditions bring in their train better earnings.
  When the men in the mining industry were working 12 hours a day, it might have been said there was greater output. It meant, however, breaking the men down, and they were not able to carry on for any length of time. When shorter hours were introduced will anyone say that there was not a fair return and better work from the men? Therefore, I would say to my hon. Friend that we should look a little further ahead and say what the rights of these people are. That is what this Bill is for. It will restore after the war the rights that have been fought for by the workers and secured from the employers by trade union agreements. When we meet our workpeople and ask them to give up certain concessions which they have won we do not want the new conditions to grow into recognised practices after the war. I put other members on the same level as ourselves; they expect their privileges and rights to be restored after the war, and we are willing to give up our rights on the understanding that when the war is over they will be restored to us. As a proof of that we say to our workpeople," You have got Bevin as Minister of Labour; he is a trusted leader and will not let you down."
  Mr. Hopkinson: He let the miners down in 1926.
  Mr. Tinker: I am not speaking about 1926, but about the future. The fact that he is Minister of Labour and the passing of this Bill 'Nil' give an incentive to the workpeople, for they will know that whatever they give up now will be given back to them after the war. Is there anything wrong in that? I do not think anybody will say there is. I would like, however, to criticise one point in the Bill. It is laid down that if the finding of the tribunal is not carried out the defaulting party will have to go to the court of summary jurisdiction and be fined. Is there any need for that to be done? Are we to follow the old tradition that we must always go to the lawyers when there is a dispute? This tribunal is a court that determines the rights or wrongs of a case. Why, there-

  1101
  fore, should the defaulting party have to go to the court of summary jurisdiction? The tribunal has already examined the position thoroughly, and its findings are binding on both parties with all the force of the law behind them. I shall move an Amendment in Committee to deal with that point. Apart from that, I am satisfied that the pledge contained in this Bill will do a vast amount of good to the working-class, for they will realise that whatever they have to give up during the war will be restored to them. It will certainly create a better feeling among the workers. If the Bill does, indeed, mean that when the war is over the workers will get back their rights, very few in the House will vote against it. I shall certainly support it.
  Mr. Woods: I am not surprised that every speaker, with the exception of the hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson), has welcomed the Bill. It is the only honourable thing to do, and I think that not only the House, but all people of decent feeling throughout the country are anxious to see not only the Bill carried, but the intention behind the Bill achieved—which is a much bigger and more desirable thing. I am entirely with those who have expressed misgivings about the effectiveness of this type of legislation. It has necessarily had to be drawn with a certain degree of vagueness, and I think that that is inevitable, but the Bill must be followed by modifications of other types of legislation so as to secure the object intended. The hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. H. Strauss) entertained the House by setting up a delightful Aunt Sally and then enjoyed himself in demolishing it. It was obvious to all of us who know the Minister of Labour that he used jargon which would appeal to a certain mentality that recognises only property rights and puts them before human considerations. The hon. Member then proceeded to welcome with great glee the recognition on the part of the Minister of Labour that trade union rights are property. I am certain the intention was to bring home to a large number of people that it is the only property which a considerable percentage of the population has. They have only themselves and their labour value, and the only machine which has made that labour value, which, with raw materials, is fundamental in society, a reality is trade unionism. This legis-
  1102
  lation will give to that property some force in law.
  Mr. H. Strauss: I quoted with approval the remarks of the Minister of Labour. On the whole I agree with him. These are, as it were, property rights of labour. What I called the attention of the House to was that that view was shared and applauded by hon. Members opposite who thereby agreed that property rights were very important rights.
  Mr. Woods: I took what the hon. Gentleman said as a joke. This Bill will give the recognition of the law to trade unions and their right to safeguard the standards of the workers. The hon. Member proceeded to say that the papers of the Left and the B.B.C. have no room for anything that appertains to law and order. We on this side of the House are behind the war because we have things to preserve, but between us and others who are obsessed with preserving what they have there is a fundamental difference. We are looking beyond this war not only to the retention of what we have achieved but a greater and more equitable distribution of the things of which the hon. Member spoke, so that they may be enjoyed by the whole population. We are not out to demolish the things which we cherish, in the building up of which many of us have played a part, but we are not satisfied that the old order was the ultimate that could be achieved by mankind. We still believe that the best is yet to be, and that the whole purpose of living and striving, as we here are doing in our own humble way, not necessarily with sweat and blood and tears, is to bring about substantial improvements.
  My main criticism of the Bill is that it does not hold out hope of substantial improvements, and may probably prejudice the position of some employees who have achieved relatively high standards. Take the case of the distributive trade. It is well known that certain sections employ almost exclusively juvenile female labour. Very often the premises in which they are employed are shoddy and therefore low rated. The whole drive behind certain sections of the trade is to make profits, without consideration for the human factor. The fathers of those girls have to work somewhere, and many of them are also engaged in the distributive trade, and it seems to me that if the position which has been achieved for the adult

  1103
  workers in the distributive trade by the N.A.D.W. is to be retained employers who grant those conditions must have some assurance that they will not be injured by businesses which use exclusively cheap female labour. Power to enlist the Trade Boards and the administration to secure recognition of standards outside what this Bill covers should not be prejudiced.
  Then take the bakery trade. It is well known that the trade union of the bakers has secured for staffs in some large bakeries conditions which, if not ideal, are worth retaining, but there has grown up in recent years bakeries using very elaborate machinery which are non-union shops where the wages and conditions are not so good. The number of them is growing. Old established bakeries which have worked harmoniously with the union will, no doubt, try to continue along those lines under this Bill, but other bakeries may come into existence where everything will be run at the lowest possible cost and will undersell the legitimate and reliable bakers who feel their social responsibilities and are not out merely to secure profit. The hon. Member who wanted to move an Amendment put before us the case that in the dislocation which will follow the end of the war there will be unemployment and that to restore certain provisions would increase productive costs and so accentuate unemployment. I want to dissent entirely from that assumption. After the last war there was an almost universal attempt to cut costs. Did that save us from unemployment? It landed us into unemployment on a scale which we had not experienced before, and any endeavour to apply the thesis of the hon. Member would, I am sure, produce the same results, again. If men and women are to be retained in employment there must be purchasing power, so that the goods which are produced can be bought, and if this Bill makes any contribution towards restoring and distributing purchasing power among the people I am certain that that will be a substantial contribution towards absorbing labour into employment.
  Theorists who look at the problem may say that the only way in which the unemployed could be absorbed would be by substantially raising the standards of living of the hundreds of millions who are on the margin of existence in India and
  1104
  in China. I agree that we have to look at these matters, internationally, and that that would be a contribution, and though that point is outside this Debate, logically it would follow that if those standards were to be raised nothing would be achieved by lowering the standards of the workers in this country. I hope that when this Bill is out of the way the Minister will look at the wider problems which will be left unsolved, because I agree with the hon. Member for Norwich that it is not trade unionists alone who have made sacrifices. The sacrifices have been universal, and in achieving the objects behind this Bill we ought not to be satisfied that it should apply to the few only but that legislation should be carried out to secure a better standard for all. In spite of the satisfaction of some people with the old order I feel that some improvements are possible, and I hope that further legislation will be introduced at an early date.
  Mr. Rhys Davies: The first comment I should like to make about the Bill is, that I do not think anybody can possibly oppose it unless he wants to continue war restrictions on the working people when peace returns, and hardly any person would wish to continue such severe limitations merely for the sake of doing so. From my own personal attitude towards the issues of war and peace I welcome this Bill more perhaps than anybody else; it projects our minds, probably for the first time since the war began, into that state of affairs when men and women will once more be living in peace. I welcome it very largely on that score. I would put this however to the Minister of Labour; I take it that the right to strike will return with the lapsing of the defence regulations; that this Bill has nothing to do with that vital question. Whether this Bill gives that right or not I would like to make this comment. I have been a trade unionist and a trade union official for a long time and have been through two or three strikes myself. It seems to me that the difference between a slave and a free man is that the free man has the right along with his fellows to lay down his tools as a protest against unfair conditions of employment. I take it therefore that it goes without saying that with the lapse of the defence regulations at the end of hostilities the right to strike will return automatically. Dilution and demarcation in

  1105
  industry are very small problems by comparison with the right to strike. Then, there is in operation at present a system about which there have been complaints from this side of the House whereby workpeople are compelled to leave their homes and go from one job to another. For instance, certain persons have been sent to prison for declining to return to the coal mines. One man in my constituency is in prison now, and I reminded the House the other day that this man does not produce coal while he is in gaol. I take it that all that will go by the board when the war ends and that you will not then compel persons to go from Scotland or from Wales to work in England, and vice versa.
  Two or three points have occurred to me in this Bill. I understand that there will be a legal title for the employer or employed, through their organisations, to take up the case for the restoration of a trade practice, if the abandonment of the trade practice has been agreed to in writing; that is to say, if a written agreement has been entered into during this war to abandon the trade practice.
  Mr. Bevin: The Bill is not limited to practices in writing.
  Mr. Davies: I will therefore put this puzzle to the right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Bevin: I cannot solve it.
  Mr. Davies: The largest industry in this country, although it looms least in the minds of our people, is the distributive trade. In peace-time it employs more than 2,000,000 men and women. Hon. Members talk of dilution; I can assure them that no dilution has been so extensive during this war as in the distributive trade. Near my home, where we do our shopping, is a branch shop which had eight or nine male assistants; it is run today almost entirely by female assistants. I do not think there is a written agreement that that should be done. It is not apparently dilution by agreement, though nearly all the staff are now females, whereas they used to be all males. May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the Bill applies in that case? Suppose the trade union says, when peace comes, that only males used to be employed in the grocery and provision departments of an organisation but the employer had now brought in females to staff the shop,
  1106
  would that constitute a legal right to restoration? If the trade union goes to arbitration, will that be a justifiable case to put before the court? The next point is a small one. I do not quite understand from the wording of the Bill whether an urban district is included in "local authority." I understand that the Minister indicates assent. Very well, but it is not clear from the working of the Bill itself.
  I note that the maximum penalty proposed in the Bill is £25. I can well imagine, in parts of 'the country where all the magistrates on the bench are employers maybe in the same line of business, fines being of the order of 25s. One of the complaints of the factory inspectorate I should imagine has been that their hearts have been broken when, after taking a case to such a court for a violation of factory law, the employer responsible has been fined only 5s. Thos; cases were not worth while taking to court. I do not know how this difficulty can be got over. I notice too that the right hon. Gentleman has not included imprisonment as a penalty in the Bill. The employer under this Bill is treated in a different way from what is being done during this war in sending workpeople to gaol for refusing to work in certain industries. Be that as it may, the Bill is welcome in every quarter. One other small point is, what is meant by "undertaking"? A coal mine, engineering shop or factory are obviously undertakings, but is a retail shop or an office an undertaking for the purpose of this Bill? I take it that a co-operative society with 20, 30 or 50, or a chain-store with 100 branches, will be regarded as undertakings. It would be interesting to have a reply to that question. Now I come to another point, and perhaps the Minister who is to reply will give me some information upon it. In the Bill we find what is virtually compulsory arbitration. The trade union movement of this country has never yet accepted the principle of compulsory arbitration, but that is totally different to compulsory arbitration on the points mentioned in this Bill. I agree that the compulsory arbitration here is not in connection with a dispute on wages or conditions of employment; it is arbitration upon questions of fact, and I cannot see that there is very much to complain about on that score.

  1107
  Perhaps I may say one or two words in general on the Bill. We must all welcome a Bill of this kind because it creates, for people who think as I do, a new atmosphere, looking forward to those better days when peace reigns once more. Comments have been made about the inadequacy of the Bill but the Minister will not, I think, regard those as justifiable; some of the things which it is suggested should be included are clearly problems for the Minister without Portfolio. The Minister of Labour is circumscribed to dealing with labour problems only; he cannot deal with social security for instance. At the end of the war the paramount problem will, I think, be that of social security.
  I would like to put on record the fact that the International Labour Office met in New York a few months ago and gave us one of the best outlines of the treatment of labour and kindred problems at the end of the war. They call their proposals by a new and very appropriate title, the Social Mandate. Unless I am mistaken, the working people of all the countries of the world will demand reforms on these lines after the war. Whether they will be able to achieve them or not, after the tornado of political, social and economic disasters that inevitably come after a war, I do not know. The I.L.O. has laid down several points for the consideration of all Governments; the first of them is in regard to the elimination of unemployment. I do not want to dwell extensively on this point, but I would mention that, in my constituency, the mere fact that this country was at war in 1914–18 threw at least 10,000 miners out of work for eight years. The consequences of war closed 22 pits in my constituency, never to be opened again. That is war. They were unemployed, many of them, for very many years.
  The I.L.O. goes further and urges the establishment of machinery for vocational training and re-training, the improvement of social conditions in all its fields, and in particular its extension to all classes of workers. I am sure the right hon. Gentlemen is quite familiar with this very excellent document, which is trying to point the way to the reconstruction of society when this terrible conflict comes to an end. Finally, I repeat that I cannot conceive anyone opposing this Measure except those who want to retain these war-time restrict-
  1108
  tions on the working classes of this country for their own selfish ends.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson): I am sure the Minister can congratulate himself on the reception which the Bill has had on its Second Reading in the House. I came to the House not anticipating much difficulty or trouble with regard to this Bill, for the simple reason that during the few years I have been here I have heard Governments taken to task on many occasions for refusing to honour pledges, but not for honouring them, and I think this is the first time on which a Member, the hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. A. Hopkinson), has taken a Government to task for carrying out something which it has pledged itself to do. He threw doubts upon the wisdom both of having made the promise and of having attempted to carry it out. The hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith), my hon. Friend who opened the discussion with what I thought was an excellent speech, gave the House sufficient reasons for the honouring of that pledge without it being necessary for a Minister to speak again at all. He showed something of what the engineering unions in particular have done—he spoke with authority about them, because of his past experience and present knowledge—and the way in which they have met every request from the Government, not only since the war broke out but before, to facilitate the production of munitions. It would have been a mean thing if, after having called upon them to make these sacrifices, this pledge had not been honoured in the Bill which is before the House to-day.
  The hon. Member spoke mainly of work in the engineering shops and pointed out that it applied mainly to them so far as dilution was concerned, but I would remind the House that in his opening statement the Minister said that the application of the Measure was far more widespread than was the case on the conclusion of the last war. I would also suggest that it applies not only to practices relating to dilution. I believe the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) spoke of the changes that have taken place in hours of work. These are trade practices; most of the agreements are agreements without legislative backing with regard to hours of labour, and have been entered into between employers and employees. They

  1109
  have been changed now, and not to go back when the crisis is past and the war is over to the position which had been won by the operatives in pre-way days would, I contend, have been contrary to the very principles for which the war is being fought.
  Now I come to the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich (Mr. H. Strauss). He praised the Bill, but pointed out something of its implications and particularly laid stress upon the fact that people are suggesting that the pre-war world is dead. I hope it is dead, but that is not to say that every single thing in the pre-war world was of no value. Some of the practices that have been given up and which existed when the war broke out were things which, I believe, are worth retaining and improving upon. The hon. Member said that to suggest that we were fighting for the restoration of those principles or even for a new world was to belie the situation. I would suggest to him that there are many people in this country at the present moment who have been driven to fighting, and who are fighting, for the right to keep on fighting for a new world, knowing that if we lose in the fight we are engaged in, the possibility of fighting for that new world will have gone. He made play also of the Minister's statement that these acquired rights of trade unionists were property rights. I am glad that he as a lawyer has recognised those rights. I hope he will not confuse them with the other property rights which have sometimes been discussed in this House. He drew a distinction, but these property rights, the rights to decent conditions which have been won by combination, are not to be described as he described them—as privileges—but as something which has been paid for in the long years through which the trade unions have been coming to the position where they now stand of being recognised, as the hon. Member recognised them, as a very worthy institution and as people with whom we can now deal and make satisfactory bargains.
  Mr. H. Strauss: I did-not use the word "privilege" in any bad sense, but would not the hon. Gentleman agree that the restoration of these practices will in many cases give a privilege—quite properly perhaps—to the old trade unionists as contrasted with the men who have come in as a result of dilution?
  Mr. Tomlinson: I do not accept that at all. The man who has come in as a dilutee as a result of the withholding of these practices has come in because of the nation's need at the moment. It would never have been necessary to ask for these practices to be given up, and therefore it would never have been necessary for them to be restored, had we not been in a crisis. The fallacy behind the whole of the argument which was put up by the hon. Member for Mossley is the suggestion that the men who have given up rights gained over a long period are in a privileged position as compared with the men who have come in as a consequence of the suspension of those rights. You can restore a pre-war trade practice, and give a sense of justice in its restoration, only if you recognise that the individual who has come in under changed conditions—at our request, it is true—shall not jeopardise when the crisis is passed the position of the man who has allowed him to come in. I would go so far as to say that in some instances trouble may have been caused because of the fact that the semi-skilled man, owing to the developments that have taken place during the war, has sometimes been in a better position than the man who gave up the very practices which we are asking should be restored. If therefore he is in a privileged position now, the other man is entitled to some consideration afterwards.
  The hon. Member for Mossley threw out a sort of challenge to the other side that all these practices are designed to increase costs of production, and he suggested that these increased costs would come at a time when a reduction of costs would be essential. He has postulated a question which I admit we could discuss for a long time, but I would point out to him that what he has suggested is the opposite of what we are proposing. He looks at the matter from the standpoint of the employer; this Bill looks at it from the standpoint of the workman who has been concerned with certain practices. Therefore, it is not a question of the costs of production so much as a question of retaining or restoring the right, at least, to the conditions which preceded the war. That is the basis of the Bill. I would point out to him that, as the hon. Member for Leigh said, he is not only an original thinker in this House, he is an original thinker in industry, so original that he finds it possible to differ

  1111
  from all the people who have been prepared to agree that it was reasonable this Bill should be drawn up, and from all the people on his own side, that is, on the employers' side, who have seen the reasonableness of it. The whole of his speech and his suggestion with regard to this Bill was summed up in one sentence, "Can I not do as I like with my own?" The answer is that he just cannot; nor can anybody else. If the war has taught us anything, it has taught us that we cannot do as we like with our own. We are members of a community, and it is because we recognise that we are members of that community, and I think because the employers and workers, fully organised, have recognised that they are members of the community and are desirous of assisting the community, that they have agreed to this Bill.
  There were one or two other questions on which perhaps I might touch. The hon. Member for Leigh asked why it was suggested that the tribunal should not be a body which had the right to impose a fine if need be, why it should be necessary to go to a court of summary jurisdiction after a case has been to a tribunal. That is a matter on which he has suggested he would put down an Amendment, and it is a matter we can go into on the Committee stage, and give our views on the pros and cons of it. The hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Woods) suggested that the Bill fell short of what he desired because it did not hold out hope of better payment. The Bill is not intended to create a new postwar world; it is intended to deal with just one aspect of the post-war world. To the extent that it is seeking to stabilise what were the conditions prior to the outbreak of war it will have a steadying influence and will enable those problems about which the hon. Member spoke to be discussed in the right temperature and, I hope, in the right light. Any new undertaking in the case he postulated would be safeguarded under the terms of the Bill if, in the industry in which that new undertaking is begun, there have been agreements regarding hours, conditions, etc.
  The hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) asked whether this Bill restored the right to strike. That, as he knows, comes under the Defence of the Realm Act,' and when this Bill comes into operation I am hoping the Defence of the Realm Act will
  1112
  have gone in the sense in which we know it now. Therefore, if the right to strike can be called a trade practice, it is not dealt with under this Bill. He found fault because some gentleman has been sent to prison because he would not hew coal, and he asked how the man could hew coal in prison. The only reason he went to prison was because he would not cut coal. He did not go to prison under this Bill, nor is imprisonment provided among the penalties. Nobody likes imprisonment with regard to offences of this kind; the people who are called on to carry them out less, I think, than the people who impose them. This is a peace-time Measure, and I am hoping as regards both employers and employees, that there will be no need to threaten with prison those people who do not do all we wish them to. On the question of whether an urban district council is a local authority, such a council is a local authority if it is carrying out the undertakings which are mentioned in this Bill, or is carrying out any other undertakings which the Minister thinks should be brought within its scope. On the Second Reading I think that not only has the Minister shown that the Government were wise in introducing this Bill, but the House has revealed that it expected no less of him.
  Mr. David Adams: I do not propose to detain the House for more than a moment or two, but I could not help being greatly entertained by the remarkable temerity of the hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson), who would suggest to the House that the Bill should be rejected. The complaint I have, which has been fairly general in the North of England, is that this Measure is somewhat belated. Twelve months ago there were loud demands for the operation of this Bill. Now we have had it before us, I think we shall have calmer feelings so far as both sides of industry are concerned. It must not be forgotten that in restoring these practices and privileges we are protecting the rights of the general community as well as those directly concerned with the restoration of trade practices, because the history of this country has been very closely associated in the matter of social betterment with the rising power of the trade union movement, and if it were possible to put back the clock, which happily it is not, then we would do so by creating diversion and internecine struggles bound to ensue if the advice

  1113
  of the hon. Member for Mossley were taken. The hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. H. Strauss) seemed to think that trade unionists were establishing some new, what he termed, property rights. But these rights have been won and purchased by long and hard service which the dilutees who will lose these have not undertaken, and it is for that reason that there is nothing in the nature of an exclusive privilege to which those who complain of certain forms of property rights legitimately object.
  I hope the Minister will see that the arbitration court is an improvement in certain respects on some arbitration courts now operating, especially in the mining industry. I take it that the court will have a panel of assessors to assist the umpire. In the mining industry, not infrequently, there is not a single miner acting as an assessor. Men are drawn from a panel, and those selected may not be from the trade concerned. I have attended arbitrations in the mining industry at which no miner has been present, with the result that there has been general dissatisfaction with the arbitration. Will the Minister see that at each arbitration there is at least one person present with a knowledge of the trade concerned? That will be a protective measure, which will avoid disputes. While I recognise that it is contrary to the general tendency to allow an appeal from an arbitration court, my experience is that such an appeal would be advantageous. I know of certain settlements, made by arbitration, which the miners' federation would have paid large sums to enable their members to contest in a court of law. I feel that the Measure will receive almost unanimous support at this stage. We all anticipate that, with the fruition of the Atlantic Charter, unemployment will no longer exist after the war. With proper adjustment of hours and conditions of employment, the problem of unemployment ought then to have passed away, so far as this country and the Empire generally are concerned.
  Miss Eleanor Rathbone: I do not want to oppose this Measure. For one thing, I do not feel that I sufficiently understand it. I was not able to hear the opening speech of the Minister. But I would like to express, in a few words, a slight anxiety
  1114
  which possesses my mind about the effect of this Bill on the post-war condition of women in industry. I recognise that, largely, this is a Bill to deal with dilution. I take it that that means that in a great number of cases it will be held that processes had been restricted to men, and that they should, therefore, in future be restricted to men. I am sure that the last thing that women generally in this county want is to cling to jobs which men have given up in order to go into the Services. There is no desire by women to take advantage of the war situation to carve for themselves a new place at the expense of their male colleagues who have made sacrifices. But the difficulty is that processes have undergone great changes during the war. Many have been broken up and simplified; new machinery has been introduced. We come across the difficulty about payment to women. While women are supposed to be enjoying the rate for the job, we often find that when a job is offered to a woman changes are made in the processes, to enable the employers to say that it is not the same job that a man was doing before, but a different one. Then changes are made in the rate of pay.
  What is to happen after the war? Is it to be the case that women will be excluded from jobs, even though such changes have been introduced in the processes as to make those jobs wholly suitable for women and perhaps less suitable for men? We cannot stop scientific development or changes in employment as between men and women, and we do not want this Measure to operate as a kind of stone wall, a stratification of the pre-war position of women in industry. I hope that when I have read the whole Debate, and perhaps have discussed it with Members much more expert in this subject than I am, I shall be able to see that my fears are unjustified. I suggest that when the Bill comes on in Committee great care should be taken to see not only that both sides are taken into consideration, in the sense of representatives of employers' federations and of trade unions, but that women are given a chance of having their case heard.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: Would the hon. Lady support the principle of the established rate for the job on all operations?
  Miss Rathbone: Yes, I would support that principle, so far as I understand it. I confess that I do not understand always how it works out. The question is, what is the job? Jobs change, and are broken up. If men and women may be admitted to all jobs, provided they secure the rate for the job, that is all right; but everybody knows that that is not always so. Many trade unions, especially in the engineering industry, have opposed the admission of women, quite irrespective of whether the employer was prepared to offer that rate or not. They have objected to women as women. [Interruption.] I am speaking of the pre-war position. Knowing that the great engineering unions are, to put it bluntly, bossed by men, we have to keep a careful eye open to see that in the implementing of this Measure after the war, while it is perfectly fair to men and honours the undertakings given, it does not unduly stratify the position with regard to men and women or prejudice the position of women without careful examination of that position.
  Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House, for the next Sitting Day.—[Mr. Munro.]

  RESTORATION OF PRE-WAR TRADE PRACTICES [MONEY].
  Considered in Committee under Standing Order 69.
  [Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]
  Resolved,
  "That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision with respect to the restoration after the war period of trade practices obtaining before that period, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

  (a) any expenses incurred by the Minister of Labour and National Service or the Ministry of Labour for Northern Ireland in carrying the said Act into operation, including the expenses of arbitration tribunals appointed under the said Act; and

  (b) any such increase in the expenses of the Industrial Court constituted by Section one of the Industrial Courts Act, 1919, as is attributable to the passing of the first mentioned Act.—(King's Recommendation signified.)—[Mr. Bevin.]

  Resolution to be reported upon the next Sitting Day.

  WAR ORPHANS [MONEY].
  Resolution reported,
  "That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend Section nine of the War Pensions (Administrative Provisions) Act, 1918, and for purposes connected therewith, it is expedient to authorise payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by the Minister of Pensions by reason of any addition made by the said Act of the present Session to the classes of children for the care of whoa it is his duty to make provision or of any extension made thereby of the period for which his duty is to continue in the case of any child."
  Resolution agreed to.

  WAR ORPHANS BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  [Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]

  WAR ORPHANS BILL.

    CLAUSE 1.—Extension of duty of Minister of Pensions to care for orphans.)
    The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): I beg to move, in page 1, line 8, after "Kingdom," to insert "or the Isle of Man."
    I think the Amendment explains itself. The Isle of Man authorities have requested me to include the Isle of Man in the provisions of this Bill, and I am prepared to do so if the House will accept the proposal.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. Edmund Harvey: I beg to move, in page 1, line 11 after "suffering," to insert" or in danger of suffering."
    The Amendment is designed to make it clear that it is not necessary that the child in question should actually have been reduced to suffering before the Minister could intervene. I will give a case in point. It is a typical case of the war orphan who is left dependent upon an aged grandmother who perhaps is physically unable, although loving the child, to give the care needed. There may be an aunt or some other relation to whom the Minister could transfer the child. It is undesirable that a child should be reduced to the condition of suffering before transfer can take place. If the Amendment were accepted it would enable the Minister to act where he had reasonable ground to believe that suffering would be likely to occur and not wait until the actual suffering took place.
    Sir W. Womersley: I have a great deal of sympathy with the Amendment, but it would put me into a very difficult position if it were inserted in the Bill, because it would then have general application, and that is where I should find myself in very great difficulty. It would be going beyond the provisions of the Children and Young Persons Act and also the practice of the court in administering that Act. I do not think that, as Minister of Pensions, I ought to claim any provision in the Bill such as this that Parliament has not granted before. I think we can deal with the question that the hon. Member has raised easily by administration. At the moment Parliament has given me power to withhold pension where I was not satisfied that proper care and attention were being paid, or even if I felt that there was a danger that that proper care and attention would not be paid. I can deal with such a case as that which he quoted quite easily under the Bill when it becomes an Act.
    There are some excellent women attached to the Department who make it their special work to visit children for whom the Minister is responsible from time to time and to report upon the conditions under which they live. I hope that my hon. Friend will therefore realise that we can deal with this matter without actually inserting such a provision as he suggests in the Bill. We often receive letters from people complaining that a child is not being properly cared for and one of our visitors ascertains the real facts. In many cases we find that it is usually a little jealousy on the part of a relative who would like the child and the money. When they say, "Please let me have an orphan in my home because I can do with the money," they are not the kind of people I want. I want them to take children and cherish them and to realise that it is not so much a money question as a question of taking care of the children. Perhaps after my explanation the hon. Member will agree to withdraw his Amendment, and I can assure him that such cases are rare, and they can be dealt with.
    Mr. Harvey: In view of the very sympathetic and understanding reply of the Minister and his assurance to the Committee that he will deal with the question by administrative methods, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
    Mr. R. J. Taylor: The right hon. Gentleman will remember that a question was raised when he introduced the Bill and that on account of the promptitude of the Chair and the slowness of someone else, no answer was given to the question. I would like to put that question now, because the matter is causing considerable perturbation on the part of a number of people. There must be a considerable number. The case is this: There has been bombing everywhere, and perhaps where a mother has been killed a child may have been taken away by a sister or relative. It has perhaps been adopted without any formal adoption. The father disappears, and, as in the case I have in mind, people take the particular child to their hearts. It has a good home and is brought up as their own children would be, and I have no doubt it will have every opportunity to grow into a very strong, healthy child. If the father should turn up after the child had been brought up in this way up to the age of 14, 15 or 16, when it begins to be useful in the labour market, it would present a difficulty. He might say that the child was not adopted and that he could claim him. I do not know whether the Minister could take steps in a case like that. These people who are quite willing to bring up a charge, give it a home and make it one of the family fear this kind of thing happening, and I do not know whether the Minister could do anything to safeguard these kindly people.
    Sir W. Womersley: I would like to apologise to the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon) for the fact that this question was not answered on the Second Reading. I promised to let him have a reply after I had gone into the matter carefully with him. However, I thank the hon. Gentleman opposite for bringing it forward to-day, because I am now able to clear up the matter. In a position like this the whole thing will have to go before the court. So far as my Department are concerned, we are prepared to deal with total orphans—the Bill gives me power to deal with them—but as regards the others which the hon. Member mentioned, my Department have to pay the pension, and I should not hesitate to

    1119
    go before the courts and raise strong objection to a child being taken out of custody of the people concerned where I thought they were the right persons to look after the child. I would do everything I could to oppose an application by a parent who had neglected a child.
    Question, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.
    Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Bill reported, with an Amendment; as amended, to be considered upon the next Sitting Day.

  PATENTS AND DESIGNS [MONEY].
  Resolution reported,
  "That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to amend the Patents and Designs Acts, 1907 to 1939, as respects the right of the Crown to use inventions and designs and as respects other matters it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase in the sums payable out of such moneys which is attributable to any provisions of the said Act, whether retrospective or not, extending the right of the Crown to use patented inventions and registered designs."
  Resolution agreed to.

  PATENTS AND DESIGNS BILL [Lords].
  Considered in Committee.
  [Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]
  Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  PATENTS AND DESIGNS BILL [Lords].

    CLAUSE 2.—(Amendments as to right of Crown to use inventions.)
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Captain Waterhouse): I beg to move, in page 2, line 43, after "invention," to insert:
    "upon such terms as are mentioned in the said subsection (1)."
    This Bill originated in another place. These words involve the question of Privilege, and I ask the House to insert them here.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    CLAUSE 3.—(Arrangements with other countries. Extension of time for applications under S. 91 in certain cases.)
    Captain Waterhouse: I beg to move, in page 4, line 22, after "section," to insert:
    "and (notwithstanding anything in section sixty-five of, or the First Schedule to, this Act) vary, with the approval of the Treasury, the times for the payment of renewal fees in respect of such a patent and the amount of such fees;"
    The reason for this Amendemnt is the same as for the previous Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, to be considered upon the next Sitting Day.

EMERGENCY POWERS (DEFENCE) ACT, 1939.

  FISH SALES (CHARGES) ORDER, 1942.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Major Lloyd George): I beg to move,
  "That the Fish Sales (Charges) Order, 1942, dated 7th January, 1942, made by the Treasury under Section 2 of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939, a copy of which was presented to this House on 20th January, be approved."
  On 11th November last the House approved an Order entitled the Fish Sales (Charges) Order, 1941, imposing a levy of 6d. per stone on white fish landed in the United Kingdom. They have approved the Order on the undertaking given by myself that the charge would be transferred from the sellers and catchers of fish to the first-hand buyers and merchants, and this Order implements that undertaking.
  Mr. Evelyn Walkden: I am sure the House will welcome the change which has been referred to by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. They will recognise, as he has already stated, that the Order only regularises the new procedure which was deemed to be necessary some months ago and that it transfers the charge of distributive costs from the seller to the first-hand buyer of the fish.

  1121
  Quite frankly, I think there will be unanimity on the proposal, but I also feel that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would have liked to have found himself in a stronger position today so that he could have announced to the House what we would have liked to have said to the country—that there will be more fish in the shops and in fish restaurants. I do not wish to enter into the question of supplies, but I suggest that this is a footling Measure. It is only playing with the subject. We had a promise a year ago that further supplies were just round the corner. Well, I hope the corner is not very far away, because five months ago we were told the same sort of thing. I hope that before long the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to give us an assurance that a comprehensive scheme will be introduced into the House which will at last give some kind of guarantee that more adequate supplies of fish will be available to housewives. This would reduce Members' postbags, which are now full of complaints against the Ministry on this subject.
  Mr. Kirkwood: I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he can give us any guarantee that the fish supplied in the fish and potato shops will be good fish. At the moment, they do not know whether they will get fresh fish or not, whether it will be Iceland fish which, if they had seen it as I have seen it coming into Aberdeen Harbour, where you can smell it half a mile away—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Colonel Clifton Brown: I am afraid that kind of fish does not come under the Order.
  Mr. Kirkwood: It may suit Englishmen, but it will not suit us.
  Mr. George Griffiths: I want to emphasise what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walkden) about the fish and chip shops. I believe that at the present time they do not get their quota although they require, if it is at all possible, more than their quota, compared with what the London hotels get. Many people in Yorkshire and Lancashire depend upon fish and chips for their mid-day meal. In the factory districts the fish and chip shops are closed now more often than the public houses.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: This Order merely deals with a date. The original Order was discussed and passed by the House, and we cannot return to it now and re-discuss it.
  Mr. Kirkwood: Further to that point of Order. Is it not possible for us to protest at this point regarding the quality of the fish that is supplied?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: No, not on this Order. This Order merely deals with the date. Hon. Members may discuss whether the date is too soon or too late. That is all.
  Mr. Griffiths: I am glad you have put me right about the date, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. These fish and chip shops have no dates at all. They do not know when they will get fish, and when they get some, they do not know when the next lot will come. The point I want to make is that the people in those districts are producing munitions, and before the war they were producing other things, on fish and chips. When the wife and husband are in factories, there is no one at home to cook for them; the fish and chip shops do the cooking for these people. The fish and chip shops want to do the cooking again. The people in those districts need the fish and chips more than do the people in London or provincial hotels. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary has a listening ear and an attentive mind; I know he has a sympathetic heart towards the working class. Knowing these things, I make an appeal to him. If he has got to rob Peter to pay Paul, rob the hotels up Piccadilly way and on the Strand if he likes, but see that the people in Lancashire and Yorkshire and other parts who need the fish and chips for their mid-day meals get them.
  Major Lloyd George: I do not want hon. Members who have spoken briefly on this matter to run away with the idea that this Order is the beginning and end of the Ministry's plans with regard to fish. This Order is merely what it says it is. One of the proposals we had in mind last year was for the purpose of overcoming a very real difficulty, namely, that in view of the very serious shortage of fish landed in this country, the tendency was for the fish to be distributed near to the ports of landing and not to be scattered throughout the country. To overcome that difficulty we equalised the transport charges and

  1123
  this levy is imposed on the trade in order to make it possible for the charge to be met. I do not want hon. Members to run away with the idea that this is the end of our plans. We are perfectly well aware of the very serious shortages which are encountered in a very important branch of the catering establishment of this country, the fried fish shops. There are proposals under discussion now which will go further towards remedying this difficulty. But let hon. Members be under no misapprehension as to the difficulties. The proportion of fish taken by hotels and restaurants is so small that, even if it were completely stopped, it would have no effect on the fried fish shops. I can give hon. Members an assurance that we are determined to provide that the fried fish shops will get an absolutely fair share in any scheme which we bring forward. I cannot give figures for the country as a whole, but I want hon. Members to realise what is the fish position. Let me quote an advertisement from the Fish Trades Gazette:
  "In January, 1939, the last January before the war, they—
  the firm in question—
  "handled 87,000 stone of fish; in January, 1942, they handled 2,000."
  If one goes to a port in another part of the country, one finds that they landed in May, June, July, and August, 1942, 20 per cent. of their pre-war supplies. Recently, however, owing to adverse weather and fishing conditions the position worsened considerably, and, as compared with the pre-war position, in September they handled only 17 per cent. and in October 13 per cent. In one week they were actually down to 3½ per cent. of the pre-war landings. The weight of fresh fish landed in one four-weeks' period was 4½ per cent. of the average for 1938.
  I do not want anybody to get the idea that anything which the Ministry can do will re-establish the supply position with regard to fish. But I can give an assurance that the arrangements to which this Order refers are only one part of our proposals and that we are at this moment engaged on drawing up proposals—I hope they will very shortly be out—which will at any rate ensure that, however small the catch is, it will be equitably distributed throughout the country.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  "That the Fish Sales (Charges) Order, 1942, dated 7th January, 1942, made by the Treasury under Section 2 of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939, a copy of which was presented to this House on 20th January, be approved."

  TIMBER (CHARGES) (No. 5) ORDER, 1942.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the Timber (Charges) (No. 5) Order, 1942, dated 2nd January, 1942, made by the Treasury under Section 2 of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939, copy of which was presented to this House on 20th January, be approved.—[Mr. Harold Macmillan.]
  Mr. T. Smith: I have no intention of delaying the passage of the Order, because I realise that it is necessary, but there are one or two questions I would like to ask concerning that part of it which deals with the coal mines pit timber levy. As far back as July, 1940, we imposed a levy of 4d. a ton on all coal produced in order to deal with the difference between the price of the timber supplied, I believe by the Control, and the cost of importing it. Since last November that levy of 4d has been reduced to ½d. a ton. I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary what is the reason for the reduction from 4d. to ½d. Was it done with the consent of those engaged in the industry, and if ½d. a ton is sufficient now to meet the cost, why was 4d. a ton imposed in the first instance? Last Autumn I was told by some coalowners that they had so much money in the pit timber levy pool that they did not know what to do with it. I should like to have some explanation of the change. In addition to this, I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether the supply of suitable imported pit timber is being kept up. Of course, this has a direct bearing on coal mining, because in our experience we have always found that the imported harder pit timber was much more safe for use inside the pits than home-grown timber. Those of us who are keenly interested in the safety of mining would like an assurance that there is a plentiful supply of that timber.
  May I also ask whether any inquiry was made as to why so many standards of good thick timber were lost on the East Coast some time ago? I raised this question in the House, and pointed out that many standards of timber were lost

  1125
  in Hull and district, which could have been saved for the industry if half as much speed had been made in getting that timber outside the port before a certain date, as was made a week later. I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether any inquiry was ever made. I can tell the House that 12 months before that date I was consulted on the question of finding a safe place to deposit this timber, and I drew attention to two or three places, but no action was taken. Colliery companies in Yorkshire, some of which are in my constituency, lost a good deal of pit timber which could have been saved with a little foresight.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply (Mr. Harold Macmillan): As my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. T. Smith) says, this Order merely consolidates a number of existing Orders. For convenience we are consolidating five Orders into a single Order, and making a few minor drafting Amendments. With regard to the question of the change in connection with the National Coal Mining Timber Charge, as my hon. Friend says quite rightly, the original charge of 4d. a ton was imposed for the purpose of meeting the difference between the cost of importing the timber by the Control and its delivery to the pit. That charge was reduced in October, 1941, from 4d. to ½d. My hon. Friend will appreciate that since it was a reduction, it was not necessary to come to the House—that is necessary only when a charge is imposed. The reason for the reduction was that there was collected in the Fund a sufficient sum to meet the existing balance between the cost of importation and delivery. It is anticipated that the Fund will be sufficient, after the reduction, until perhaps the middle of this year. Therefore, in view of certain other considerations which my hon. Friend and I both regard as very important, we thought it a good opportunity to take off this amount and prevent an increase in the price of coal which would otherwise have ensued. What will happen later it is difficult to say, but the structure of this charge is kept in being by this nominal amount of a ½d. In another six months we will see how the situation stands.
  As to the other questions asked by him they, of course, are not germane to this Order, and I am afraid I shall not be able
  1126
  to give the full answer which I could have given if I had had notice that they were to be raised. With regard to the question of dispersal and loss, he and I know these are difficult matters. We try to make provision, but there is always argument and counter-argument as to dispersal, against loss of time and the saving of transport. Perhaps mistakes were made, but I think that the hon. Member can rely on the Department, and, while thanking him for the hint, I will look into the matter again to make sure that any mistakes which may have been made will not be repeated, and that the provision which is made balances danger on the one hand and speed and rapidity of movement on the other. With regard to the general supply of imported pit-props, I can only say that no supplies are satisfactory, and that it is the job of my noble Friend to try to bring them to an increased state of satisfaction.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  "That the Timber (Charges) (No. 5) Order, 1942, dated 2nd January, 1942, made by the Treasury under Section 2 of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939, a copy of which was presented to this House on 20th January, be approved."

  PUBLIC ACCOUNTS.
  Ordered,
  "That Mr. Lewis and Mr. Pethick Lawrence be discharged from the Committee of Public Accounts and that Mr. Douglas and Lieut.-Colonel Walter Elliot be added to the Committee."—[Major Dugdale.]

  SUGAR INDUSTRY BILL.
  Mr. Mander, Mr. T. Smith, Mr. Henderson Stewart and Colonel Sir A. Lambert Ward nominated members of the Select Committee on the Sugar Industry Bill.—[Major Dugdale.]

  RUBBER CONTROL.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Major Dugdale.]
  Mr. Parker: I wish to raise the whole question of the policy and personnel of the Rubber Control and to ask the House definitely whether they consider that this form of organisation of an industry is, at present, in the public interest. Personally, I have no financial interest in

  1127
  the industry, nor have I any special technical knowledge about it. I think that, in considering the British rubber industry, one ought first to compare it with that in other industrial countries, especially if one is to judge at all accurately the work that has been done by the Rubber Control. Comparing the British with the American rubber industry, taking the figures of consumption of both crude and reclaimed rubber and taking the increase in the years immediately before the war, between 1932 and 1939 in England we find that the increase in consumption was 59 per cent. and in America 90 per cent. That big increase in both countries was due, partly to the rapid growth of the motor-car industry, but also to increased consumption of rubber in such goods as hot-water bottles, toys and so on. Taking the increase in crude rubber consumption alone, in Great Britain it was 56 per cent. and in America 83 per cent. In this country in that period the consumption of reclaimed rubber only grew from 5,000 to about 10,000 tons, whereas, in the United States during the same period, the growth was from 77,500 to 170,000 tons. If you take the immediate pre-war position and look at it rather differently, the position with regard to the consumption of reclaimed rubber was as follows: In this country, comparing the consumption of reclaimed with crude rubber, we only consumed 7 per cent., whereas in America the figure was 38 per cent. At the beginning of the war plant was under construction which would bring the American figure up to 55 per cent.
  Comparing ourselves with Germany, the position again is very, different. Before Hitler came to power the consumption of reclaimed rubber in Germany was very small indeed, but as soon as he came to power there was a very rapid increase, both by collecting carefully all scrap inside the country and also by importing very cheaply vast quantities of waste rubber from other countries. With regard to the collection of scrap rubber inside Germany, a careful inventory was prepared of where there were supplies, and care was taken to see that storage took place. It was stored in small quanties in fairly safe areas. We can be certain that since the beginning of the war there has been no waste of scrap rubber in Germany. With regard to Russia, the latest figures I have been able to get are for
  1128
  1933, and already by that date the figure of consumption of reclaimed rubber compared with crude rubber was 50 per cent., and it has since been rapidly increased. An interesting point worth realising is that the machinery for reclaiming rubber used in Russia was largely obtained in this country, which shows that we are capable of making the machinery for the reclaiming industry.
  I would like to say a word about synthetic rubber. America, Germany and Russia have begun to develop this industry, and it has already reached a considerable size; but in this country it is still very much in the experimental stage. In Germany so far has the development of synthetic rubber and the use of reclaimed rubber gone, that in 1938 the German Government were able to issue an order that all bicycle tyres should be made of synthetic rubber. The same order stated that all carcases must be made from reclaimed rubber. With regard to retreading, in this country, in contrast to the reclaiming and synthetic rubber industries, there was a certain measure of development in the years before the war, but even in this field this country was behind the other leading industrial countries. In America between 1929 and 1940 the number of tyres reconditioned increased six times. That is a big increase and much bigger than the increase in the size of the motor car industry in that period.
  Why was there such a snail increase in this country in the reclaiming, synthetic rubber and retreading industries compared with other leading industrial countries? As far as I can make out the position, it was due to the following facts. The new tyre manufacturers in this country were not, on the whole, keen about this development. They had to come into the retreading industry when they saw that it showed signs of growing and of becoming a possible rival. Then we found the big tyre companies either creating subsidiaries or obtaining interests in existing firms. It is widely believed, for example, that in these years Dunlop interested themselves in Marshams, the firm that owned Regent Tyre Rebuilders. Before the war the big tyre manufacturers considered creating a joint retreading company, with the object of collecting all possible casings and thereby putting all other retreading firms out of business.

  1129
  The war prevented that scheme being carried out.
  It is not widely known that most of the big public service concerns, such as the London Transport Board, used retreaded tyres on a large scale. The London Transport Board hire tyres. They do not own them. They hire them from the big tyre companies on a mileage basis. Coming to the House to-day the bus on which I was travelling skidded and all the passengers commented on this fact. The reason was that it was such an unusual thing for a London bus to skid. That is because, first, there is a very high efficiency standard for public service vehicles which is, very rightly, maintained by the Ministry of Transport. That very high safety standard is maintained in spite of the fact that the London Transport Board systematically has the tyres of its vehicles retreaded, and in that way makes the fullest use of them. I should like to ask why it is not possible to have a general service for reconditioning tyres, not merely for public service vehicles but for lorries and private cars. It is estimated that by the remoulding process you can lengthen the life of a tyre by from 70 to 80 per cent., and some other processes claim to give a life three times as long as that.
  It is important to look into the question of how the reclaiming and retreading industries in this country are organised. In the reclaiming industry there are four firms known in the trade as "the ring" situated in the North of England. These firms are the Rubber Regenerating Company, the North-West Rubber Company, Joseph Anderson and Sons, and the British Recovered Rubber Company. There is also an independent company in the south of England, the Rubber Improvement Company, at Willesden. In the retreading industry most of the big tyre companies I have mentioned have their subsidiaries, but there are also a large number of small firms in the industry, and one important independent firm, Tyresoles.
  This is my case: That the slow development in the reclaiming and retreading industries, and also to a lesser extent in the manufacture of synthetic rubber, is due very largely to the opposition of the new tyre interests. The new tyre interests have attempted to dominate the reclaiming industry, and it would appear,
  1130
  as far as most of the firms in the reclaiming industry are concerned—those inside the ring—that they are closely connected with the new tyre companies, either by the ownership of shares or by trade relations. In turn, we find that the big tyre companies in the country are closely connected with the plantation interests or with the interests connected with the importing of crude rubber from abroad. However, I think most people would agree that, comparing this country with the other big industrial countries I have mentioned, it is only natural that retreading, reclaiming and the manufacture of synthetic rubber should develop more slowly here than elsewhere, because we happen to possess plantations in Malaya, and until recently we had no reason to suppose that our sources of the supply of raw material were likely to be cut off. But the slowness of the development in these new industries has been definitely accentuated, in my view, by the action taken by the new tyre and plantation interests, who definitely did not like the idea of these industries being developed and have done their best to prevent it.
  Before the war—at least up to the date of Munich—we might have argued that this was just the common commercial practice of the established interests in a trade trying to prevent possible rivals coming into competition with them and threatening their markets, and perhaps up to that date it would be difficult to argue that they were necessarily behaving in a way that was not in the national interest. But the case I want to put before the House is that that attitude of the big tyre interests and of the plantation interests has been continued since the time when Munich made war likely, and that that policy from that date, and particularly since the time of the possibility of a Japanese attack on Malaya, has been very much to the national disadvantage.
  In the early days of the war the Raw Materials Department of the Ministry of Supply kept an eye on rubber. Then in May, 1941, the Rubber Control was set up. The Ministry of Supply made arrangements early on for the import and stocking of rubber, but the interesting point is that no real control of what the rubber was to be used for, was introduced until 12th December, 1941, when licensing finally came in, after the Japanese attack on Malaya had begun. In fact, from the

  1131
  very earliest months of the war we had a great deal of the rubber brought into this country for war use and stored against possible emergency actually being used by the big rubber companies for the manufacture of golf-balls, toy balloons and many other things which have no value from the standpoint of national defence.
  It was only at a very late date that control of the use of the rubber brought into this country was introduced by the Ministry. In response to a Question I put in the House recently, the hon. Gentleman opposite stated that the Ministry of Supply took full responsibility for the policy of the Rubber Control and that the control was there to advise them. Surely it is the duty of the Minister of Supply when he appoints a control and appoints people to advise him, to appoint people who will give him good advice. They should not be people who have a particular axe to grind in a particular business. I criticise very strongly the action of the Ministry of Supply and its advisers in regard to this matter. Whatever one's views might have been about the possibility of a Japanese attack upon us before the fall of France, after that date the danger to our rubber plantations in Malaya should have been evident. The Rubber Control should have had the possibility constantly before them. The Prime Minister told us very definitely that we never had sufficient military resources to enable us to defend ourselves effectively in the Far East while carrying on a campaign in the Western Desert and helping Russia. If that was the case, surely it was all the more necessary for the Ministry of Supply, and later for the Rubber Control, to take precautions to see that our rubber position would not be affected in any preventable way by Japanese aggression.
  In June, 1940, came the fall of France. As soon as that took place it was obvious to any person with the meanest intelligence that Japan might attack this country. In July, 1940, came the closing of the Burma Road. That, surely, should have been an eye-opener to many people. In September, 1940, the first Japanese troops went into French Indo-China. Finally, after the setting up of the Rubber Control, in July, 1941, came the Japanese occupation of Saigon and of naval and air bases in South Indo-China, where they directly threatened
  1132
  British Malaya. If nothing was done during all that period to see that proper steps were taken, the people responsible should be condemned by the House and by the country. That neglect was criminal negligence; it was an absolutely disastrous policy. The Ministry of Supply, and the Rubber Control in particular, should be held responsible for that policy.
  I want to go into the question of the actual Control, who were the personnel and what changes were gone through. When the Control was set up, Sir Walrond Sinclair, the manager of the British Tyre and Rubber Company, was the Controller. Mr. F. D. Ascoli, the Chairman of Rubber Plantations Limited, was Deputy-Controller. For many years, the Dunlop interests and the British Tyre and Rubber Company interests were at daggers drawn, but they came together when the Control was set up and the Control united them by giving them the chance to dominate the industry. It enabled them to use their position in the Control set up by the Government to dominate the industry. From May, 1941, to December Sir Walrond Sinclair was out of the country for a good part of the time and Mr. F. D. Ascoli was actually in charge. What policy did the Control follow in regard to interests which were vital from the national point of view, during that period? Take the matter of actual storage of crude rubber in this country. Some steps were taken to build up a store, but I think everyone who has knowledge of the subject will agree that we have nothing like as much crude rubber in the country as we ought to have at the present time—either in this country or in the United States. In view of the danger I have mentioned, surely during that period steps should have been taken to see that at least we had a very much bigger store than we have at the present time. And adequate steps were not taken to safeguard the use of the actual supplies we had in the country.
  The next point I wish to raise concerns the use of scrap rubber. Nothing whatever was done during this period to make an inventory, as was done in Germany, of what stocks there were, or to see that where scrap rubber was stocked it was not kept in dangerous places. Last winter the Ministry of Home Security experienced one long nightmare because of the danger of fire in old rubber dumps in

  1133
  exposed places. In many cases rubber was lost. In one London suburb, for instance, a big rubber dump actually took fire and burned for a whole week, while in another case the fire was only got out by a miracle. Great pressure has been exerted to get these dumps dispersed. Much rubber was destroyed, either by enemy action or by our own action to minimise risks. In Wolverhampton, for instance, rubber was burnt to get rid of it. During this period there was considerable shipping of scrap rubber over to the United States to be reclaimed. This at a time when we were told that the Battle of the Atlantic was on, and that every bit of shipping space ought to be saved in the national interest. Yet, during that period, scrap rubber was continually shipped over to the States and then shipped back again for our own use when it had been reclaimed, just because we did not develop the reclamation industry in this country.
  I now turn to this question of the reclaiming industry. It is my case that even after Japan really became a danger to this country there was no development of this reclaiming industry here. I would like to go in some detail into the relations between the Rubber Control and Mr. John Lewis, the managing director of Rubber Improvement, Limited, the independent reclamation firm which I mentioned earlier, because I think that this controversy is a very enlightening one from this point of view. The first point I would raise is this. Mr. Ascoli and, before him, officials of the Ministry of Supply, were continually approached, and the need to extend the reclamation industry was pointed out to them. Finally, when Mr. Ascoli was nailed down on the issue as to whether there ought or ought not to be an extension of the industry, he made it very clear that, in his view, the present reclaiming industry in this country was fully adequate for post-war needs, despite the fact that at that particular period two of the existing plants had been blitzed and their production had been reduced. When Mr. Ascoli was pressed for Government backing to be given to the industry, he said that it could not be given, but if the firm desired to go ahead and use their own resources the matter would be looked on with a favourable eye.
  As soon as the firm took steps to raise their own resources for further develop-
  1134
  ment, every conceivable obstacle was placed in their path to prevent them from getting the necessary plant. May I give one very surprising instance? Sir Walrond Sinclair, on one occasion—he was at that time the Controller—definitely requisitioned a mixer which this firm had bought two days after they had bought it, and then allocated it to Messrs. Dunlop on the ground that they required it for wartime purposes. Apparently he was ignorant of the fact that Messrs. Dunlop were manufacturing very extensively for the home market and could very easily have found a mixer, if they had cared to decrease their output for the home market and turn over one of their own mixers to Government work. It was only when the Ministry of Aircraft Production came into the field and insisted that this mixer was very necessary to make chippings for aeroplane runways that Sir Walrond Sinclair withdrew his order, allowing the firm to go ahead with the mixer which they had themselves bought.
  Now I turn to another incident since Mr. Ascoli became Controller, which would be like an episode from comic opera if the times were not so serious. Last summer the firm sought a licence for machinery they had bought in order to extend their work. At that time they had the necessary land on which to erect this machinery. At a date a little later the Air Ministry requested them to expand their existing production for work for the Air Ministry and they gave over that space for part of that production. The Air Ministry said that if the firm did that, they would be prepared to support the firm in an attempt to get further land in the neighbourhood. Negotiations took place with a firm of factors to try to get this land. The negotiations broke down and the Ministry of Aircraft Production said that in their view this land should be requisitioned and offered to the firm. When the Rubber Control heard about these negotiations they closed down on the whole proceedings. Further negotiations took place, and, finally, on one and the same day, the firm received the following very interesting information: Rubber Control were prepared to grant a licence for the machinery required, provided the firm had the land on which to put the machinery; at the same time they also said they would not be prepared to give the firm the right of requisitioning the land on which to put the machinery.

  1135
  That was the way in which the Rubber Control tried to get out of this particular difficulty and to prevent the expansion of the firm.
  I pass from that rather interesting saga to the retreading industry. With regard to the retreading industry, the complaint I would make is, that although there has been some expansion of this industry since the beginning of the war, because the big rubber companies could not prevent it, there has been no systematic attempt to carry out a national policy to see that all tyres are collected and retreaded. Surely there is a strong case for a national policy of seeing that tyres both of private and commercial vehicles are used for a reasonable length of time, then collected at the right time, retreaded and the maximum life thus got out of each tyre. Some big rubber companies have gone so far in their opposition to the retreading of tyres—I have had the information given to me by responsible people—that when tests were carried out on tyres that had been retreaded for use by army lorries, attempts had actually been made to falsify those returns in the interests of the big rubber companies. Responsible Army officers who have provided the information are prepared to come forward and give information fully before the Select Committee on National Expenditure if they should agree to examine the facts with regard to this particular industry.
  I think everyone will agree that following the Japanese attack very grave disquiet arose in the country as a whole about our rubber position, and when you remember that, according to the latest figures, issued in July, 1941, in that month, of all shipments of raw rubber, 92 per cent. were from countries actually affected by the war with Japan, you can see that there was good reason for disquiet. In view of this disquiet it was felt necessary by the Ministry of Supply that some changes in the Rubber Control personnel should take place. Therefore, from December, 1941, onwards, you have had a large number of changes made. First, the Controller and Deputy-Controller were got rid of, and a new Control Board instituted. On this board were Sir George Beharrel, chairman of Dunlops Ltd., Sir Waldrond Sinclair, who was previously Controller,
  1136
  and who is managing director of the British Tyre and Rubber Co., Mr. Thompson, a rubber broker, Mr. Bennett, a rubber dealer, and Mr. Essex, a rubber reclaimer—at least, it is claimed that he represents the rubber reclaiming industry, and it is true that he is managing director of the Rubber Regenerating Co., but his business is very closely linked up with Messrs. Dunlop. He buys their rubber waste, and sells to them, and it is really believed in the industry that he is a "Dunlop man." A little later two men were added to the Board, They were a Mr. Farrow, a director of a film company, presumably, I suppose, because it was thought that somebody ought to be there who was not representative of the rubber interests, and a Mr. Milne, a rubber grower. A little later Mr. Ascoli, the managing director of Dunlop Plantations, who had previously been Deputy-Controller, was made Controller. He is still Controller to-day. The Control Board was then apparently place3 in an advisory position to him. Those are the changes through which the Control Board has gone.
  Without having any quarrel with the gentlemen concerned, I think it is rather surprising that at this stage, when practically all our plantations in Malaya have been overrun, we should still keep on the Board, looking after rubber interests, rubber growers, brokers, and so on, while we do not have a representative of the retreaders on that Board. An attempt has been made, however, to buy off the retreaders. A new Tyre Control Advisory Committee has been set up, and two representatives of the retreaders have been put on that body. These gentlemen are Mr. C. S. Guyatt of Marsham's—this is the firm which I mentioned previously and in which it is widely believed that Dunlop's are interested—and Mr. Patrick Hamilton, the managing director of the large independent firm of Tyresoles. But it is not exactly clear what that Advisory Committee is to do. If one studies these changes which have been made in the Rubber Control Board, one must agree with the old French saying that "the more it changes, the more it remains the same." The vested interests are even more strongly entrenched now than before any changes took place. In the industry there is no confidence whatever in the control, either in its freedom from bias or in its competence to do the job. I would like

  1137
  to read a letter which I have received from a rubber manufacturer in the North of England. It puts the point of view of a number of firms in the industry. It says:
  "You will appreciate that the Rubber Control Board is in a position to call for extremely confidential information from all rubber manufacturing companies and although I cast no aspersions whatever against the integrity of any of the men on the Control Board, I think you will agree that it is inequitable that we and other rubber manufacturing companies should be compelled to disclose confidential information to men intimately associated with competitor companies. In order to remove this difficulty and to save the men named very considerable embarrassment in handling these confidential returns I think it would be far better if the returns themselves were made to a completely independent official appointed by the Ministry of Supply and that the Rubber Control Board should merely act in an advisory capacity."
  What is the Control Board doing at the present time to deal with the crisis in the rubber industry? First of all, feeling that they ought to do something, they have decided to organise a salvage campaign, and, again, typically, have appointed a Dunlop man to do the job, although he has had no experience in salvage. They launched the campaign in response to public pressure, but they made no attempt to draw up an inventory of where the rubber was or to see that it was stored in small quantities. The local authorities have complained very loudly that they have not been consulted about the campaign. Most of the reclaiming companies have already large stocks of scrap available, and it is not clear what is to be done with all this scrap when it is collected. Are they going to collect it once more in the big cities and create possible fire beacons? If we have to ship rubber across the seas owing to lack of adequate reclaiming plant here, what policy is to be pursued? If you take inner-tubes and reclaim them, the greater part, go per cent. or more, can be reclaimed. If you send tyre cases over the sea, you can only reclaim roughly about 33 per cent. This is wastage of shipping, in view of the shortage of shipping space to send over this material when you can only reclaim half or less of what you send. Surely you can scrape the tyres and send over the rubber free from what is unnecessary if we have not the plant to deal with it here.
  On the question of reclamation, the Control now realise that something should be done. Manufacturers have been in-
  1138
  formed that in a few days they will be told how to reclaim rubber from tread chippings and tubes. I understand this will be by the vaseline process which has been in use 30 years, and was revived two years ago at Fort Dunlop. I would ask the Minister of Supply and the Rubber Control Board why they do not use the best and most up-to-date German process, which is fully known in this country. The best German process reclaims in one hour what the best British process does in 24 hours. We ought to use the best process and not hesitate to learn from the enemy, if they have a better process.
  What do the Control propose with regard to the general organisation of the industry now that actual crude rubber supplies are short? How do they propose to deal with the big firms in the industry? Before the war all Government work, that is the manufacture of tyres for Army lorries, was done by four big firms, Dunlop, India, Firestone and Goodyear. It was a surprise to these big firms when the domestic market remained large and very remunerative after the outbreak of war. The big firms, who had thought that they would have all the work, found that other people were doing well out of this domestic market. They therefore changed their policy and favoured the giving of Government contracts to the smaller firms while they went into commercial production. According to the latest figures only 7 per cent. of Dunlop's car tyre output is for the Government, and 84 per cent. is for the civilian home market, the rest being for export. Of the giant tyre work, only 40 per cent. is for Government use. We are necessarily to have a big restriction of the industry. These four firms claim that they should have all Government contracts, the argument being that, if their large plants are kept running, they can produce more cheaply than smaller firms. That is very nice for them. I hope that when the organisation of the industry is under consideration the national interest will be allowed to come in. If four big firms with large plants are to have the whole Government work concentrated in their hands, you will create a great danger from the national standpoint. I hope the Ministry of Supply will not yield to vested interests, but will insist on keeping small plants in being, so that production will remain scattered over the country and the danger of destruction by the enemy in a

  1139
  blitz will thus be reduced. I would also like to point out that when this question of tyre production for the Government was first under discussion the big firms I have mentioned had plants constructed for them by the Government. But the small firms have not had Government assistance in building up their plant for Government production, and I hope this point will be borne in mind in any future reorganisation of the industry.
  I would like to sum up in this way: In my view you will not get this industry effectively run in the national interest until you sack the Control Board lock, stock and barrel. It has been operating in a most unsatisfactory way, has been most incompetent and biased right through in its attitude towards the industry. What is wanted is an independent Controller, not a person who is in the employ, or who is a former employee, of any vested interest in the industry, and with him an advisory committee which knows the industry thoroughly. That committee should have on it a representative of the rubber manufacturers, and tyre re-treaders, and a man who knows something about the salvage industry, but who is not a man with any particular axe to grind. It should have a representative of the Service users upon it, because there is a big consumption by the Services of tyres and a great deal of scrap coming from the Services to be reclaimed. There ought certainly to be someone on the committee who knows about Service needs and what they have to offer to the re-treading and reclaiming industries. There should also be a research man who knows a good deal about the industry on the technical side and a reclaimer, preferably not under the influence of the new tyre manufacturers. Not only should we consider this rubber control from the point of view of how it operates in this particular industry, but we should be prepared to draw lessons from it and use them more widely. There is a great deal of disquiet in the country about this policy of handing over control of an industry to vested interests. In many cases the interests have been able up to now to cover their tracks and get away with many things which we all know they have been able to get away with.
  1140
  I have been able to put before the House a number of facts showing bias and incompetence in one control. We should learn lessons from this question of rubber control and apply them in other spheres. I think it is essential that we should change the whole control policy; we should have independent Controllers with people with full knowledge of the industry acting in an advisory capacity. Decisions should be in the hands of the man whose firm would not benefit now or after the war from any action taken. Final decisions should be, under the Minister, in the hands of an independent Controller. This is the only way in which you will get confidence among the different sections of an industry. Unless the vested interests are dealt with, we shall seriously hinder our progress towards victory. We must choose between victory and vested interests and I hope we shall choose victory.
  Mr. Hewlett: I am an interested party. I happen to be chairman and managing director of Joseph Anderson and Sons, one of the largest rubber reclaimers in the country; I have been connected with that concern since 1909, and I can claim to know something about rubber and the reclaimed rubber trade. I say to the hon. Gentleman for Romford (Mr. Parker) that once more what he has been saying proves that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Many of the statements he has made are entirely without foundation In connection with my other business, which is to supply raw materials to the rubber trade, I have been in the closest possible touch for the last 34 or 35 years with the rubber industry. I have seen it grow from a baby to a giant.
  I want to deal first of all with the question of the Control. I say without hesitation—and I am speaking not only on behalf of myself, but on behalf of the vast majority of those connected with the rubber trade—that the actions of the two Controllers, first Sir Walrond Sinclair and then Mr. F. D. Ascoli, have been strictly impartial and that they have done a great amount of good work for the nation and the trade generally. It is unfair to blame the Controllers or the Rubber Control for the fact that we have had this mess in Malaya and are not able to get the supplies of raw rubber which we would have received had Japan not come into the war.

  1141
  With regard to reclaimed rubber, may I say, with the greatest possible respect, that the reclaimed rubber industry has always been the Cinderella of the rubber trade in this country. During my long connection with this trade, I have seen raw rubber at one and 13/16ths of a penny per lb., in 1931–32, and at 12s. 6d. a lb. in 1910. There was that variation in the price of the self-same material. With raw rubber at the uneconomic figure of one and 13/16ths of a penny per lb., one can understand that the reclaimed rubber industry in this country found it practically impossible to exist or develop inasmuch as their cost of reclamation of rubber was more than the selling price of plantation rubber. I remember that in 1931–32 I approached my co-working directors, the members of my staff and our workpeople, and indicated to them that collectively we had to make a momentous decision, namely, whether we would close down the factory until the price of raw rubber returned to an economic figure, or whether we were prepared to accept sacrifices and try to carry on until rubber again reached an economic figure. The staff and the workpeople agreed to accept substantial cuts in their earnings, and we were able to carry on until rubber again reached an economic figure. It is hardly necessary for me to say that the cuts have been restored to those loyal workmen and members of our staff.
  The hon. Member for Romford has referred to the position in America and pointed out the very great difference with regard to the proportion of reclaimed rubber used in the United States compared with the amount used in this country. In that connection, I am able to enlighten him in one or two directions. In the first place, generally speaking, it has been the practice in this country for the tyre manufacturers to produce what is known as a first-grade tyre, whereas in America the manufacturers have produced not only a first-grade tyre but also second, third and fourth-grade tyres, those in the lower categories containing a large percentage of reclaimed rubber. Secondly, one factor which must not be lost sight of is that the Service Departments and Government Departments generally, and the railway companies, in days that have gone, insisted on their own specifications, and their scientists and technicians played a game of safety first. Therefore, they
  1142
  made a point of their specifications containing practically no loading matter, but being more or less all raw rubber. Therefore, the rubber manufacturers in this country could not do anything less than provide the Government Departments and railway companies with these various qualities of rubber, which, I have said, contain practically all pure rubber.
  I now wish to touch upon the question of the export of scrap rubber. Some of the firms shouting loudest at the present time for increased reclaim facilities did not hesitate, so long as it suited their pockets, to be parties to the exportation of scrap rubber and tyres to Germany. In 1937, I drew the attention of the Board of Trade most prominently to the fact that Germany and Italy were buying heavily waste tyres and tubes from this country. I made the most strenuous effort at that time to prevent such exportation. My efforts and the efforts of other people in this country were unsuccessful, and it may interest hon. Members to know that in the month of March, 1937, over 8,000,000 lbs. weight of waste rubber was exported from this country, mainly to Germany, which was 3½ times the quantity exported in the whole of 1936 and double the quantity exported in 1935. By July, 1937, the export of scrap rubber to Germany was more than 10 times the export for the same period in 1936. I will try to explain to Members why these huge purchases were made, and made to Germany in particular.
  Germany was developing her synthetic rubber plants, commonly known as buna, and had put into operation reclaim plants of her own, and, to safeguard this new industry of synthetic rubber, she imposed an import duty equivalent to 11d per lb. on plantation rubber, with a view to encouraging her nationals to use home-produced synthetic rubber and her own production of reclaim rubber. Therefore, the rubber manufacturers in Germany offered extravagant prices in this country for scrap rubber, and, as I have previously indicated, some of the firms who are criticising now were shipping these huge quantities of scrap rubber to Germany, including Mr. Lewis, of Rubber Improvement, Limited. In my opinion, Germany built up huge reserves of scrap rubber, thereby enabling her to hold raw materials in anticipation of war breaking out. May I explain what was the posi-

  1143
  tion of the reclaim rubber trade prior to the outbreak of hostilities? The demand for reclaim rubber in this country up to the outbreak of hostilities was such that to keep reclaim rubber plants fully occupied large exports of reclaim rubber had to be made from this country. As I have previously explained, the reclaim industry is the "Cinderella" of the rubber trade, and the Minister of Labour did not recognise the trade as a trade for reservation of employees until April, 1941. Therefore, much of the expert labour was withdrawn from the industry and transferred to the Armed Forces.
  To aggravate the position further, two of the reclaim rubber factories suffered serious damage as a result of enemy action in 1940. The wear and tear in a reclaim rubber factory are very heavy, and to-day the industry of the country is working for only 70 per cent. to 75 per cent. of its capacity, due to the shortage of labour and the fact that until quite recently they were not graded as Ai priority for essential repairs to plant. It was a gross mistake when the hon. Member for Romford endeavoured to insinuate that Messrs. Dunlop's and other big tyreproducing interests have done their best to prevent any extension of plant up to the beginning of the war. On the contrary, the companies have in the past been large purchasers of reclaimed rubber, and I have never heard of any of them discouraging the expansion of plant. Dunlops have seriously considered from time to time erecting their own reclaimed rubber plant, and there are two other tyre firms producing reclaimed rubber for their own requirements.
  With regard to the retreading of tyres, again the hon. Member's knowledge of the rubber trade is not too good when he asks first why they send tyres to America, which can only yield 33⅓ per cent.; why not send tubes, which would yield approximately 100 per cent? The weight of tubes available for scrap is very different compared with the weight of tyres and, further, the 33⅓per cent. that he mentions as the yield of rubber from a tyre is absolutely incorrect. It is approximately 50 per cent. [Interruption.] I cannot say anything about what the hon. Member was told. What I have stated are the actual facts. There is mis-
  1144
  conception on his part, and on the part of the Press generally, on the subject of retreading used tyres. Reclaimed rubber manufacturers have always advocated that suitable casings should be retained. The tyre manufacturers themselves have advertised freely in past months with a view to persuading their customers to send their tyres for retreading. In addition to tyre manufacturers, there are many firms concentrating on the retreading of tyres. The reclaimers are anxious that only tyres with unsuitable casings, which are not fit to be retreaded should be sent for reclamation.
  There has been much comment in the Press about the uneconomic price of scrap. It has been the custom in the past of the larger reclaimed rubber manucturers and rubber merchants to hold large stocks of scrap, particularly tyres. Towards the end of 1940 there arose throughout the country a great agitation that these large dumps of scrap should be dispersed as a precautionary measure against fire from incendiary bombs. My firm had several hundred tons of tyres. Officials of the Blanchester fire brigade inspected our premises, indicated that they were dissatisfied with the stacking of our dumps and said we must re-stack them in squares in such a way that fire engines could get round the four sides of the square easily. We re-stacked to their satisfaction. A few months later the North West Regional Commissioner's Department inspected our premises and indicated that they were not satisfied with the stacking that we had done in accordance with the instructions of the fire brigade, and that we must remove all tyres with the exception of 100 tons. The result was that, as we could not find the labour, the authorities sent men, and they took away from our yard hundreds of tons of tyres. We eventually ascertained that the major portion of them had been thrown into a disused clay or sand pit and the remainder had been thrown into an ornamental lake in one of the Manchester parks.
  It being the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do new adjourn."—[Major Dugdale.]
  Mr. Hewlett: Another reclaimer had several thousand tons of tyres removed from his premises for similar reasons. This instruction also applied to waste rubber merchants, and it will readily be seen that tyres were of no value. We could have bought hundreds, if not thousands, of tons at a nominal few shillings a ton, but the difficulty was where to store them. Everybody was a seller because nobody was allowed to have an accumulation of tyres, and there were no buyers. Look in that clay pit and in that ornamental lake, and you will find our tyres, and the North-Western Regional Commissioner says, "If we want the tyres back, we must fetch them back."
  I want to try and make some constructive suggestions. The first is that the reclaimed rubber manufacturers should be provided with the necessary amount of labour, A1 priority should continue to be issued for essential repairs, and pressure must be brought to bear on the rubber engineers to give first class priority to these essential repairs. That would increase the production of reclaimed rubber by 25 to 30 per cent. Secondly, arrangements should be made with the present reclaimers, including the independent reclaimers, to increase the capacity of their plants by 50 per cent., and again Ai priority should be insisted upon in the production of the necessary machinery.
  Mr. James Griffiths: What does the hon. Gentleman mean by the independent reclaimers?
  Mr. Hewlett: The hon. Member has spoken on two occasions of Mr. Lewis, of the Rubber Improvement Company, as an independent reclaimer. We have a Reclaim Rubber Association, of which Mr. Lewis is not a member. He is a very small reclaimer, who poses as an independent reclaim rubber manufacturer, and he is most anxious to become a member of the advisory committee of the Rubber Control.
  Sir Richard Acland: Was not Mr. Lewis the only firm that did not export rubber to Germany?
  Mr. Hewlett: I doubt whether he exported any rubber to any country. My third proposal is that the prices of reclaimed rubber and re-treadable tyres should be controlled. The fourth is that
  1146
  the price of scrap rubber should be controlled, but not on the lines indicated in the Press. According to my reading of the newspapers, dealers are to pay £1 a ton for motor covers, then deliver them to the merchants' depots, who are to pay £2 2s. 6d., then the merchants are to sell the same tyres to the reclaimers for £3 2s. 6d. Why all this unnecessary handling and intermediate profits? The dealer has to collect the tyres from garages and other places, then convey them to the merchants' depots, where they have to be unloaded, and then the reclaimer has to send his vehicles to the merchants' depots, load the tyres on to the vehicles, and unload them at the reclaiming factory. I ask you.
  I ask you, why should there be this waste of transport, petrol and labour? Why should there not be just one transaction of the dealer delivering the tyres to the reclaiming factory, thereby saving unnecessary transport and, similarly, saving a large amount of money, estimated at £400,000 to £500,000 per annum? Some may say that this would mean that some tyres suitable for retreading would arrive at the reclaiming factories. My reply to that is that we have always given facilities for any genuine retreader of tyres to inspect our stock of tyres and extract from the same any tyres which he was of the opinion were suitable for retreading purposes. Finally, the extension of the present plants or, if the Minister decides, the erection of new plants for the reclamation of rubber should be confined to well-known and fully-proved processes. This is not the time to erect plants for methods of reclamation which have not been proved either in this country or in the United States of America, but is the time to increase production in the speediest possible way by utilising existing plants up to 100 per cent. and extending existing plants.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I think this Debate has been of great value, particularly at this moment, because there is naturally considerable interest in the country in a problem which is of great national importance at the present time. In the two speeches to which the House has listened we have had an admirable example of two methods of approaching a common problem, one based on practical experience

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  over a long period of years and the other on what might be called theoretical research, both of them of the greatest value in the study of any problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Mr. Parker), who opened this Debate in a very well documented and very well-prepared speech, covered a great deal of ground, but, as may easily happen, and has certainly befallen him and, I expect, most hon. Members in their experience in the House of Commons, he has fallen into some of the traps which lie open to anyone who brings largely theoretical research to any problem. He began by telling us of the much greater development of the reclaimed and the synthetic rubber interests in America and in Germany by comparison with what had taken place in England and gave interesting figures of the percentage of those increases. He said that Great Britain reclaimed only 7 per cent. whilst America reclaimed 38 per cent., and that in the United Kingdom the reclaiming industry—here he did not give percentages because percentages would not have suited his argument—had risen from 5,000 tons to 10,000 tons—that is Rio per cent. rise—whereas in Germany it had risen from 75,000 tons to 175,000 tons. I notice that he gave percentages when they suited his argument and tons when they, in turn, suited his argument. It is a dangerous example of how figures can be used.
  Mr. Bellenger: You give the percentages.
  Mr. Macmillan: We had the correction when the experienced man came in. The hon. Member had forgotten an overwhelming consideration which explains the difference in these industries and their development. The first consideration was that crude rubber was grown very largely in the British Empire and was sold for sterling. It was sold sometimes very cheap, so cheap that a reclaimed industry on a purely economy basis could not exist at all. In America there was a feeling before the war that very large amounts of American money were being spent upon one of the very few raw materials which America herself did not produce, and therefore, for ordinary economic reasons, they set about the development of the reclaiming and synthetic rubber industries, largely because they did not wish to con-
  1148
  tinue to part with dollars in order to purchase larger amounts of this raw material which were in British control. Then, in the case of Germany, there was a strategic reason. I remember once saying in this House that the first real sign of danger was when Germany began to build up these great synthetic rubber and rubber reclaiming industries regardless of economic values, because it was an essential part of the preparation for war. For two quite different reasons in America and in England, the artificial industry, as one might call it, was developed.
  Mr. Bellenger: That is a very valid argument, but if the Minister could tell the House that we built up tremendous stocks of raw material, it would demolish the argument put forward by my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Macmillan: I am afraid I cannot do that, because I am not going into the question of stocks and rubber, and I am sure hon. Members will not expect me to do so. I was trying to answer that the hon. Member had missed the overriding considerations which led, before the war, to this type of development in the two countries. I think that point must be accepted by us all.
  Now the hon. Member asks, What is the situation we had to meet at the beginning of the war and what steps were taken in the light of the changing circumstances? He made, very ably, what might appear a rather sweeping condemnation of those who were responsible from the beginning. There were some considerations which ought to be remembered in any general picture which is drawn. First of all, no control was put on, in the ordinary sense of control, until the beginning of the war, as only a very small proportion of rubber was used for any but essential war services. I have figures which I will give in terms of percentages. The hon. Member made a statement which shows how dangerous information of this kind can be if it is not fully understood. For a firm like Dunlop, I think he said, the proportion of the tyre production on Government account was only 7 per cent. That is merely using the term "on Government account." If by that term you mean direct sale to the Government, that may be true, but 96 per cent. of their production of tyres is on Government account, either directly or indirectly—
  Sir Percy Harris: They sold it to motor-car manufacturers.
  Mr. Macmillan: Yes: that is so—and is used for the Royal Air Force and other essential Services, and by public utility undertakings. In other words, only four per cent. of the total production of tyres has been used for private motoring. Here is a very good example of a statement which sounds terribly damning, and is made in perfectly good faith, until it is examined in accordance with the actual facts.
  The only reason why a tight control like the iron and steel control or the nonferrous metals control was not imposed at the beginning of the war was that only a very small percentage of the total production of rubber was used otherwise than directly or indirectly upon Government account. That has a good and a bad side. Its bad side is that the economies we can make in the use of rubber are not from a use spread over a large area of private users. There is no source there that we can squeeze in. I would make it clear that, although we shall put some minor restrictions upon the public, asking them to give up some things which are not wholly necessary and to make every possible saving, the sphere of saving which we can get from private use is small, because the total quantity of rubber used on private account is such a tiny percentage of the whole. With the economies which we shall have to make, and are making with the help of the Services, we hope to reach a very substantial saving in the consumption of rubber, but they will be economies which will have to be made, and are being made, by the various forms of public, semi-public or public utility enterprises which are the main consumers of rubber to-day.
  Then the hon. Gentleman went on to make a very strenuous attack upon the gentleman whom the Minister, and successive Ministers, had asked to advise him or to operate for him in connection with rubber since the beginning of the war. It has been my good fortune to serve three Ministers of Supply, and it may be my fortune to serve a fourth—I do not know. I seem to be the old stager who carries on while Ministers come and go. I have served a Socialist Minister, an Independent Minister, and my noble
  1150
  Friend. I have certainly never heard discussions about controls and advice being given to the Minister on a Party basis. I am afraid that in my Ministry we have forgotten those old disputes. My first Minister, the present Home Secretary, was advised by these gentlemen, some of whom are now so bitterly attacked by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Romford. All through, this has been of great concern to the Minister. I observe that if a man is a working man and is not a member of his trade union, he is a blackleg, but if he is an employer and is a member of an employers' association, then he is a criminal character and a member of a ring, and I have never understood that the gentleman from whom my hon. Friend has obtained a great deal of information, out of which he has made a very entertaining story, is what is called an independent reclaimer and is not disposed to join a particular association.
  From the point of view of the Government, we have attempted to face this problem. If we obtain advice on any question—rubber, iron, steel or any of the other commodities which are now subject to control—we must either get advice and help from people who know something about the matter, in which case, of course, we are said to have handed ourselves over to the ring, or we have to get advice from people who know nothing whatever about the conditions of the industry, in which case the Government and the public are badly served. What we try to do is to operate the controls under men who have a long association with a particular industry and who have gained a high reputation in it. It is interesting to note, and I welcome the fact, that my hon. Friend in his excellent speech paid a tribute to some of these gentlemen, although he was speaking from the point of view of a different and perhaps competing side of the industry. We try to obtain the services of men like these to work in association with the Civil Service and the permanent secretariat, who all the way through are associated with these controls, to bring in the independent management which is necessary and right.
  Nothing would detract from the responsibility of the Minister, but at the same time I do not feel that the House will share my hon. Friend's attack upon this particular gentleman. Sir George Beharrel is very well known in this country, which

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  he has served extremely well in a great industry. He served it very well during the last war. It is very easy to go through the list of these people and throw ridicule upon them, but they represent the industry very widely—manufacturers, growers, brokers, dealers, and reclaimers, and through the Tyre Control Committee, who are also closely associated with this advisory body, the Retreading Association. In his account of the complaints of the Rubber Improvement Company, my hon. Friend has really been rather misled. It is a firm which represents about 2 per cent. of the whole reclaiming industry; there have been some transactions in which from time to time we have been able to help them, and I am glad to say we have now been able to help them over a difficulty about a particular machine, but the story of this firm's relations with the Ministry of Aircraft Production and the Ministry of Supply was a fantastic parody of the truth.
  What is the real situation with regard to the reclaiming of rubber? Here, if I may detain the House for a few moments, I want to make it quite clear that the real underlying fact is that the use of reclaimed rubber is limited by the total quantity of crude rubber available, for the reason that you can only use a certain percentage of reclaimed rubber, according to the character of the commodity you are making. You cannot make the whole thing out of reclaimed rubber; you can only use a certain quantity of reclaimed rubber. It is true that the use of reclaimed rubber in the United States was greater than in this country before the war. The chief reason was because of the very large number of low-grade tyres made for cheap motor-cars and the much greater use of rubber for footwear and that kind of thing which had been developed in the United States. We do not particularly want to use our rubber for footwear, and we certainly do not want a lot of low-grade tyres for cheap motor-cars, because those are just the type which are going out of production. You cannot at the moment use more than a comparatively small proportion—I believe about 10 per cent.—of reclaimed rubber in the manufacture of the grade of tyres necessary for the lorries and the form of transport, the only form of trans-,
  1152
  port, which we are now encouraging or allowing. There is this paradox, that there is no object, no purpose, in developing, in increasing the reclaimed rubber industry beyond the proportion and ratio you require, having regard to the amount of crude rubber you will be able to obtain. I can confidently tell the House that we expect this year, by means of the reclaiming industry, with additional assistance by speeding up some of its work by giving those higher priorities which are a matter of adjustment in the changing conditions of the war, that the total quantities of reclaimed rubber will be equal to the amount which can be used having regard to the crude rubber available.
  Mr. Parker: Reclaimed rubber is used not only in the manufacture of tyres but also in the making of aeroplane runways.
  Mr. Macmillan: I am taking all the general uses. Of the total uses of rubber, between one-half to two-thirds goes in the manufacture of tyres. There is one point I must make clear, and that is that it is worth while to get done whatever reclaiming can be done, and to expand reclaiming, while at the same time it is right for us to do what the hon. Member poured such contempt on, that we should ship rubber salvage to the United States because we can obtain in return for that, and have arranged to obtain, material which we are requiring for our own war effort. By that means, we are not in any way reducing the total increase in the reclaiming industry, but we are getting, by a quid pro quo, a certain amount of additional crude rubber, which in itself allows us to push the reclamation of rubber still further. That seems a very satisfactory arrangement. Although we are trying by study to find a method of increasing the proportion of reclaimed rubber which can be used, this seems the best thing to do. My hon. Friend says that we have not developed synthetic rubber. Of what is synthetic rubber made? It is made by the trapping of oil. What would be the purpose at this time of setting up oil-trapping plants?
  Mr. J. Griffiths: Has the development of reclamation and retreading of rubber been sabotaged? In the industry which I know attempts to get oil have been sabotaged by the oil interests.
  Mr. Macmillan: No. Synthetic rubber is made by the trapping of oil. It is all right to trap the oil where it exists, but not to bring it here in order to trap it. It is right, and it is the whole purpose of the arrangement we have made with our Allies—no longer our associates, but our Allies—in the United States to make use of raw materials in the place where they are found in order to have the products made and interchanged.
  Mr. Griffiths: That means that there is an arrangement between this Government and the Government of the United States to develop the synthetic rubber industry in the United States?
  Mr. Macmillan: Yes, on an immense scale. The object is that each country shall develop what can be best and most rapidly developed. There are other things in respect of which we are able to assist our Allies. It is always hard in this sort of discussion, particularly for a Parliamentary Secretary, who speaks with the same responsibility but without the power of a senior Minister, not to fall into one or other error. We want to save as much rubber as we can. I am not going to say what is our stock. I am not going to give
  1154
  an optimistic figure or a pessimistic figure. I am only sorry that certain observations were made about the character of our reclaiming interests. I would suggest that my hon. Friend should take a little more optimistic view of his fellow-men, and not to be so ready to assume that everybody is either a fool or a crook. I do not think he will go very happily through life with this jaundiced view. Let him be a little wary of men who run to Members of Parliament with small and petty grievances. Let him follow a more generous line; but let him, if the Ministry fail to provide the essential rubber required for the war effort, by all means direct his censure at those upon whom the responsibility lies.
  Rear-Admiral Beamish: Does my hon. Friend not think it essential to educate the public by means of a series of broadcasts on the care of tyres and their methods of repair?
  Mr. Macmillan: I am very much obliged for that suggestion. We will certainly make use of it.
  Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.