COLONIAL AND MIDDLE EASTERN SERVICES (Hansard, 11 February 1943)

§ The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Colonel Oliver, Stanley)
It will, I think, be for the convenience of the Committee if, in presenting this Estimate, I deal only with the few main items and then leave Members of the Committee to ask any questions on the rather varied items which are contained in that Estimate and which I shall be only too glad to answer. Hon. Members who have looked at the Estimate and have seen that the total is one of £10,200,000 will have realised that almost the whole of that sum is accounted for by one item. That item is the sum of £10,000,000 for Malta. Hon. Members will recall an announcement made on behalf of my predecessor in November of last year with regard to this sum. The House was then told that His Majesty's Government would seek the approval of Parliament for the sum of £10,000,000 which would go to Malta as a free gift from Great Britain for the restoration of war damage in the island and for the rebuilding of Malta after the war. Surely it takes little imagination on the part of hon. Members to realise how much that sum is needed and what an essential purpose it will fulfil. On this small island, 120 square miles, about one-sixth the size of my constituency, since the beginning of the war, there have, I believe, been over 3,000 air-raid alerts and 1,200 actual air raids, and it is computed that last year over 12,000 tons of bombs were dropped on the island, so small in area and with its population and the buildings concentrated in only one small section of the 1533 island. It is not surprising, in view of figures of that kind, to know how serious has been the damage done to property in the island. It is estimated that 25 per cent. of the total value of all buildings in the island has been eliminated by air-raid action.
The Malta Government propose to deal with the question of compensation for war damage to property on the same lines as it has been dealt with in this country. There is at the present time before the Council of Government a War Damage Bill drawn up on the same principles as our Compensation Act in this country, and when that Bill has become law, it will be for an authority in Malta to deal with all the claims arising out of this war damage. The Act will provide, as our Act does here, for certain contributions to be paid by property owners in the island, but it is clear, when you consider the proportion of damaged property in the island, that even when contributions have been taken into account, there will remain a deficit facing this authority of a very large amount, which it would be quite impossible for Malta to bear. But the main purpose of this fund of £10,000,000 is that it should be used to pay these claims and rebuild the public property which has been destroyed. The Committee may be interested to know that all provisional estimates which have been made hitherto—and, of course, they must be very provisional—and on the assumption, the very large assumption, that there will be no further heavy air-raid damage in Malta, it is reckoned that the sum of £10,000,000 will be sufficient to cover this primary purpose and that there will be some balance remaining. It is the intention, as was announced to the House, that the balance, after meeting these first claims on the fund, should be available for any purpose which is available to Malta, that is, any purpose of such character which is approved by the Government of Malta and the Secretary of State.
I cannot imagine that the Committee have ever voted such a large sum with so much readiness and so much satisfaction. For almost the first time in two years we really can talk about the siege of Malta. For the last two or three months such a startling change for the better has come over the affairs of the island that we can talk in a way now that a few months ago we hesitated to do without immediately 1534 touching any wood which was in the neighbourhood. The siege of Malta for those two years, when the history of this war comes to be written, will rank as one of the great sieges of history. It will be of most peculiar interest, because it has been the first of these sieges which we have known under strange new conditions. Sieges of the past have been equally heroic, such as the siege of Leningrad in the present war, but they have been on old, traditional lines—a city surrounded by enemy troops and the inhabitants within reach of the foes outside. Yet Malta has never had an enemy foot set on the island, and with the exception of one small raid, no enemy warship has been in the coastal waters around Malta. But for two years Malta has been in dire peril from this great new air power. No city has suffered such a siege in the past. As the Committee knows only too well, that great peril has been averted only by the skill, courage and sacrifice of all concerned, and the dominant note I would like to strike in referring to the performances of Malta during this period is that it is an ideal example of a combined operation.
The Services, merchant seamen and the civilian population alike have been all for each and each for all. It is not because of the particular exploits of one Service but because of the combination and co-operation of all that Malta has come successfully through her ordeal. Even in the darkest, period of the, siege of Malta, even when some of us were wondering whether she could hold out against the terrific air bombardment to which she was being subjected, even at the blackest moment of the fight, the Navy turned up and showed that Malta had a sting. The defensive was rapidly turned into the offensive. Air force has upset all the calculations of those of us who tried in the early days of the war to study warfare under new conditions. We all believed that where you had a constricted area, with no aerodromes deployed in depth and facing, as Malta does, the great island of Sicily, which is covered with aerodromes and within range of Metropolitan Italy, you could never hope to cope with a depth of aerodromes of that kind. Yet Malta, with her restricted aerodrome space and with an Air Force always inferior to the Metropolitan and Italian air forces and their 1535 German ally—with all these disadvantages Malta gained the victory.
But the Service about which I would like to speak at a little greater length than either the Navy or the Air Force is the Army. I want to do that, because the part that the Army has played in those two years has been less dramatic than that of the other two Services and for that reason has been inclined, perhaps, to be a little overlooked in the many well-deserved tributes paid to the Services. The part played by the Army in Malta has been just as valuable and just as gallant as that played by the other Services. First of all, there have been the "Ack-Ack" gunners on the island. I do not think it is too much to say that they have turned themselves into the finest anti-aircraft barrage in the world. In 1942 anti-aircraft gunners alone brought down 182 planes; but do not let us forget the services that have been rendered by the infantry and other arms. They have had no opportunity of being able to perform what are considered to be their usual roles; they have, in fact, become the handymen of the island. They have rendered immense contributions to the successful role of the Royal Air Force under conditions often of great danger, because the aerodromes on the island have been a natural focal point for many of the German attacks. They have seen to the maintenance of aerodromes, and largely owing to their exertions fighters have been able to leave the ground within a few minutes after what would appear to be a devastating raid.
Above all, these men have done magnificent work in the docks. When convoys have come in, when it has been essential that the convoys which have escaped so many perils should not be destroyed at the last moment in harbour and their valuable supplies lost, when it has been essential that they should be unloaded quickly, these men have unloaded ships with a rapidity which compares very favourably with the rapidity with which large ships can be unloaded in this country by skilled labour and the requisite appliances. They have performed throughout the island a number of unusual tasks with great skill and courage. Besides the Services, I think all of us would like to pay tribute to those members of the Merchant Navy who have 1536 taken their share in supplying Malta during these difficult years. I spent 18 months of this war with the Joint Planning Staff, and I remember many times how, when the time came round to try and get a convoy through to Malta, one used to watch in the war room, with heart in mouth, the progress of the convoy. You would hear first of its being sighted, you would hear next of its being attacked, you would hear of its losses, and in the end nearly always you would hear of its success; but there is one thing that you never heard, one thing that I never heard during the whole 18 months I was there—you never heard of them turning back. It is because they did not turn back, because they faced great losses and many casualties, these Merchant seamen, that Malta got the food which enabled the people to survive and the ammunition which enabled them to fight back.
Finally, I want to speak of the people of Malta, who in some ways had the hardest role to play of all. Many hon. Members who, either in the last war or in this war, have taken part in fighting, feel, I expect, as I do, that when you fight in a Service you put on a uniform, you go to a different land very often, you live under quite strange conditions—it is a new world—and somehow or other all the horrors of war do not seem so dreadful in that new and different world. But when you get ordinary bombing, when you live your ordinary civilian life, when you are living in the same house as you lived in during peace, going to the same office, wearing the same clothes, and when life in some ways is going on just the same as you have known it through all the happy peaceful years, and yet when, in other ways, there are those strange and awful horrors, there is something much worse in it and more difficult to bear. That is what the people of Malta have had to bear. They have had to see everything they liked, everything they treasured, everything that belonged to them, being destroyed about them, and yet in the middle of all this they have had to try to carry on with their ordinary life. In these years they have faced death and injury from 1,200 air attacks, they have seen destruction all around them, they have seen the destruction of 25 per cent. of all the buildings on the Island, they have endured discomforts and in the last few months privations. I think the message which the Committee would like 1537 to send them is that those are things which we will never forget.
May I express finally the feelings of the Committee about one other figure in the Island, the Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal Lord Gort, and his predecessor, to whom many tributes have already been paid? This is the first time anyone has had an opportunity of paying a tribute to Lord Gort who in a few months became an almost legendary figure, bicycling all over the Island, with his A.D.C. faint but still pursuing behind him, putting out with his own hands, at the cost of very severe injury, a fire that was started by a bomb, seeing all and being seen by all, and because he shared the dangers and discomforts and privations of the common people inspiring the common people with a sense of oneness of purpose and unity in sacrifice.
I take it that this £10,000,000 will be regarded by the Committee and by the country as a small token of our admiration for all who have played their part in the defence of this Island and as an earnest of our real desire for the well-being of Malta when peace at last returns.
There are only two other items to which I think I need call the attention of the Committee. One is the item of £300,000 for Transjordan. That is caused almost entirely by a decision of the War Office, since the Estimates were presented to the House, to form a third mechanised regiment of the Arab Legion. The only other large item is not on the expenditure but on the savings side, and it is a saving of £800,000 in Palestine. The reason for that is this: In the Estimates we took the sum of £2,500,000 as a grant-in-aid for Palestine. Owing to the improvement in the economic position and the large amount of money which is being spent by the troops and the various Services in the country, the yields from taxation have risen, and it is possible, therefore, to reduce the grant-in-aid from this country by £800,000. I think I have dealt with all the major items in this rather formidable list, although, of course, I should be only too glad to answer any questions put by hon. Members on points of detail.

Mr. Amman (Camberwell, North)
I think this is the first occasion on which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Colonial Secretary has presented Supplementary 1538 Estimates since coming into his new office, and he is to be congratulated on having a good wicket on which to open his innings. He will not find the slightest criticism or disapproval of the things he said with regard to our own Services or, more, especially, the things he said about the population of Malta itself. Anyone who has had any experience or knowledge of that little island, as I have had the good fortune to have, must have marvelled at the way in which the people there have stood up to the tremendous bombardment and assault which they have endured. Everyone throughout the Empire must feel proud to be associated with that small island and its people, who are also proud to be members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. We can only express our gratitude to them. There is only one question I want to ask. I presume that the voting of this sum of £10,000,000 does not indicate that it may be a final settlement, but that it is an interim recognition of what we owe to them, and that we shall not be oblivious to any further claims that may come up later on.

§ Commander Bower (Cleveland)
There is no Maltese Member of the House, and I am sorry; I hope that before long we may see members of that gallant little race sitting beside us on these Benches. I think I have perhaps a closer connection with Malta than any other hon. Member, and perhaps I may be permitted for a moment to speak on behalf of the Maltese people. I have always taught my own family to be very proud of the fact that on their mother's side they are of Maltese ancestry. During the war I have had from Malta letters not only from English people there, but from pure Maltese of all classes. Some of those letters have come through the ordinary channels and others have come uncensored by air or submarine, and some of them have found their way to 10, Downing Street to bring home the hardships, sufferings and great bravery of the Maltese people. We do not yet know what they have gone through, but things are beginning to come out. I think that when the full story is told their name will shine imperishable on the pages of history.
I hope I shall not be straying too far from the subject if I say that I think special tribute ought to be paid to the special friends of England in Malta; those Maltese who, in the period between the two wars, fought so hard for the British 1539 connection; I refer to the Maltese Labour Party and the Maltese Constitutional Party, under Lord Strickland, who stood 100 per cent. for the British connection in face of Italian quislings who too often were inclined to have the support of the Colonial Office. I do not want to stress that following point now, except to say to my right hon. and gallant Friend the Colonial Secretary that I think it is a matter which might be raised on another occasion. Surely it is a little unfortunate that any of these Maltese quislings should to-day be receiving money from the Maltese Exchequer by way of pensions.
The Maltese people will be more than grateful for this generous gift. Yesterday, I was talking to a Maltese friend of mine, a fine Maltese and a fine Briton, and he said, jokingly: "Of course, you realise that when Malta gets this £10,000,000 that is when the real battle of Malta will start?", Having served my own political apprenticeship as private secretary to the late Lord Strickland during a stormy portion of his career—because, as the Committee know, he was a man whose temperament did not always endear him to his political opponents in Malta—I could not but feel that what my Maltese friend said was probably right. But it is very refreshing to know that the Maltese people will now be able to devote a little attention to their own internal affairs. I feel that I have a right to say on their behalf how grateful they will be for this generous gift, and at the same time to assure them that this is not the end of what our great country proposes to do for them, who have fought so long and so gallantly for us all.

§ Captain Alan Graham (Wirral)
I feel that this token of our gratitude to Malta for the heroic behaviour of its people in the war should not go unaccompanied by an expression of gratitude to a former Member of the House, the late Lord Strickland, for his part over so many years in consolidating the loyalty of the Maltese to the British nation. From the day when under Joseph Chamberlain at the Colonial Office he was picked out as an office bearer of the Cambridge Union to be Colonial Secretary of Malta through many stormy years—he was actually wounded by a would-be assassin's bullet for his efforts on behalf of the Imperial connection—down to his death no one 1540 strove with greater persistence and success and more wholeheartedly for that connection. I feel that the Maltese people themselves would recognise in this grant that is made to them a tribute to his memory. In face of the most persistent Italian propaganda with all the resources of the Italian State to back it up, the Dante Alighieri Society and many other forms of Italian propaganda, against which our own Colonial Office made no counter-propaganda at all, we were entirely dependent on the money and the efforts of the Strickland family in maintaining the Imperial connection which to-day has served us so splendidly. I feel that the whole Committee will join with me in expressing our gratitude to those who in the past have done so much to secure the benefit of Maltese loyalty to the British connection.

§ Mr. Cocks (Broxtow)
With regard to Trans-Jordan I see there is a note stating that any unexpended balance of this sum shall not be liable to surrender. Is not this rather an unusual provision; and will the House have any chance of discussing it? If it is the ordinary form, I will not press the point, but it seems to me that there should be an opportunity of discussing it. With regard to the additional grant to St. Helena, I do not know whether that means that any permanent visitors are expected there after the war.

§ Colonel Stanley
With regard to the first point, it is not an unusual provision. St. Helena will not be incurring expenditure for the purpose that the hon. Member suggested.